I don't think TLR looks that good.

That won't be on my radar anyway after IU.

@Jordahn

You perhaps are unaware of massive multiplayer online role playing games. Which actually exceed twenty million users globally. While generating large profits based upon subscription models. Probably a market that dwarfs the traditional JRPG market at this time. You must understand that this genre is paradoxically counter to your claims.

When these twenty million or so gamers play these games they typically spend months or even years playing them. That hardly seems like instant gratification in fact in comparison a JRPG is instant gratification since they can be pounded out in a few weeks.

Just look at the current sales trends thus far this generation. This site tracks Oblivion at over three million sold. This site tracks Mass Effect at over two million sold, and both estimates are probably on the light side since PC sales of these games are not being tracked. Oblivion has even scored 150,000 units sold in Japan. Which is actually on par with most console JRPGs released this generation in the region.

Instant gratification is merely a cop out if anything the majority of role playing gamers have gotten even more hardcore. This is not just about my taste it is about the tastes of the majority of gamers that play role playing games. They prefer large worlds with freedoms of choice. That is part of why the massive market is so damned huge. No worlds are more massive.

There are a wide variety of MMORPG's that appeal to a wide variety of users GLOBALLY. And remember in my original post I said "engrossing storyline while relying on character stats" which most of the appeal of a MMORPG is player vs. player and real time action in which instant gratification can be acheived. You can be relative all you want to "prove" any "point." Nothing you said countered my argument in my CONTEXT.  And let's not forget that MMORPG's and RPG/JRPG's (Oblivion being one of them, the offline gameplay is what separates it from a MMORPG) are two different genres.  Neither one is neccessarily better than the other.  Both having their place according to what you want to play.

You know it's made by an entirely different team of people, right?

It's sad truth passes as fanboyism these days. The ps3 camp has done nothing but attempting to justify the console and its ecosystem with moving goalposts ever since day one. Expected behaviour from people who sided with sony hoping to score a win and found themselves being given the short end of the stick. In the meanwhile and to pass the time and the anxiety until the wins happen, they littered the microsoft forum (thankfully that's now frowned upon and action is taken).

Each of those statements has been put up and repeated ad nauseaum effortlessly by people way too keen on forgetting their own posts. It was only a week ago that many guys bearing sony sigs and avatars predicted 30k hardware sales and bazillion software sales for Eternal Sonata - and they started more than one thread to hype that.

In fact, this very thread is just proof. Before the 360 became the de-facto console for rpg's (both w and j) you couldn't walk past a thread without stumbling on FF13 sigs, avatars and posts from people hyping both the title and the console destined to receive it. What's happened since then? Things like this thread happened, people changed avatars, sigs and what not. But don't despair, let's forget it and focus on what's important now: FF13V is the REAL UBER JRPG that will turn the ps3 into a monster console! Hype it to high heaven! (until it's announced for the 360, that is).