[Professor S]

I think the nature of RPG's is changing more than the RPG disappearing. As technology advances, developers are free to create hybrid RPG games, like Mass Effect and others hat don't fit into any traditional definitions. Also, I think the MMO genre has really taken a huge chunk of emphasis away from story driven single player RPG's.

But then again we've also seen two fantastic example of hardcore RPG's comes out this gen, like Fallout 3 and Oblivion.

And for the record, I prefer Western Style.