If you love JRPG's, why not sign a petition?

Great write-up! And thanks for posting this story and supporting the cause! JRPG's for the world!

Screw JRPG's, western developed RPG's FTW !! Who doesnt want something involving and with immersion, not something thats mindless and repetitive.

Screw Western RPGS, who doesn't want something with a story?

But who cares about online petition? :(

i just put in my 2 cents...thanks nick for the heads up...hope this works

this is actually something that will make PS3 to the top. MGS might bring up PS3 sales a bit but there is just not enough fans. The reason of success in PS1 and 2 was the Asian oriented game. PS market is in the Asia.

Yeah, this trend needs to end now. I just got a 360 so I could play Eternal Sonata, Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and the upcoming Tales of Vesperia. This is driving me mad because I would rather play them on my PS3 since that is what I got it for. Now Square-Enix is releasing Infinite Undiscovery as a 360 exclusive. Oh yeah, and on top of that, look at what Atlus is releasing. Granted, they are SRPG's, but still they are releasing two of them as 360 exclusives as well. What the hell is going on, Sony. I know that FPS's are popular at the moment and you feel the need to capatalize on that popularity, but what about the rest of us that so happen not to play those? Why aren't you pestering Namco-Bandai to bring Eternal Sonata over to the States? What about nudging Sqeenix to hurry up with FFXIII? Where the fudge is White Knight Chronicle? Beat down Level 5 and tell them to quit making those silly Professor Layton games and get back to some quality goodness. BTW Sony, wtf with the PSP. All JRPG's for a good long time and now there's a drought worse than what Georgia's going through. Get your act together now or I just might sell my PS3 and go 360 exclusive(I wouldn't really do that since it's a 60gb model and all, but still, come on Sony). Sorry 'bout the rant, just a little PO'd at the state of gaming of late.

This post is so true, about half my games i have on my ps2 are rpgs. Shooters are nice, but imo they get boring easily nowadays, we need something with a story theme, not just justifying our time with the ps3 just to shoot around ALL the time. This is what made ps2 so successful, because many japanese (and other) rpgs were/are amazing. Now, i just hope they limit the shooter games, and start making other types/genre games. Now, plleaseee, GIVE US RPGS!@#! (and other type of games of course, ;D)

I'm fairly certain Microsoft had to pay to get the JRPG exclusives, considering like 3 people own 360s in Japan.

JRPGs usually take years to make, and as the Q&A with the dev of Tales noted, the PS3 development tools were not ready when they started, and I would have no doubt that other JRPGs had the same fate. Also, MS may be paying Japanese devs for exclusive rights, but they should realize it would only piss a lots of Japanese gamers off.

i thnk they're just waiting for big jrpg titles like FFXIII to get the necessary jrpg install base on the console before daring to venture to the ps3... until then, ps2 is still king

Or.. you could just get an Xbox... I mean really... Between an Xbox and a DS, you've got your JRPGs.

If you want to send Sony a message, just sell your PS3 and your PSP and get the systems that support the genre you like.

Personally I'm giving Square Enix and Sony one last chance to give me a date on FFXIII at E3 before I jump ship.

Signing a petition is stupid. The developers who make JRPGs are always a step behind in technology.. they'll never program for the cell. Face it.

But for now, don't trust the reviews. Enchanted Arms is an excellent JRPG.

like it or not, the Xbox 360 IS the JRPG system this generation.

Unfinite Undiscovery
Last Remnant
Tales of Vesperia
Blue Dragon
Lost Odyssey (2 more coming)
Eterrnal Sonata
Enchanted Arms
Cry On
Venetica

And thats not counting other RPGs, like SRPGs coming from atlus plus

Mass Effect
KOF: Circle of Doom
Fable 2
Sacred 2: Fallen Angels
Phantasy Star Universe
Rise of the Argonouts
Dungeon Hero
Elveon
Magna Carta 2
N2: Nighty Nine Nights

And of course the same love as the ones from PS3 like Oblivion and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Sign a petition? Do like a lot of us and get a X360. If you have both, you can't miss out on games.

