Well historically, of course FF's bigger, it's been around almost 2 decades longer. Right now though, MH's the hot new thing, and FF's going to be lucky if it even holds even with last gen (while DQ and Pokemon are rising).

And if we add Mario, then there's other new(ish) series that are now bigger than FF (Brain Training, Animal Crossing, Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Mario Kart, etc).

@ jarrod:

Monter Hunter 3 is a current gen game as well. You cant just ignore it and pretend that this game never came out just because its sales work against your "MH > FF" argument.

It should also be noted that Final Fantasy is one of the very few "big" franchises in Japan that can sell on any hardware (handheld or home console). Monster Hunter, Pokemon, Animal Crossing are only huge on handhelds.

I'm not ignoring MH3, but I'd say you can make a pretty compelling argument that it's not on the "main" MH platform (yet).   And it's outsold every PSP and all but one DS Final Fantasy.  Besides, it'll all be moot when MHP3 outsells FFXIII by a million or more.

By the same token, is FF only huge on consoles?  

@ jarrod:

... you can also make a pretty compelling argument that MH3 is a mainline game and MH2G is a port/spinoff.

FF is huge on both handhelds and home consoles. Its remake and spinoff both sold 1 million+ on different handhelds so it's obvious that a mainline handheld FF entry would do at least double that.

No, not really.  It's part of the core series (ie: not a spinoff) and it's the only release of 2G (ie: not a port).  At worst you can argue it's a "half sequel" or "remix" or whatever, but the fact remains it's sold almost DOUBLE what FFXIII will.  If you consider it a spinoff or port, well what's that say when a MH port/spinoff doubles the sales of the mainline FF?

Also, no PSP FF sold over a million in Japan.  Crisis Core is at ~800k and Dissidia is at ~900k.  MH3's outsold both already (~950k and still going), and is the only one that'll crack a million.

Popularity is a hard thing to gauge. Yes, Pokemon sells more, but Final Fantasy seems to draw more attention on polls, 'wishlists' and well...fanboys/girls following it. As well as Final Fantasy having more games than any other franchise in the history of gaming aside from Mario now (around 70 last time I counted).

But if we're just going by sales, yeah, Pokemon is #1. But then Final Fantasy is #2 again, depending on how you look at it. Dragon Quest pulls in the all time records of first day sales for games in Japan time and again, but the sheer size and number of FF games puts Final Fantasy in the #2 slot for RPG sales in Japan.

So again, everything is just how you want to label it.

It says a lot more when a remake of a 15 years old FF game outsells a new mainline MH game. As for Dissidia - it is at 960k with universal tunning and keeps selling.

   It is very much obvious that FF is a more popular franchise than MH in Japan.

Dissidia UT's an upgrade (and budget priced).  I'm sure MH3+MH3G+Best releases will be well over 2 million.

Bottom line, the best selling Monster Hunter outsells the best selling Final Fantasy today. No way to spin that really.  FF just isn't as popular.