Ranking the best selling Japanese RPGs of the current generation of consoles provides evidence of some less than inspiring trends in gameplay and production values, amongst what is often considered the Japanese gaming industry’s flagship genre.
The ranking (strictly per-platform, barbarian sales not included):
1. Final Fantasy XIII (PS3) – 1,904,313
2. Monster Hunter 3 (Wii) – 1,041,174
3. Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen (Wii) – 489,112
4. Tales of Vesperia (PS3) – 362,359
5. White Knight Chronicles (PS3) – 339,690
6. Tales of Graces F (PS3) – 313,215
7. White Knight Chronicles 2 (PS3) – 249,350
8. Demon’s Souls (PS3) – 218,546
9. Star Ocean 4 (PS3) – 208,521
10. Tales of Vesperia β (360) – 204,305
Another Namco beta almost manages to appear in the list, with 203,770 sales for the Wii’s all but unplayably buggy Tales of Graces β – having people pay to beta test their games appears to be a depressingly effective business model.
Final Fantasy XIII, though by far the best seller and the shiniest of the lot, is also the worst selling Final Fantasy title since FFIV, dimming its lustre rather substantially.
Some of the recently hyped Wii RPGs do even worse – Last Story managed only a pathetic 114,722, and Xenoblade a slightly more respectable 141,059, barely equal to the likes of Disgaea despite mainstream design and the huge install-base of the Wii.
Too bad the actual GOOD J-RPGs aren’t up here, like Valkyria Chronicles or Persona.
AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Any JRPG is fine but NOT FINAL FANTASY XIII!!! a corridor-runner game disguised with eyecandy visuals that slapped a JRPG by it’s developers who continue to milk money and drove another japanese developer out of spotlight! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! WHERES MAH TRINITY UNIVERSE and CHOUJIGEN NEPTUNE!!!!
End of Eternity and Nier not on the list? this is madness people should buy this games 😛
can’t wait for Hyperdimension Neptunia and Ar Tonelico Qoga as well as Atelier Totori ^^
Monster Hunter FTW!!!!
FFXIII WTF????
Yeah right even Korean MMORPGS are better than FFXIII… which says a lot since Monster Hunter is no.1 mmorpg (WoW is my second).
A bunch of these are some of the worst JRPGs this gen 😡
Actual best RPGs this gen:
Valkyria, Rorona, Totori, Ar Tonelico 3, Resonance of Fate and Demon Souls and Vesperia can make the cut