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1 million (Dragon Quest VII) shipped in the first 2 days

E

extralite

Member
Aeana said:
There was no reason to expect them to. FF11 sold 63k in its first week in Japan, DQ10's opening was a smashing success compared to that. It's just that World of Warcraft has clouded perceptions of what a successful MMO looks like. Fortunately, I don't think SE is stupid enough to think they could possibly get numbers like that. Expectations for an MMO are not the same as for other types of games.
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When DQ first was released, expectations for RPGs weren't to sell over a million either. But the simplified, accessible systems, the recognizable character designs and general high production values including Sugimoto's score did sell it to a mass market audience.

Obviously they expected DQX to sell more than FFXI, which they already achieved. Going by the thread about DQX not meeting expectations they also expect(ed) it to keep selling and reach an even higher player base than it has already.

DQ is played (also) by people who don't usually play RPGs. Like Mario is played by people who don't usually play other action games. Like Wii Sports is played by people who don't usually play games at all. And ideally some of these players will try other games as well, allowing the genre to get higher exposure. Hence the wealth of platformers in the SNES era, or the wealth of JRGs in the PSX era (more due to FF, though) or the moderate boom of motion games this gen.

Expectations were high that DQ could help the MMO genre to become more popular in Japan because people otherwise not interested will get exposure to the genre (to some extent this has already happened). Its success would benefit FFXIV as well. If the Wii (U) had an MMO hit PS3 only owners would become interested in playing something comparable to this.
 
A

Amalthea

Banned
Maybe they shouldn't try to get casual players with subscription based MMO's these days but it's true that WoW's abnormal success makes every other MMO look like a bomb. Especially for a paint by the numbers company like SE.
Maybe nobody will ever repeat WoW.
 
O

Oxx

Member
fates said:
I think what a lot of people forget is to add "begrudgingly" to that first half. Square Enix had pretty much cancelled VI, Nintendo came to the rescue when it took up DQIX too and ended up getting burned on both VI and J2.

I don't think DQVII is a sure thing for the west, this is an incredibly massive game that would be a huge localization responsibility to undertake.

However, I will say this would be an interesting and potentially HUGE opportunity to really open up Dragon Quest here. Seriously, Ni No Kuni did well and brought JRPGs back, so to speak, and as Ni No Kuni was a quality game with recognizable character designs (Miyazaki), Dragon Quest VII is the same (Toriyama's designs are just as recognizable as Miyazaki's in the west), but portable. However I doubt either Square Enix or Nintendo will realize that.
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I think the message Square/Nintendo will take from the success of DQIX and the (relative) failure of every other DS DQ release, is not to flood the market with remakes and spinoffs in the west.

Unfortunately these may be dark times if you are a Rocket Slime or Monsters fan, but DQVII is probably something worth getting behind.
 
Metallix87

Metallix87

Member
metalslimer said:
I think Ninendo is realizing that for the 3DS in the west they need to take what they can get and games like Dragon Quest are the types of games that makes sense.
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I agree, which is why I'm hoping they push for Terry's Wonderland 3D and also Bravely Default for this year, and then VII next year.
 
A

Aeana

Member
extralite said:
When DQ first was released, expectations for RPGs weren't to sell over a million either. But the simplified, accessible systems, the recognizable character designs and general high production values including Sugimoto's score did sell it to a mass market audience.

Obviously they expected DQX to sell more than FFXI, which they already achieved. Going by the thread about DQX not meeting expectations they also expect(ed) it to keep selling and reach an even higher player base than it has already.

DQ is played (also) by people who don't usually play RPGs. Like Mario is played by people who don't usually play other action games. Like Wii Sports is played by people who don't usually play games at all. And ideally some of these players will try other games as well, allowing the genre to get higher exposure. Hence the wealth of platformers in the SNES era, or the wealth of JRGs in the PSX era (more due to FF, though) or the moderate boom of motion games this gen.

Expectations were high that DQ could help the MMO genre to become more popular in Japan because people otherwise not interested will get exposure to the genre (to some extent this has already happened). Its success would benefit FFXIV as well. If the Wii (U) had an MMO hit PS3 only owners would become interested in playing something comparable to this.
Click to expand...
I don't think expectations for non-DQ or FF MMOs were ever to sell over a million. Very few ever have, especially in Japan alone. Same with WoW, it'll be the only MMO to be that successful ever.
I'm not sure what the state of DQ10 is right now, because I haven't played it since September, but we know for sure that the game already recouped development costs, so now it seems like a matter of retaining the subscriber base more than anything else. If it's bleeding subscribers, then they need to figure out how to stop that from happening.
 
