Basing your entire premise on a series that is itself a statistical outlier leads to silly conclusions.

What many fail to realize is that for every big RPG name, there are 5 other smaller ones with tiny sales.  The JRPG genre itself is a testament to the 80/20 rule as even one of these bigname titles outsell dozens of smaller ones.  When you measure importance in sales, it quickly becomes clear that importance is held not by the genre but by these big names.

Still, many gamers have a soft spot for RPGS/JRPGS/SRPGS/etc and we look at them with rose-colored glasses.  These are our games.  Back when we had games like Dragon Warrior III for the NES sitting next to Dr. Mario it was painfully clear how poorly thoughtout they were in terms of pickup & play friendly. 

New game?  Okay. 
Save kingdom?  Sounds easy enough. 
Class? Hero, Soldier, Fighter, Pilgrim?  What should I pick?
Ability screen?  STR, AGI, DEX, VIT, SPR...?  What do those mean?
...where's the jump button?

We made it through them though.  We read the manuals, we looked at the statistics, we figured out the difference between Blaze and Ironize, and we found out that they were actually pretty fun.

We weren't the majority and we never were.

As titles like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior (Quest) have gotten more fame and notoriety, there has been a tendency to exaggerate their importance and extend it to the entire genre.  Because we like these games so much, we want to believe that all gamers like them too just like us.  They don't.  They like those one or two big name titles that they see in a magazine or on TV and that's about it.  They have no interest in some random bargain-bin-looking title called Suikoden.  They've never heard of it and it's not Final Fantasy so why should they care?  And they don't.

JRPGs (as a genre) are no more/less important than they have ever been.

Yes the genre is still important. Just not exceedingly dominant as it was in previous generations. This is due to a lot of factors the emergence of new genres, the advancements in other genres, and the expansion of superior Western developers in to the role playing sphere.

The latter is the real problem for all Japanese developers not just those developing role playing games. The market has tasted the fruits of nonlinear world design, better narrative, and freedom of choice. Unfortunately Japan has been slow to come around to this fundamental shift. Perhaps its the corporate culture in Japan being too bound to tradition and convention.

Whatever the reason Western developers are now the cutting edge in role playing games. Pioneering concepts like dialog trees, player alignments, open world navigation, real time combat, complex crafting systems, deeper narrative, complex character leveling, complex character design, and a plethora of other features that are becoming standard.

Often in contrast role playing games out of Japan almost seem quaint. Fortunately some developers in Japan do seem to be taking the tentative steps towards being main stream. There is still some distance to go, but once they start to marry their imaginative ideas into open worlds with freedom of character design, and some more mature narratives. They should see a corresponding increase in gamer interest.

I am not saying the JRPGs I have played this generation were not good games, but if you were to corner me. Force me to decide between Mass Effect, and one of them. I would have to say Mass Effect the world concept is always the more fulfilling.

Final Fantasy seems to be doing this. The main character in FFXIII are going to be older than the main characters in recent FF games.

Other examples:

The Last Remnant-looks to be the Japanese take on WRPGs(or atleast according to a recent issue of EGM)

White Knight Chronicles-overall look  and feel of the game is more western oriented than most JRPGs

Star Ocean The Last Hope-Unlike previous SO games were you got stuck on a medieval planet, you will be able to explore the galaxy(not much mention about this recently though)

I think you have cause and effect backwords DJMeister.

The big JRPGs went to the console that sold best.

They were in a big lurch this time around because they thought the PS3 was going to win. But it didn't... and it's really behind in Japan where a good RPG selling machine should.

While Wii has yet to show it could sell JRPGS in massive numbers (it probably could considering the japanese base but the N64 and Cube were very short on RPGS.)

With all this doubt... when given a check to put RPGs exclusivly on 360 why wouldn't you?

The "FF7 won the battle for PS1" thing really is a bit of a misnomer.... PS1 had already won.

As a culture, the Japanese do not fall into the hype like most Westerns do.  In my last post I mentioned the "instant gradification" types which are typically the mainstream.  They are impatient, and cannot enjoy and/or appreciate something for that it is.  There a place for most anything, but just because there is a "fundamental shift" (which is an oxymoron since what's fundamental is typically an unchanging basic that strengthens what is built upon it) doesn't mean it's for the better and for everyone.  Please do not fault the Japanese for not catering to your tastes.  And that's the issue.

Maybe I'm not seeing the context here, but if FFXIII can go to the 360, it could easily go to the Wii because of its greater userbase and easy of development.  Yes, the Wii isn't an "HD console," but with the rate and popluarity of Wii sales you'd think it would classify as a "console that sold best."  <---your words.

No console this gen has yet to really "sell JRPGS in massive numbers."

Could you please tell me what you mean by that bolded statement.  That thing about mainstream being impatient is not 100% true.  If you mean just children, you might be right.  But why include adults in.  Where did those 1 million+ people that bought MGS4 in the US alone go to?

Could you please tell me what you mean by that bolded statement. That thing about mainstream being impatient is not 100% true. If you mean just children, you might be right. But why include adults in. Where did those 1 million+ people that bought the cutscene heavy MGS4 in the US alone go to?

EDIT: sorry for the double post

Lots of differing opinions in this thread, I'm learning much. ^_^

It could have gone too the wii.  However too much development was spent before the cards were laid down and it was revealed the Wii won the pot.

Maybe if the Wii had a huge selling RPG that would of been reason to scrap it... however without it.  Going multiplatform makes more sense.

Most likely no more main FF will happen this generation unless 14 is an MMO.

I'd expect FF15 to be on the PS4... hoping the tides change again, but that's just my guess.