I don't normally sign petitions myself either, but this one feels important. It's kind of ridiculous that if you go to GameStop's site in the US and run a search for games that are available to ship, on the PS3, and considered by them RPGs, you only come up with 6 games, and 3 are different iterations of Oblivion, and 2 can only be bought Used. That's just pathetic and Sony *needs* to do something about it.

Simple reason why. Production costs. Production costs are very high for current gen games that investing in JRPGs which will not reach as many people as say your routine FPS or sports games means a big loss for the developer. Hence the current lack. Until a big JRPG comes along that blows past sales figures, this will continue to be the case.

I don't really care for most JRPGs... too much grinding and not enough skill involved for my tastes, but there are some that are really good. I really enjoyed the little bit of Eternal Sonata that I played though and really hope for a westernized version on the PS3. That being said, I signed it just because I'd like to think that JRPGs will really help the install base for the PS3.

I threw down my Herbie Hancock... everyone should do the same.

What makes the lack of JRPs on the PS3 so galling is that the 360 does get those titles, even though it sells like crap in Japan. The PS3 may not be a runaway success in Japan like the Wii but it still *easily* outsells the 360. There are many, many, many more PS3 owners in Japan yet this doesn't translate into any titles. In fact, the 360 has more announced exclusive RPGs.

Sony should really do something about this situation.

Face it Sony fanboys. The days of only having J-rpgs on the Playstation console are over.

Wait until the megaton announcement happens this Tuesday, at the Microsoft event in Japan. FFXIII and FFVsXIII for the 360 confirmed. You all know it's eventually going to happen. Just like MGS4 for the 360.(Hideo Kojima and Ryan Payton are BS-ing) Exclusive games are a thing of the past. It's just too expensive to keep one game on one console now. (I blame it on the graphic whores. They want all of this HD hyper realistic bullshit. An that cost money.)

The Super Nintendo was the RPG king, but what RPGs did the N64 have? Pretty much all the RPGs were on PlayStation and Saturn. RPGs don't always align with the same console company, ever.

I've said this many times, part of what helped MS is they released 360 development kits at a perfect time, before Sony got out to these developers. They gave Tales Studio, Tri-Cresendo, Tri-Ace, etc. development kits just as they finished their previous RPGs (or Tri-Cresendo about started to make their first independently developed RPG). These devs had a choice of developing on PS2 or 360. Since many were already sick of developing on PS2, they went 360. Since the 360 wasn't out, they couldn't tell if it was going to be a success or failure. So they went ahead and made 360 projects. Mistwalker was already planning on making games for Xbox platforms since he was planning that all along (partially because of his shaky relationship with people at Sony). MS did heavily fund Infinite Indiscovery initially (Tri-Ace RPG), but then handed publishing to Square Enix (figuring they could probably sell more). As much as I don't want to believe this, I honestly won't be surprised if Star Ocean 4 ends up on 360, since Tri-Ace's next gen engine was made on 360 (and there was talk they had another 360 RPG coming due to a job posting). But basically, what helped MS a lot was coming in early. Most every time in Japan, the console which comes first, will always get some decent RPGs (despite the Dreamcast not lasting long, it even got a few decent RPGs due to being first). I also think that MS probably paid these devs too to keep these RPGs on 360 (at least as a timed exclusive), like for ToV.

Devs like Idea Factory though, they make RPGs for just about everything (mediocre ones too). They've released around 2 PS3 RPGs (have a few in development, one is Cross Edge), 2-3 360 RPGs, and in the past, they even released an Xbox RPG unlike most.

As for Sony, I'll just basically say during the PS1 era, they were pretty big RPG developers. The had G-Craft making Arc The Lad (big success in Japan), PoPoLoCrois (sold well), Wild Arms by Media Vision (sold well), Alundra by Matrix Software (sold good I believe), Legend of Dragoon (performed excellent worldwide), Legend of Legaia (by Contrail and sold good) Beyond the Beyond by Camelot (not sure how it did), and so on.

