NeoGAF

Originally Posted by gamefront.de

Europa: Dragon Quest VIII über 600.000 Mal verkauft

10.06.06 - Square Enix gibt bekannt, dass das Rollenspiel Dragon Quest: Journey of the Cursed King Click Picture in Europa über 600.000 Mal verkauft wurde. Das Spiel kam am 13.04.06 auf den Markt.

Originally Posted by altavista xD

Europe: Dragon Quest VIII over 600.000 times sells

10.06.06 - Square Enix communicates that the game of roles Dragon Quest: Journey OF the Cursed King Click Picture in Europe over 600.000 times was sold. The play came to 13.04.06 on the market.

Nice to see it did better than in NA....maybe Square-Enix will learn this time to release their rpgs here sooner and localized like this one.

Btw, where are Radiata Stories, Romancing SaGa and such...Square-Enix? ...

Go Europe go!
After RE4 PS2 this is the second big japanese game which sells bettr in Europe than Usa.

I'd be a little surprised if that's the case -- Square Enix *always* reports shipped, not sold.

Europe > USA. Wewt.

Originally Posted by jett

Europe > USA. Wewt.

+300 million EU population > 240 million USA population
Give it a few years and Europe will be a bigger market than the US, and we'll see much more of these situations. Of course, sales can be hampered due to localisation issues. There is a much greater effort required to release a title in Europe, than in the USA.

No thanks to the UK... France/Spain are almost single handedly pushing DQ8.

Originally Posted by Elios83

Go Europe go!
After RE4 PS2 this is the second big japanese game which sells bettr in Europe than Usa.

No, there's been quite a few actually...

-Winning Eleven series
-Metal Gear Solid series
-Silent Hill series
-Gran Turismo series
-Moto GP series (Namco)
-Time Crisis series
-Tekken series
-Ridge Racer series
-Sonic Heroes PS2
-Nintendogs
-Animal Crossing DS (soon)

DQ8 was very hard to find in the area where I live. I even had to reserve my copy and wait for 2 weeks to finnaly get it. Normaly I never have to reserve a game here :|

Im glad its doing ok.

How much did it sold in America??? it's already on bargain bin from what I heard :/

Originally Posted by Dark Dragon

How much did it sold in America??? it's already on bargain bin from what I heard :/

Around 400.000 copies, as far as I remember.

Radiata Stories was better... think we'll ever see a sequel?

So is this just for Europe or does it include the UK and Australia?

Well, to be fair, the marketing for the Euro version was actually good. It probably made a big difference...

Good to see one continent has taste... I've always thought that DQ8 did well in France/Spain because of the Toriyama character designs. Even when I went to Paris back in 1997 or so I remember seeing a ton of DBZ manga translated to French... way before it even made inroads here in the states... so manga/anime have been popular over there (and Latin America too from what I hear) for quite a while.

It flopped badly in the UK, but then I'm not surprised. The combination of never having released a Dragon Quest game there before and not giving us the FF12 demo with it would do that.

Seriously, I have to restate, I would be shocked if this is actually the number sold.

Not because it's so impossible for DQ8 to sell well, but because Square Enix *always* reports shipped figures as sold.

I'd think we'd know that here on Sales-Age. They did the same thing with DQ8 in the US, and with Kingdom Hearts 2, and with every other game.

This is 95% likely to be the shipped number.

Originally Posted by Furoba

+300 million EU population > 240 million USA population
Give it a few years and Europe will be a bigger market than the US, and we'll see much more of these situations. Of course, sales can be hampered due to localisation issues. There is a much greater effort required to release a title in Europe, than in the USA.

How many PS2 were sold in Europe vs USA?

Originally Posted by john tv

Well, to be fair, the marketing for the Euro version was actually good. It probably made a big difference...

Here in the states they wanted you to think it was a Dragon Ball z rpg set in a fantasy setting.

I actually overheard a a guy in a videogame store say to his buddy "They ruined Dragon Ball Z with this game! 8!!!!!!???? How can there actually be 8 of 'em!"



:lol

It's all thanks to France (mostly).

Wow that makes my week! Great news. I take it launch was more smooth over there? I remember first 3 days after DQ shipped in USA no one had freak'n clue what I was even talking about let alone had the game. 4th day I asked again at Best Buy and finally someone got me a copy from the back. You would never see this happen with Final Fantasy or Halo title. SE needs work on this.

+300 million EU population > 240 million USA population

USA Population: 298 million.
European Union (without the last 10 countries): 382,3 million.

It's all thanks to France (mostly).

1.-France
2.-Spain
3.-UK
4.-Rest

Mostly :P

I'd like to see a country-by-country breakdown.