D

Deleted member 20920

Unconfirmed Member
extralite said:
They didn't first arrive with DQ though. Most things DQ did Ultima and Wizardry had done before, Megami Tensei had done before and Phantasy Star had done before. Most of these games also were on the same platforms as DQ, Wizardry maybe only afterwards. DQ only popularized what hardcore/PC gamer already were playing.
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I do know that they've done it before Ultima and Wizardy did. But DQ was a response to those two series. Not too sure about Phantasy Star and Megami Tensei since I don't have their release dates at hand. I do know that DQ2 came out before Phantasy Star 1 and FF1 I think.
 
J

jaxword

Member
entrydenied said:
I do know that they've done it before Ultima and Wizardy did. But DQ was a response to those two series. Not too sure about Phantasy Star and Megami Tensei since I don't have their release dates at hand. I do know that DQ2 came out before Phantasy Star 1 and FF1 I think.
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Yeah, FF1 came out just after DQ2.
 
E

extralite

Member
Aeana said:
I don't think expectations for non-DQ or FF MMOs were ever to sell over a million. Very few ever have, especially in Japan alone. Same with WoW, it'll be the only MMO to be that successful ever.
Click to expand...
Obviously not. But since FFXI, SE has tried to get the larger fanbase of their biggest franchises to become MMO players. Before FFIX/X/XI were released Sakaguchi went as far as to say that after X (which introduced Play Online support to the series) there probably wouldn't be any FF without some kind of internet functionality. Instead FFXII was an offline MMORPG like and FFXIII didn't even have DLC (but only one controllable character at any time).

The MMO strategy largely backfired even though in hindsight XI became the most profitable FF ever. At the time it was perceived to be a flop and I think the ultimate aim would still be to have a combination of mass market sales and subscriber's fees. As that hasn't worked out so far the planned "everything internet" approach was scaled back but they never gave up trying to popularize it.

Thus we got FFs that looked more and more like MMOs (surely to get people used to what they intended to sell to them later) but avoided the internet stigma itself. Now with the latest entries SE has come back to their earlier attempt to turn these two franchises into MMOs.

DQX and FFXIV should support each other to grow acceptance for this type of game. As did MH and DQIX with their offline multplayer. The original online MH series also saw steady growth and still can grow larger.

That MMOs are on the decline on PCs and WW doesn't mean that they can't become a hit in Japan and on consoles. At least SE are still banking on such a thing otherwise they wouldn't pour so many resources into FFXIV.

I'm not sure what the state of DQ10 is right now, because I haven't played it since September, but we know for sure that the game already recouped development costs, so now it seems like a matter of retaining the subscriber base more than anything else. If it's bleeding subscribers, then they need to figure out how to stop that from happening.
Click to expand...

As this type of game keeps generating development costs saying it has recouped those costs can't be a definitive statement.

I don't think losing subscribers would have to be such a big problem if it also had a constant influx of new players (and people coming back for big updates). Since the DQ fanbase is still much larger than what DQX has already sold to. DQX needs to be a hot topic and generate good word of mouth. Kid's hours could be a good way to ensure the game has a presence and catches more people's attention.

And they're now selling the game for 3800 yen and have a free 1 week trial so they definitely try to keep selling the game to new players. You can buy 180 day subscriptions with special bonus items as well, which could be due to frequent loss of subscribers after a few months. On the other hand the game itself is so cheap now that even including the 180 days subscription it's a normal price for a high budget RPG so it would appeal to reluctant old players who tried it for the free rental and then liked it enough to spend the price they're used to.

The third big update didn't cause any commotions comparable to the first two but servers are still pretty lively. On the other hand during the valentine event only about 170 000 player characters completed the event quest on the day with the most participants (Saturday) so I'm not sure if there are anywhere near 400 000 active players, much less subscribers.

I still think that SE were aiming for considerable growth over FFXI with DQX and FFXIV. Since the console market is losing so many customers to social games having the remaining gamers concentrate on a few titles from their strongest brands seems like the best idea to focus their investments.

Instead FFXIV did terribly on PCs. DQX did decently so far but the SE quote from the other thread indicates that they're still expecting more.
 
M

MurderSlim

Neo Member
Aeana, I read your impressions of DQ10 back in the early days of release and you seemed to be quite enjoying it, what caused you to stop playing?
 
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