However, during the PS2 era, many of these series did not carry on with the sales. Legend of Dragoon team is no longer together (I remember a few of its devs were apart of MS Japan, but then it disbanded and is kind of AQ now). PoPoLoCrois, Legaia, Matrix software's PS2 RPG Dual Hearts, Arc The Lad games on PS2 (made by Cattle Call instead, since G-Craft is absorbed in Square Enix making Front Mission games), Legaia 2, etc. all performed pretty bad (where they may have lost money in development due to pretty bad sales). New RPGs they tried to make like Tsugunai, Okage The Shadow King, etc. bombed badly too. Their only successes came from Level 5 (well, not really huge success since Rogue Galaxy and Dark Cloud 2 sold less than expected, but still did pretty good overall) and somewhat Wild Arms (the series dropped in sales, but still did solid). Many of the devs Sony worked with, like Matrix Software, are elsewhere (Matrix is working on remaking FF games on DS for Square Enix, I have no idea where Contrail and Cattle Call are now), and Camelot is Nintendo exclusive basically. So mostly, Sony themselves just stick to Level 5 RPGs and Wild Arms. They do have Game Republic (who made Folklore on PS3 and Brave Story on PSP) and Gaia (who made Monster Kingdom and Coded Soul. Made up of the original SMT creator), but their traditional RPGs have gone to PSP (and future projects may stick to PSP). Media Vision (makers of Wild Arms) just finished Wild Arms 5 around the same time PS3 came out in Japan (they released another PS2 Wild Arms so it would happen around the 10th Anniversary for the series. Wild Arms XF came out in 8/9/07 in Japan (PSP WA game).

So IF Media Vision were to make a PS3 Wild Arms game (Sony does not own them, and if they rather make a Wii game, they can), it would not come out until late 2009 at the earliest, since they gotta develop a graphic engine for PS3 and it will be their first time developing on PS3. Level 5 will continue to make PS3 RPGs and everyone can rest assured (unless something shocking happens) they'll mostly stick to PS3 when it comes to consoles (They have a pretty bad relationship with MS over the canceling of True Fantasy Live Online). Level 5 has been awfully quiet on everything lately (we only know of White Knight Story and DQIX coming to DS by them, but they haven't given any updates on them). I do feel once WKS is released, they'll reveal their next PS3 RPG (rumored to be Dark Cloud 3 or Rogue Galaxy 2). Those are the only RPGs I see coming from SCEJ themselves, since developing on PS3 is a bit costly and if the game bombs (which is very likely since they really don't have any quality RPG devs outside of Level 5 and Media Vision), they'll lose more money (and Sony is already losing money on PS3). And then, you have to hope SCEA brings them stateside, because SCEA already isn't too fond on bringing RPGs stateside since many of them just won't sell stateside (I know someone within SCE Santa Monica who mentioned Folklore almost didn't come stateside because of what SCEA felt, but someone within convinced them to bring it over. And it MIGHT explain why we didn't get Dark Mist). But SCEA is good and allows other publishers to release their stuff stateside (unlike Namco).

