I don't know man, I did play FF11, it was pretty packed with a ton of people all the time. sold pretty well too the last time I checked. This is MMO we are talking about, profit is made on monthly subscriptions, most MMOs don't sell like WoW mind you. 200k-300k active players at a giving time was very good at it's peak. tbh I don't think MH3 can top that with a monthly fee unless it's reasonably cheap. I do consider MH a RPG btw since I consider Zelda a RPG, sure you don't level, but then again your equipment is pretty much your level(or the amount of hearts you get in Zelda.) I mean, I hope MH3 will do very well outside of JP, for multiple reasons, one, this would mean better sequels will start appearing on any console, two, the game takes skills to play, making it lesser nub friendly so you won't get stupid assholes all the time, and three, I like playing these types of games a lot, have always digged it since the original Phantasy Star Online on DC, but the DC version was free online back then =).

if there is a monthly fee to play online then a lot of people would have to choose assuming they are internet type gamers since genre or not, they share the same principle of paying to play online, now of course MH3 has the edge offline since it does have split screen coop =O I might get the game anyways regardless tbh, the question is going to be how much it'll cost online. The online community will be important for that game.