It's pretty good for a third person action game, but it wasn't the king of survival horror like it should've been.  It was a departure from traditional RE< and it's a departure I didn't care for.

If they had stuck with the traditional RE style, but fixed the "tank" controls, I would've been a very happy camper.

I disagree, the Ps3 is so ginarmous that they can have a slim in 2009 and then a slimmer, official PSThree in 2012 or so. A $299 smaller sized PS3 would sell well in Japan, provided the games keep coming. They should also add BC through Software Emulation.

explode yes... FF13 AND versus are exclusives and those are huge games.

mgs will about 1/3 of FF sales. and it the bundled 77k were sold out instantly.

the month of both release ps3 may reach 200k+ easily.

A price cut along with Final fantasy 13 would make it sell really good.

Well the third full year is normally the peak year of a console anyway.

Xbox 360 and Wii have some notable games coming out in Japan for 2009 though too so its hard to say really.

Square Enix is releasing Dragon Quest IX on DS in March 2009 so its hard for me to imagine Final Fantasy XIII coming out within six months of that time frame for me personally.

You have to figure Monster Hunter 3 on Wii will come on the holidays - either Golden Week in Spring or for Obon or Christmas. Given how Sony centric that series used to be, again its hard for me to imagine Capcom and Square Enix pitting Monster Hunter against Final Fantasy.

So based on my assumptions above, the schedule probably is like this to take advantage of holidays -

DQIX - March-Golden Week (March-May)

Monster Hunter 3 - Obon (August I think)

Final Fantasy XIII - Christmas 09' or later

PS3 will likely break the 2m barrier in 2009 in Japan though, and if everything broke right (onslaught of big games, slowing Wii momentum, little inroads for 360, price drop) as high as 3m or 3.5m.

It looks more like 2.25m in 2009 to me at the moment though, and I figure Wii and Xbox 360 can continue to see increasing sales in Japan as developers start diversifying their libraries to larger audiences.

Explode? Not even in Sonyland.
A massive peak at FFXIII launch, perhaps even outselling Wii at the holidays, there is some... remote chance.

If Sony does $299 + Smaller version (Down to original PS2 size or so) + FF XIII on same week, that would be the best way to get the Japanese to turn heads.

Let me say right now - anything can happen in Japan in a very short period of time. Look at PSP and Xbox 360. While some claim the "one console rule," DS and PSP broke that trend. DS and PSP have enough differentiating features that both can co-exist. I see the same thing could happen with Wii and PS360.

Resident Evil 5, Street Fighter IV, Gran Turismo 5, Yakuza 3 I think will all sell more than 300k copies and will give PS3 a small boosts in sales. This could prepare some ground for FFXIII. But only way I can see a constant increase in HW sales is simulteneous price cut+FFXIII launch.

True, but this generation has been anything but normal.

Some people seem to underestimate the effect of FF in Japan. I wouldn't be surprised the spike begins even a few weeks before FFXIII is released. A lot of them will make sure they have a PS3 to play by the time FFXIII is out. Once it is out, there will be no other systems for them. SO4 is a good JRPG, but you can't compare Star Ocean's sales with FF sales.