kenjisalk

Yeah, also Saboteur, since I'm dying to play it, but am not sure if I'll end up with a gift card for xmas to put towards it, and Gamefly doesnt seem to want to effing send me it at the moment.

I think the movement by large scale towards more action oriented RPGs that appeal to a western audience is indicative enough of the trend I'm speaking of, so you can cut the bullshit name calling.  It's a pretty undeniable fact that the turn based JRPG formula only pulls significant numbers in Japan unless it's a final fantasy.

lol 50 bucks says Tony Hawk Ride gets dropped to 50 bucks by the end of January.
 
I already saw it at Toys R Us for 80.
 
Anyway, I wouldn't mind Batman AA going below 40 bucks, as I don't own it (rent it and beat it).

haha, ignoring worldwide sales figures and general development trends and pretending that it's about personal taste. :V
 
u so funny.

In Japan it isn't, but that's of no consequence to the quality of titles released.  Globally, it definitely is, which is why we're seeing more action oriented genre benders getting put out there.
 
Not that I mind, really, because unless it's a pretty brutally challenging strategy RPG, I can't muster any interest in anything turn based.

also, rofl @ implying Dragon Quest sells well in Japan because it's innovative. :U

The problem is more with the stagnant entertainment industry in Japan in general.  They've been struggling to thrive in a global recession, and the impact can be seen in every aspect, both with film and tv as well as video games.  
 
Most Japanese game developers are taking few chances with their popular titles and genres, and RPGs are of course the first on the chopping block.  With less money to go around, they're going with safe bets to maximize profit and minimize potential loss.  I think that's why we've seen so many RPGs regurgitating the same tired tropes and cliches that are proven to sell in Japan (I call it "Tales of Syndrome"), because to stabalize their income, they feel they cannot afford to take risks and chance alienating a finicky Japanese audience. 
 
Final Fantasy XII is a prime example of this.  Yazumi Matsuno is a visionary, and the man produces some of the most critically acclaimed RPGs for the Playstation (Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, Vagrant Story), but the thing is, they've not always been super blockbusters sales wise in Japan, because they are VERY different kinds of games.  They don't take place in some sci-fi fantasy setting, they don't star a bunch of stylish teenagers, theyplot centers around gritty medieval political turmoil, and they are brutally difficult.
 
Square executives handed him the reigns to FFXII, and during the entire process, they kept trying to get him to change things to make it more palatable to the mainstream Japanese audience (rewriting the characters and plot etc), to the point in which his vision was compromised so much that he just decided to walk away from the project (which I completely respect).  Why the hell they ever thought he would just pump out a game that would be like the previous FF titles, I'll never know.   Now YazMat is supposedly working on a game at Platinum Games, but he had to walk away from his Ivalice world he spent the last 12+ years developing, because Square owns all that IP. 
 
It seems to me that the people who used to innovate in the genre in Japan, are largely gone from the development scene in all significant regards, and what we're left with is a bunch of games that follow the tried and true successful formula, and it just doesn't cut it overseas.  While not anywhere near perfect, it's just a fact that European and North American game development are just generally surpassing Japan in a lot of significant ways.  Hell, even Capcom's Keiji Inafune admitted to this, which that kind of pessimism is generally unheard of over there, at least in the public eye.

I think it just boils down to different approaches to first and second party titles, to be quite honest.  Sony's take on internal development seems a bit more varied in the kinds of games they publish, with games like Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank, inFAMOUS, Killzone, Socom, LBP, Gran Turismo, it seems to me that they have a wider selection of styles of games under their dev umbrella than Microsoft's first party efforts.
 
That's not to say that Microsoft hasn't released some stellar first party titles, it just seems like the past couple of years, they're less abundant in comparison.  Most of the big releases on the 360 as of late have been third party titles, which makes the system a bit less enticing at the moment.  I had solely a 360, though, from 2006 to 2008, and during that time period, I did not want for a PS3.
 
2008-2009 however, the PS3 became a utterly viable platform, and finally a console I could recommend to people.
 
As of now, I feel like they're on more or less equal footing, with a fair amount of pros and cons on both sides.  It really just boils down to personal taste in their respective game libraries, which are both very respectable (especially considering majority of game releases from third parties are cross platform).  
 
If I had to pick, I'd probably lean towards PS3, because a lot of my favorite games from the last couple of years have been PS3 exclusives, but I still have a blast with games like Gears of War, Fable, Shadow Complex etc.