Now for the third party situation, Sony has usually been pretty lucky to receive an RPG from Capcom, Konami, etc., with several from Namco, Bandai, ATLUS, Square, Enix, Banpresto, some from Sega, and other devs. Capcom doesn't make RPGs anymore (Breath of Fire V really bombed and Mega Man X: CM didn't do so great. The only kind of RPGs they make are Mega Man Starforce games on DS). Konami still has Suikoden, but with the massive downsizing Konami has done (outsourcing many of those games) who knows when it will come (I'm predicting it will come to Wii, since Suikoden isn't a high budget RPG and Konami is mostly sticking to Wii). Namco, who knows with them, because they did have 360 development kits early which explains why 360 got a few RPGs early, but they're giving PS3 crap support mostly and seem to favor 360. We haven't heard them announce a new PS3 RPG yet, outside of an Eternal Sonata port which is coming sometime. Bandai hasn't really made a next gen RPG yet, but there's a chance CyberConnect2 (makers of .hack) will make a PS3 RPG since they are working on Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm on PS3 (so they have a graphic engine made on PS3). ATLUS is still stuck to making last gen games (Persona 4 is coming out soon to PS2, since they opted to stay PS2 then go 360). They have said many times they will make a PS3 SMT game, so we'll see. SMT3 (the first ATLUS PS2 RPG developed) didn't come until 2/20/03 (almost 3 years after the PS2 was out in Japan, and PS3 hasn't even been out two years in Japan). Square Enix hasn't really done much for next gen. All they have on 360 so far is publishing IU and LR is multi-platform (FFXI was an old port). On PS3, they have FFXIII, FF Versus XIII, and LR. But at the moment, Square Enix is mostly developing on handhelds, since Wada is all profit and DS prints lots of money. Reason why PS2 got FFX early was because Square was originally almost 2nd party to Sony and assured PS2 got FFX in a good time frame. Wada (who was mostly Enix before and only cares about profit) could careless when PS3 gets FFXIII, so he isn't going to try pushing the game out quicker (it's being said he's holding development back since DQIX isn't out yet and he wants more PS3 consoles to be sold). Most Banpresto games are Japan only, but I see most going to handhelds if anything. Sega has brought Valkyrie Chronicles to PS3. They haven't brought any RPGs to 360, and I think they'll bring more PS3 RPGs (but most will be Wii/DS). Who knows about the Shining series, but Shining Tears might happen on PS3 (since the devs also make Yakuza).

What does hurt Sony a bit more than some of you have thought is, PS2 say three Xenosaga games, but now Monolith Soft is owned by Nintendo, so the series is done. There were three Shadow Hearts games on PS2, but since the developer was dissolved, there goes that series (some of them are with Feel Plus, who mostly works with Mistwalker). The Tales series and others probably won't see as many installments, and some may end up on handhelds.

Some good news is, NIS will develop PS3 SRPGs, Gust has a PS3 RPG coming (as long as they don't cancel it), and Square Enix should be bringing RPGs to PS3 (they said Wii, DS, and PS3 will get the bulk of their games).

Overall, there's no denying PS3 will see very few RPGs this generation because:
-360 came out earlier, got some of the developers before PS3. MS has very deep pockets to keep games on their platforms.
-RPGs tend to go to the console with the larger userbase in Japan, and the Wii has it.
-Handhelds are a bigger success this time, which is why DS/PSP are even taking some RPGs away from consoles now.
-PS3 is just really expensive and complicated to develop for. Valkyria Chronicles had to sell 500k copies to break even due to the graphic engine they invested in. The game sold 120k in Japan, and I really doubt it will sell 380k in NA/Europe. Being expensive and complicated does kind of scare devs away from making an investment to make games on it (western devs who make multi-platform games isn't bad, because making a PS3/360 game costs around the same as a PS3 exclusive). SCEJ is more likely to make PSP RPGs if they make an RPG since the PSP is doing very well in Japan and development cost is much lower.

When thinking about it, PS3 and 360 are in-line when it comes to RPGs stateside. All 360 got in its first year was Enchanted Arms (PS3 got that and Folklore). 360 in its 2nd year got Eternal Sonata and Blue Dragon, while PS3 gets Disgaea 3 and Valkyria Chronicles. 360 gets Culdcept Saga (kind of RPG), Lost Odyssey, Operation of Darkness (terrible game, but still), Spectral Force 3 (I doubt it will be good), IU, and ToV tis year. If PS3 gets 6 RPGs in 2009 (very possible IMO), 360 and PS3 will be on the same pace basically. I just think people expected no RPGs on 360, while PS3 gets all the RPGs, but they are looking to be about the same, just that 360 looks better due to a year headstart.

Well, that's all I'm going to say. If you really want RPGs, buy a DS, that's my suggestion (It gets too many awesome ones this year). I think 360 will have the RPGs in the short term, but in the long term, it's up in the air (Because FFXIII are the biggest RPGs to come, while I expect 360 to see a dip in RPGs later on but has a decent number now, and Wii is doing very well and may get a lot). If someone wants RPGs now on a console, just buy a 360 and not worry about waiting for PS3 to get them.

