you know i might buy into the whole bias against the west thing, if apple had not owned with the ipod there, and the iphone sales have been good (before it was even released technically) or even the explosive growth of their hardware sales there.... I might have.

but as it is right now your article is full of way to many assumptions..

the more clear answer is that the japanese have moved to handhelds, with more time spent in public transit then in america or europe, its no wonder. the devices have advanced to give almost ps2 level interaction (minus the god damn second nub that had best be on the psp2 when ever it comes out). and I think they have decided that that is good enough, especially with the ease of pirating psp & DS games.

Funny how Bigjon just completly ignores people that show him up/proove him wrong.

Oh good god you think everyone that buys FF in japan is a core gamer. No they aren't. To give you an idea how stupid a thing that is to say, it would be like saying ''Everyone that buys halo in america is a hardcore FPS fan!''. Whereas the reality is a huge % of the people that buy it, only buy it and maybe a few other games the entire generation. FF and DQ are rare examples. You can find hundreds of other jrpgs that sold a few hundred thousand throughout their entire lifetimes.

You only need to take a look at FF-X2 to see what a large segment of final fantasies market is. Guess what FF is one of the rare games that people who aren't gamers buy into. Hell if 3million+ people were core rpg gamers buying final fantasy games then Crisis core would surely have seen far better sales. Because you can sure as hell bet a MASSIVE % of the core rpg gamers in japan bought that game. Yet also with the huge amount of advertising a pretty substantial amount of more casual gamers too.

Core rpg gamers are the guys buying a new rpg every couple of months, every month, every couple of weeks whatever. Not the ones that buy a new rpg once every couple of years. Once again simply look at the demographics of japan, if you think there are 3million+ hardcore rpg gamers you are severly wrong. I would say even a million is a pretty generous estimate.