Does the good sales of WRPGs outweigh the lowered success of JRPGs? There were 18 million-seller RPGs last generation, but this gen there's only 5 million-seller RPGs after 3 years.

Not really. FFXIII should be huge when it comes out.

I think the general level of suck RPGs, in particular JRPGs, have demonstrated is solely responsible for that. I mean if they're going to churn out crap like Blue Dragon and Lost Oddyssey (which wouldn't even make the top 25 best PS2 RPGs in a million years) then yes, sales will be bad.

The only bright spot is PC flavored WRPGs like Fallout 3 and Mass Effect. With more like Dragon Age and the Witcher making it to multiple consoles there is certainly hope for RPGs, probably just not JRPGs which are looking more and more dated whenever I try playing them lately. I mean it was great in 1987 when Dragon Warrior was new, but games like Fallout 3, Mass Effect, the Witcher, Knights of the Old Republic and the rest of the WRPG crowd have raised the bar so much higher the last few years that JRPGs just look....passe.

   I mean the least they could do is add moral choice, branching dialogue and the ability to make characters that don't look like hermaphadites (like ALL JRPG protagonists seem to be).  Adding some combat that isn't as stale as 3 year old bread wouldn't hurt either.

   Valkaria Chronicles was a big step in the right direction, and the white knight chronicles might be too if they would fin release the damn thing over here.

   Also I bet you anything the boatload of MMOs eats into that non MMO RPG market a fair bit.  I buy less games when I'm playing MMOs actively pretty decidedly.

Well, you can blame Square for taking their games too long for the low number of million sellers.

Also, ToV being a 360 exclusive is another reason. Sure, some 360 owners may be JRPG fans, but they are likely to take a lower proportion of the install base compared to that of the PS3 and even the Wii.

To make things worse, Tales of Hearts and DQIX are released for the DS and handhelds! I'd say that the handhelds have nicked a lot of good JRPGs early in this gen.

its not just rpgs, its any games that don't include guns.

Releasing games like Tales and the like on the PS3 wouldn't have changed things much. Its not just that they're not multi plat, its that those games are old hat even with players who remember buying the first FF game on release day in the US. Games like that just don't capture the mass market imagination anymore at all. Fallout 3 has sold at least 4 million copies across the 2 consoles and the PC, the Witcher sold over a million on PC alone (and is getting a console release) and Mass Effect has done well over 3 million in business. It's not that the market for well developed RPGs isn't there, its just not there for the same old JRPG models that were new back in the 80s.

Current Gen JRPG's especially I think are going to come in to their own in the coming years. Primarily on the wii but also on the 360 and PS3. We just need to wait for the bigger JRPGs coming out.

Stop trying to turn JRPGs into WRPGs.  The least they can do is try to not rehash the same plotlines and character types over and over again.  Besides, I'm sure quality will improve once FFXIII comes out and raises the bar like the series always does.

No, they're not a niche on consoles.

Tales of Ten is going to explode and outsell Final Fantasy 13 in Japan. Just wait and see. RPG's should begin to take off in 2010.

What kind of parrallel universe did you come from?