I don't think DMJ's thread was consciously meant to knock JRPGs because they are on the 360. I do, however, think it was spurred, unknowingly by that fact. The 360 jrpg situation was a hot topic. It was surely one of these discussions that inspired him.

That said, DMJ, you know as well as I do, that this is beating a dead horse. Your argument is fair, but if anyone but you posted something like this, you know as well as I that not even half the mods would give it the time of day, much less the community in general.

Anyway, yeah, they're less important than they were 2 years ago. It's because Sony, the main target console for those games, has refused to put any of them out(or whatever, cemantics don't matter).

So, if you wanna be real about it, Sony has done as much as it possibly could to kill the genre in the US. I think it's still strong though. We're just waiting for a good, hyped multiplat example to hit over here. That game isn't coming till FFXIII, so the answer is years away. I hope your patient, cause you'll be waiting for a long time for a difinitive answer to your topic's question.

More immediately, you can check out sales of Dragonquest, and see if they rival those of old, and at least we'll know where one territory stands.

As for you and me, DMJ(yes, in this case it would be "you and me" and not "you and I"). Well, we know that saying jrpgs aren't important, is f'n blasphemy, and if our friends irl uttered it, well, we might just bust them in their heathern pie-hole. If jrpgs aren't important, then why the hell did we buy f'n playstation 3!?

I think that wraps things up nicely.

The only reason RPGs sell bad on 360 in Jap is because the RPG fans that bought a PS3 did so thinking it would be the RPG console and just wait for the ports. Trusty bell selling to similar amounts on the PS3 is proof of that in Japan. Not to forget that unlike other gens, the portables are well suited graphically to do RPGs beyond the SNES level and have stollen the market for them.

Having FF13 as exclusive for 3 years did help the PS3 a lot in my opinion. If it had been multiplat all along, I'm sure the US and EUR sales of PS3 would have been even less in the first year.
And no Versus is a non issue... for all we know it could be the equivalent of DQ Swords with nice CGI cutscenes (who saw gameplay?)

Funny this thread turns up right around the time Takashi Setsui says this:

Are RPG's important? I can see the race between the 360 and the ps3 heating up because of them in japan (and everywhere else, to a certain extent), and as a consumer to all current consoles and fan of RPG's, it's important to me. Being important to Microsoft makes them VERY important to Sony, obviously. So to answer this thread; Yes.

*Uses crystal ball*


Zen, I have a feeling you´ll get another PS3 down the line :P....you´ll play the hell out of Valkyria Chronicles, White Knight Story, FF Vs XIII and others that might show up.

Before I generally respond to the thread, I must take care of some business.

@ Starcraft

Are you a psychic? If not, consider yourself reported for ultra-derailing my thread and calling my character into question, all while not even answering the topic question. Same to you Mystic D

OT:

I should have clarified. JRPGs are important to people, yes, but in the scope of the console race, are they as important as before, only going to the winning console? I thought people would read between the lines, but whatev.

@ ecurbj

I was thinking that too, that we haven't seen the real JRPGs this generation, so we don't know what they are going to do.

Have RPG's ever been important in terms of winning the console warz?

In terms of winning the console wars?  No.

But they've always been in abundance on the console that won the ware the past two generations.

And as we know, Microsoft is attempting to copy/paste what Sony did last generation, and the one before to win.  Which is why it's weird that they're getting all the JRPG support, and are the lowest sellers in Japan.  It spurred this thread, cause it looks like the console that is not in first place will get the bulk of JRPGs, while the console in first place won't get them.

Don't know about their importance in the grand scheme of things, but they're still - and always have been - the only genre that matters to me.

Actually, the console in first place is already getting the bulk of JRPG.
It's just not "JRPG support", it's rather the console supporting the JRPG.
JRPG are a train wreck for now mainly because of stupid 3rd parties decisions.
Guess why the only one of the big JRPG that does well this gen is Pokemon.
They're already at the second iteration of Pokemon this gen, and it shatters the sales records. And no, Pokemon didn't broke the old formula of keeping it simple.
Don't worry, JRPG are still important and still sell in Japan.

It's just that 3rd parties decided they'd better shun their core japanese market. I said several time since the start of this gen that I strongly believe it would be a mistake, and that they could never compete with western devs on their turf (just like western devs can't compete with japanese on their turf).

It's too late already. I feel the japanese core gamers built lots of resentment towards 3rd parties, new (Mistwalker) as well as old (Square Enix). I see it as very unhealthy.
I already see the traditional JRPG is being killed though. It's ARPG upon ARPG now. I don't know if it is natural evolution or not. The traditional JPG survives only on DS for now. The more casual traditional JRPG seems like it's disappearing, and I see only the Wii getting it back this gen. Oh, and there's FFXIII.

In my opinion its not the fact that JRPGs are loosing importance, but rather then Japan is loosing it. Unfortunatly its less and less important, and the fact that developers like Konami and Capcom, and even SE are moving towards moree western-oriented games prooves this.

True, in the same time its still extremly important, and it was the region that helped the most the PSPs "rebirth"...