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Dragon Quest XI worldwide shipments tops 4 million
- Thread starter sinonobu
- Start date
Dragon Quest already had million sellers in the west with DQ8 and DQ9.
Dragon Quest XI is already out of the"handheld ghetto" in the west, there was nothing holding it back like people said 3DS was holding back Monster Hunter. Dragon Quest XI was never going to sell like Monster Hunter World in the west because that is purely misunderstanding why Dragon Quest sells the way it does in the west, hint: it's not a monster Hunter game.
It is impossible. How would they sell more 2M copies of this game?
Like Valkyria Steam or Ninokuni PS3 did, for $5-10 a pop. :3
It's like the anti-Monster Hunter World. Remove 3DS and and you're left with just 2.1-2.2m global. Lowest series sales since the early Fami days.
It wasn't a threat, just reality. Any one would say that sales have to be good for the next game to get localised. It'll be strange for someone to say that all localisation is guaranteed in the future. What is important is how much did SE expect to sell.
Most comparisons are with games like Persona 5. Comparing to CoD and AC would be insane.
I don't see SE every discounting a game that launched at $60 that much.
Yeah, I think not even something like Lost Sphere got that low.
Also, retail shipment is the most important here because it's the company's money source. Big retailers buy their products from SE directly, so SE gets their money from big retailers. Retail chain is like this
Big company (factory) -->> retails -->> consumers
Big company (factory) -->> retails -->> consumers
At least that's what i learned in elementary back then
Too much.
Anyway, I am confident that the game will still be localized..... into Korean and Chinese since they won't need too many additional efforts such as Voice acting.
I think games will keep being localized just because I doubt they're losing money with these localizations, but I still think SE isn't happy with these numbers.
But I believe DQ8 and DQ9 were contextual, sales-wise. Even if they surpassed 1 million they didn't generate "true" engagement, necessary to improve DQ chances in the west. The ideal would be to sell 1 million just in the US at the very least, and that's not yet the case.
DQ11, I think, it's actually doing this, even if not at the degree that would be the most beneficial. But it's working.
I meant that DQ11 may be end up selling like Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (the one that broke the 1 million mark in the west, mainly by word of mouth), not only in number but in "true" engagement. So, my theory was that the elements necessary for a Monster Hunter World effect are already in place for DQ.
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I'm guessing you're referring to the following:
If so, then no, I really do not think it can.
A majority of those games are in fact the opposite of DQ; modern reinterpretations of the rpg genre, and succeeded because they broke away from tradition.
Persona 5's success is the culmination of the successes of P3 and P4, both games that stood out from other JRPGs due to having a very different tone and aesthetic compared to JRPGs of the time. Persona 5 ratcheted that up even more, having an incredibly stylist and modern aesthetic, with a story told (poorly, in my opinion) about and rooted in modern social issues.
Nier Automata stood out for telling a dark and compelling story could only be told in the medium of games, which remains incredibly rare. Other games that have similarly novel narratives are also generally rewarded and celebrated for it, such as Undertale and Doki Doki Literature Club.
Fire Emblem similarly saw a boom in commercial success by modernising. Since Awakening, there has been a persistent tension in the fan base between classic and modern fans.
Xenoblade 2 is a little harder to place given its narrative harks back to very traditional shonen, but it's mechanics are much more rooted in modern open world rpgs.
Of the games you've listed, the only one that really appeals towards nostalgia is Octopath, and I think that game does so in a materially different way than DQ. For one, the nostalgia Octopath invokes is that of SNES JRPGs, specifically Chrono Cross and FF6; games beloved by Western fanbases. DQ on the other hand invokes nostalgia for itself, which simply doesn't resonate in the West. Furthermore, Octopath's nostalgia is superficial; it's design is a modernised take on turn based battles that is meaningfully different from the game's its aesthetic invokes. DQ feels oldschool in both form and function, and while DQ fans value that, it's simply not a feature sought by many others
Dragon Quest will never be big in the West. Don't know why people convinced themselves this game would be different.
yep. in a previous thread some people where adamant that 11 was the game to finally get dq into the mainstream outside of japan, seems like it's been a relative flop tho.
So DQXI is generating "true engagement" in the west, unlike previous titles, by selling less copies?
I think I'm not quite understanding your point. How do you measure this engagement?
It's just that Dragon Quest in Japan is up there with Mario and Pokémon as one of the most iconic and culturally significant game franchises ever.
Overseas it's treated as just another RPG franchise.
Yup. Asia JRPG fans don't care so much about voice acting in native languages.
The trouble will be the next mainline game and what they're do with it. With console sales decreasing and seeing no possibility of a revival, will they again release the game on multi platforms? Will Japan be big enough for the franchise to retain its sales numbers?