If PS3 fans want more RPGs, I highly recommend buying Disgaea 3 and Valkyria Chronicles (which is a VERY good game I hear too) when they come out, because if they sell well, we should see more.

I made this long posts because I'm getting tired of hearing this argument from PS3 fans. RPGs do NOT follow just one manufacturer unless Square Enix was making a game console. Do NOT assume one consoles has the RPGs until you see announcements or they are released.

Yes, having the PS2 still around hurts, because some devs are still making RPGs for PS2. One reason MS killed off Xbox so quickly was so ALL devs would move to 360. Sony kind of needs to do it, but at the same time, Sony needs PS2 so they can lessen loses on PS3.

Sorry to sound so negative (because I am a PS3 fan, no doubt), but there are two things I've been meaning to say which I haven't mentioned before.
-Last console that comes out each gen (I'm talking about N64, Xbox, and PS3 here) experiences the most game delays (N64 had games delayed for over 3 years) and cancellations (Quite a number of Xbox and N64 games revealed never came out).
-Both of those two platforms were beyond terrible when it came to JRPGs (N64 only had Ogre Battle 64 which was great).

Peopel need to stop complaining, it takes time to make an rpg, the 360 only had 2 mediocre ones in its 2nd year. In its 3rd year the 360 is getting some more rpgs. The ps3 will get white knight chronicles and final fantasy in its 3rd year. This year we can look forward to disgaea 3, and valkyrie chronicles, i know there strategy rpg's but its all we got. And in 2010, i bet we'll have FF 13 verses.

OMG...I'm number 666 on the petition.

I will bitch all I want about there being no rpg's. Sony is screwing over their customers by not stepping up against MS buying exclusivity on these. They are the reason I bought a ps3 (screw endless waves of fps's) and I'm pissed off about it.

sorry, no can do

JRPGS are a bit too homo-erotic - plus they suck

PS2 Release Date - October 26, 2000

Dark Cloud - May 28, 2001
Final Fantasy X - December 20, 2001
Shadow Hearts - December 12, 2001
Kingdom Hearts - September 17, 2002
Suikoden III - October 22, 2002
SMT:Nocturne - February 20, 2003
Xenosaga - February 25 2003
Disgaea - August 27, 2003
La Pucelle:Tactics - May 4, 2004
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time - August 31, 2004
Phantom Brave - August 31, 2004
SMT: Digital Devil Saga - April 5, 2005
Stella Deus:The Gate of Eternity - April 26, 2005
Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana - June 28, 2005
Radiata Stories - September 6, 2005
Romancing SaGa - October 11, 2005
Dragon Quest VIII - November 15, 2005
Grandia III - February 14, 2006
Tales of Legendia - February 7, 2006
Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria - September 26, 2006
.hack//G.U. - May 8, 2007
Rogue Galaxy - January 30, 2007
Odin Sphere - May 28, 2007
Dawn of Mana - May 22, 2007
SMT: Persona 3 - July 24, 2007

This situation is typical, it just seems worse due to the fact that the 360 is buying up exclusives. We'll get some jrpgs 2009 and 2010

@marklar

An what makes Western Rpg's so great? They haven't changed much at all. It's always the same Dungeons and Dragons,shitty sci-fi StarWars bullshit.

Oh look at me, I'm the Western Rpg. I'm trying to be super serious and super mature, with my ultra boring stories,over promised story telling, and my over promised failed combat systems. Ugh.

have you seen the petition? there some fanboys who signed it without realizing they helped the cause! lol... fanboys are soo stupid...

... Ugh. News regarding Star Ocean 4.
http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/06/10/star-ocean-4-titled-star-ocean-the-last-hope/
Sony *needs* Square-Enix to release FFXIII ASAP in order to get the other RPG producers in check. All these RPGs releasing on the 360 is BS (great for 360 owners, but what about us fanboys that expected the trend to continue in our favor?).