Somehow I don't see DQVIII being a hit in Moldavia :p

Great news anyway though, hopefully Square-Enix will realise that Europe is just as good a market for JRPGs as the US is, if not better.

So. Can we have Chrono Cross now? Ye bastards?!

Seriously, they released FFVI like 8 years after it's original release here, and it was topping the charts, how can it not be economically sound to just release CC and CT here? Screw the translations, screw the PAL optimisations (though it would be nice), just change the fricking region code on the disc, churn out 10.000 or so copies and be done with it.

Gah. Always get in a bad mood when RPGs and Europe come up in conversation :p

I'm hoping that the PSX-on-PSP-emulation-store will provide an outlet for at least some RPGs, and that we can get them that way. Having to run the games on a glitchy PC-emulator is annoying as hell.

I grew up watching french cartoons in the mid-80's, and even then they had tons of manga and japanese series playing (dbz, zodiac, fist of the northstar, bioman etc)

Brilliant news!

GOTY deserves great sales!:)

Originally Posted by ethelred

Seriously, I have to restate, I would be shocked if this is actually the number sold.

Not because it's so impossible for DQ8 to sell well, but because Square Enix *always* reports shipped figures as sold.

I'd think we'd know that here on Sales-Age. They did the same thing with DQ8 in the US, and with Kingdom Hearts 2, and with every other game.

This is 95% likely to be the shipped number.

Actually they gave incredibly accurate sell through numbers on Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2 before NPD hit and they did the same back for X-2 years ago. I agree that when they do their fiscal earnings, they use shipment numbers, but much of the time, when they announce a PR about how a game is doing, it's based on tracked sales.

Originally Posted by Kaworu

USA Population: 298 million.
European Union (without the last 10 countries): 382,3 million.



1.-France
2.-Spain
3.-UK
4.-Rest

Mostly :P

My bad, I think I confused the population number of Indonesia with that of the USA. Don't quite know how that happened... :/

Anyhow, that +300 million number is the Schengen zone, and as it will grow the following years, so will the European software market. Once the new countries gain in wealth, Europe might match the USA in overall game sales.

Originally Posted by Shrike_Priest

So. Can we have Chrono Cross now? Ye bastards?!

... CC was never released in Europe?

Originally Posted by Furoba

+300 million EU population > 240 million USA population
Give it a few years and Europe will be a bigger market than the US, and we'll see much more of these situations. Of course, sales can be hampered due to localisation issues. There is a much greater effort required to release a title in Europe, than in the USA.

USA = 298,444,215 (July 2006 est) Link

European Union = 459,488,400 (2005 est.) Link

Originally Posted by sonycowboy

I agree that when they do their fiscal earnings, they use shipment numbers, but much of the time, when they announce a PR about how a game is doing, it's based on tracked sales.

Yup, this isn't from a FY earnings so I think it can be sell-through. I hope.

They should make it platinum on Christmas and it'll have a really good shot for FF numbers.
Europe loves platinum prices since games are pretty expensive here. See God of War, PES5, San Andreas and those titles showing in european sales thread...

Originally Posted by sol_bad

So is this just for Europe or does it include the UK and Australia?

Did I miss a memo or sth. like that? :lol

It's good seeing this gem getting its worth in europe.

I don't know how many units it sold here in Spain but it's true Toriyama's really popular here. Maybe not as much his name as his creations (let's face it, all his characters look pretty much the same... i'd say that's a trademark in itself). And Dragon Ball was HUGE over here much earlier than there in the States (from the early nineties to the mid-90s pretty much every kid on the block watched the show -me included... Those were the times lol. Merchandising and stuff was everywhere. And still is quite popular, it's one of those atemporal things I guess).

But I also think the marketing helped a lot sell the game. The truth is that NO RPGs are ever marketed on tv save a few exceptions (coincidentally, all by Square - Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest). Result? Hundreds of thousands of copies sold. The fact that not many of them are advertised doesn't help the sales of RPGs in Europe. Publishers complaint RPGs don't sell here, but it's their fault: no localization, no advertising, no nothing. What do they expect?

Ahm, Tales of Symphonia did surprisingly well around here too.

What did it do in USA? I remember it sold well, not as well as Europe, but 500k is by no means bad.

Originally Posted by Frankfurter

Did I miss a memo or sth. like that? :lol

I was about to point out the very same thing. v.v;;; People still don't know that the UK is in Europe or something. *sigh*

How it took so long for someone to pick up on that I don't know. o.o;;

*edit* Anyone who noticed...... Shhhhhh. >.<

Originally Posted by John Harker

... CC was never released in Europe?