MH4U was the first to break 1m in the west but 3U And even Tri each came close (800k+) before that. Engagement for MH was progressively building the whole time, even on PSP before that really each one did more than the last and WOM was always strong.
And speaking of Monster Hunter, MHGU did around 600k for the west and (unlike DQXI) that actually had zero advertising or push behind it. Gaijunhunter did more real marketing for that game than Capcom did, they just threw it out and it still did better than DQXI.
Basically the fans that said DQ8 was the best thing ever suddenly don't count for why DQXI is selling like shit when their word of mouth for DQ8 being the best thing ever should be meaning something....
Yea remember those threads, I'm sure there were a few posters making good points at how the series has all these new avenues that it didn't have before now in the west. But personally I never thought the avenues were better than DQIX which had a strong backing by Nintendo in the west. Either way DQ continues to be a niche IP in the west and based on the lack of marketing maybe that is what Square expects as well.
Just saw your post Chris and dang that's even less than what I thought it would do in the west. Figured it was gonna hit 500k then fizzle out. Maybe it'll be able to get there somehow by the end of they year.
PS4 + PC could do it.
They have shorter legs than many other genres, but that doesn't mean they have no legs. FFXV, Persona 5 and Nier come to mind.
As chart performance was clearly implying, DQXI really had a tepid start in Western markets. PS4 is not the jRPG saviour SQEX was expecting for DQ.
That can certainly happen. Selling more doesn't always equal to doing better (base price, awareness of the IP, reception, how the games are remembered...)
In this case, the game has just been out for 2 months. There is still room for growth. And judging by what I've seen as of now, it is my gut feeling that DQ11 is going beyond what any previous title achieved in the west... "creating audience" is a key term here.
there really isn't. this is pretty much it, and from now on any sale it makes would be from heavily discounted physical copies or at steam sales. it really isn't the kinda game where after 2 months and just 500k sales people can say this is just the beginning and there's room for growth.
it's right there in the first line of the OP
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Exactly. MH4U was the culmination of something that came before.
And lol, editing the correct name in under 5 minutes is not enough for you guys. I need to keep that in mind...
DQ already break out two times tho, even before those franchises mentioned. And as far as big budget, I don't think that the sales of the west are really necessary for it since japan already covers it, more like the localization and add-ons.
Is there a simplified Chinese version? I've got the Taiwanese version which I believe is traditional Chinese only and I can't imagine that would sell much at all in mainland China.
Great news! I wrote about my love for this on another thread but this makes me happy. Really love chilling out and playing this game
That's worse than I expected. I could see DQXII being a Switch game. After the success of OT worldwide, the cheaper development costs and Nintendo's backing, it would seem the logical choice.
What surprises me, tbh, is that Japanese people love DQ that much, considering that there are lots of other big JRPG franchises that are big there too, and have evolved a lot more. Maybe it's like Dragon Ball in Spain, even if manganime is pretty popular in the country and most of the popular manga is published here, lots of people consume DB and only DB because of nostalgia.
I hope they try to evolve the series, DQ XI felt archaic to me. Even if I love JRPG and I play lots of them, after playing DQ VIII and DQ XI I don't feel any urge to play any other DQ game in the future (old or new), unless the next entry seems like a big step forward I won't be interested in playing it.
By breaking out I mean by the publisher expectations. They said 1M wasn't good enough for VIII and IX.
And I don't disagree about Japan covering everything else.
Yeah, there is a lot of nostalgia factor for DQ. Just see how some commercials play out:
Christmas + Switch version.
Also, my idea is that even less than a million is fine for this game, as a stepping stone.
What is it a stepping stone for? The next game won't come out for 4-5 years and the series intentionally never tries to grow or change.
Yikes. It keep getting worst. And the west release this time hit ps4 and pc too. To think there will be a day i can said XC2 sold more on the west vs DQ11.... imagine that.
Well. SE does seems to believe that which is their main reason moving DQ to PS ecosystem so???
Dragon Quest was moved to PS4 because Horii wanted DQ on a home console. Square obviously had no belief in DQ11 in the West as they never promoted it and gave it a terrible release date and took an entire year to localize it.
I think that Nintendo did a solid work with the advertisement of Xc2, they used a lot of Direct time last year to explain the mechanics etc... On the other hand, SE dropped the game and never tried to capture the interest of players. Also, Xc2 looks (and in fact is) a far more modern JRPG, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad, but it can be appealing to players that are not into JRPGs that much.
What's surprising is that DQ XI was localized (and the localization is really good) to many European languages, which is a thing that at least in Spain can help to boost the sales a lot.
SE mentioned on that moving to PS ecosystem will finally allow them to grow the IP into Global IP. It is literally one of the objectives they set upon themselves.
Whether SE belief or not. That does not make whatever number they made right now to not be shitty considering how DQ8 and 9 is able to do much better than DQ11 atm.
??? Stepping stone? For what? I am confused.