Level 5: JRPGs losing momentum in Japan

White Knight Chronicles director reckons that there is a lot of work to be done to regain lost ground.

Written by David Scammell, 20 November 2009

White Knight Chronicles Director Yoshiaki Kusuda has said that he feels that the JRPG genre "has lost momentum in Japan" and that "there is a lot of work to be done" to regain "that lost ground".

Speaking in the latest issue of EDGE, Kusuda commented:

" We sold just over 350,000 copies of White Knight Chronicles in Japan alone, a good achievement in comparison to the performance of other titles, especially when you consider this is an original IP.

P3Zine Issue 23 For our latest White Knight coverage, click here to download P3Zine Issue 23 for free."However, I think the genre has lost some of its momentum among gamers in Japan. There is a lot of work to be done in regaining that lost ground."

Kusuda also said that, due to its popularity in the western world, Final Fantasy could act as an "ambassador" for the JRPG genre and "open the door" for JRPGs outside of Japan.

"I don't think it is an issue of overseas payers being more open-minded or not (to JRPGs). There is a growing difference between the Japanese and western way of creating RPGs but I still think that a JRPG like Final Fantasy has lots of appeal and can work as an ambassador for our genre.

"This opens the door for more JRPGs outside Japan, including ours."

White Knight Chronicles, which launched in Japan on December 25th last year, is currently due for release in Europe some time in the first quarter of 2010, exclusively on PlayStation 3. A sequel to the game is also currently in development.

http://www.gamerzines.com/ps3/news/jrpgs-losing-momentum-japan.html

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They are partially right....hopefully FF13 WILL act as the catalyst!!

Pokemon series is very significantly up generation over generation
Monster Hunter seems keen to join the big 4 (DQ, Pkmn, FF, KH)
DQIX may well be the best selling DQ ever

JRPGS ARE DOMED!!!

@scottie

MH isn't an RPG

Losing has one "o" in it. Your thread title indicates that JRPG's are letting loose momentum on Japan, like letting a dog loose. Sorry to pick on you, I see that mistake A TON on the internetz.

OT: Wasn't FF7 the "ambassador" for JRPG's to America? I mean shouldn't the door already be open by now?

That was 12 years ago, now the general interest in console jRPGs is pretty much back to the pre-FFVII levels in the West.

And before anybody comes out with pokemon and Dragon Quest, the Level-5 guy is obviously talking about home-console RPGs.

The ambassasdor for this generation

FF will bring JRPG fans onto the HD systems according to them

One more thing, there's another mistake (grammatical) in the thread title....can you spot it?

Also don't pay attention to spelling mistakes on here, there are far too many of them!

Unnecessary capitalisation?

As for the lets ignore handhelds for some reason' argument. if you ignore handhelds, every genre is shrinking in japan.

Well momemtum should start with lower case and I'm not gonna even start with all the caps lock

Lol! Too true, I'll just let it be. Well, I'd like to see FF13 open up the America market more, I would love to see Lost Odyssey and Tales and Star Ocean and VC get some bumps from people looking for more JRPG's after they play it.

wow you all fail at grammar

there should be a "the" before West