No. Plenty of important JRPGs were never released here in Europe (Xenogears, DQ7, Valkyrie Profile, Lunar, Persona, Tales of Destiny and MANY more)...

Pretty sad story.

Awesome sales for DQ, I´m glad it did well. So, worldwide it´s at least a million more units of DQ sold. Nice sales for a publisher, worth the extra expense of making it look good and appealing for a worldwide audience.

Oh, BTW, who was the idiot that said that they should do a shitty looking exclusive wii version of 9 since only Japan buys DQ anyway??:lol

Originally Posted by Altermo

No. Plenty of important JRPGs were never released here in Europe (Xenogears, DQ7, Valkyrie Profile, Lunar, Persona, Tales of Destiny and MANY more)...

Pretty sad story.

Poor Europeans. T_T

Originally Posted by Logan Cano

Oh, BTW, who was the idiot that said that they should do a shitty looking exclusive wii version of 9 since only Japan buys DQ anyway??:lol

It's not that only Japan buys DQ... it's that only Japan will buy 4m copies. ;)

Whoever has the largest base in Japan gets Dragon Quest. Simple as that.

The EU sales would be even higher if SE wouldn't mess up the pal conversions (slower, letterboxes) every time. I and a lot of people I know don't buy pal versions of SE-games AT ALL. This means US sales would be even lower if it wasn't for us importers.

Originally Posted by FoxHimself

USA = 298,444,215 (July 2006 est) Link

European Union = 459,488,400 (2005 est.) Link

isnt Canada included in the united states software and hardware numbers?

+32,422,919 to population

This game would have sold better in the US in my opinion if SE/Sony wasn't so stupid as to release it the same day as the 360. What better way to lose sales then to let your game lose out on hype to a new system launch.

Originally Posted by Altermo

No. Plenty of important JRPGs were never released here in Europe (Xenogears, DQ7, Valkyrie Profile, Lunar, Persona, Tales of Destiny and MANY more)...

Pretty sad story.

Ouch. What's the point of living there?

It's not like they missed that much anyway. :)

I'd be a mad importer if I lived in Europe.

Originally Posted by Ckid

isnt Canada included in the united states software and hardware numbers?

+32,422,919 to population

No.

Originally Posted by Logan Cano

Oh, BTW, who was the idiot that said that they should do a shitty looking exclusive wii version of 9 since only Japan buys DQ anyway??:lol

lots of people said it...

:lol @ those who think this number is sold through
This is obviously shipped numbers. If DQ has sold 600k in Europe then Animal Crossing DS must be at 2m at least. :lol

Originally Posted by OldJadedGamer

This game would have sold better in the US in my opinion if SE/Sony wasn't so stupid as to release it the same day as the 360. What better way to lose sales then to let your game lose out on hype to a new system launch.

Square did it with FF8. ;)

Originally Posted by jarrod

It's not that only Japan buys DQ... it's that only Japan will buy 4m copies. ;)

Whoever has the largest base in Japan gets Dragon Quest. Simple as that.

Might be true, but still, 1 million extra copies are nothing to scoff at and proved that Square Enix´s decision to go with a talented developer with 8 was sound, and I doubt they´ll go back to shitty looking games. Couple that with PS3´s likely dominance in Japan, and DQ is most likely going nowhere.

Originally Posted by Logan Cano

Might be true, but still, 1 million extra copies are nothing to scoff at and proved that Square Enix´s decision to go with a talented developer with 8 was sound, and I doubt they´ll go back to shitty looking games. Couple that with PS3´s likely dominance in Japan, and DQ is most likely going nowhere.

See DS situation.

Originally Posted by Logan Cano

Might be true, but still, 1 million extra copies are nothing to scoff at and proved that Square Enix´s decision to go with a talented developer with 8 was sound, and I doubt they´ll go back to shitty looking games. Couple that with PS3´s likely dominance in Japan, and DQ is most likely going nowhere.

Heh.

FYI, I don't think anyone's encouraging Square Enix to make the next DQ game shitty looking, nor is anyone saying they should give it to a non-talented developer -- whether the next developer is Level 5 or not.

More to the point, though: if the PS3 dominates Japan, then yes, DQ is not going anywhere. Any argument about DQ going to another console is premised on the idea that the PS3 will not dominate Japan, as you toss out as a "likelihood" when it is actually just an assumption at this point.

Not to derail things further with the pointless PS3/Wii stuff which I dunno why you even brought up in here.

Anyway, thanks for your comments, sonycowboy. If these are actually sell through numbers and not just shipment numbers, then kudos to SE. The sales are absolutely deserved.