Zolgar: It works like this:
Western RPGs got HUGE, so everyone cast aside the classic RPG styles to jump on the Western RPG bandwagon. Turn based? Tactical controls? Bah! Those are worthless, people want fast paced, in their fact action in an imersive world!
And for a while, that was true... But now, Western RPGs are a dime a dozen.
Morrowind
Oblivion
Fallout 3
Mount and Blade
Two Worlds
Fable
Fable 2
NWN
NWN2
Silverfall
KOTOR2
... I know I'm forgetting some, but I don't know which :)
But they are still being produced, because RPG players will buy them, even if they're not their favorite style of game, and game companies are just like movie producers. They will make what they know will sell.
It takes a company with balls to break the mold (or go back to an old mold), and if they take off, well, then the other companies will follow suit.

sk8ing667: hey, are you trashing fable? I loved fable -.-

Rohan15: Okay, I love Fallout and need to know just one thing... Does anyone know ANYTHING about this upcoming game besides the release date?

EyeNixon: Anyone forgetting the "niche" genres of tactical RPG games that seem so popular?
Really, this argument is pointless, turn-based isometric games still sell, it's all the marketing. Believe it or not, the bullshit PR that made Fallout 3 so popular in the first place is the same bullshit PR that could make a new isometric turn-based Fallout sell.
Or do you people really believe the market is so narrow that nearly every popular game is only defined by perspective?
If marketing can make it look pretty, if they could spruce it up to look nice and get plenty of advertising, it will sell.
It's all hype at day 1, see all those touched up screenshots Bethesda put out for Fallout 3, the hype that was raised by their marketing department as they whored out previews and exclusives to nearly every magazine.
They do cut deals with publications to get those exclusives published, you guys realize that right? It's not all clean cut "gaming journalism" where they go out and report on a game, they correspond, sign invisible contracts dictating what information is to be revealed, the structures of the previews and so on.
I'm not saying they actually sit and conspiratorially write out devious agreements to deceive the gaming public, but the reason most of these previews seem like they're sitting on their knees blowing off the developer is because they are. They want more exclusives to sell the magazine? They better start looking at every big article as the next revolutionary product.
Of course, calling Fallout 3 anything other than a buggy hideously unprofessional mess is a lie, we've seen the bugs, the horrible writing, the voice acting, the plethora of pre-fabbed levels that make exploration a dull bore, the bad clunky combat.
Games aren't reviewed based on technical splendor as they should be folks, they're reviewed on shallow superfluous notions of what makes a game "fun" and they're reviewed in a total of twenty out of fifty hours.
Games coming out that previewers gush over beforehand, only to spin around in their seats and kill it at release because they couldn't let those sweet doubts out during the pre-release period, ridiculous.
They don't exist to report on news for this hobby, they exist to perform a dubious duty of making us all believe that the industry is bigger than it really is.