I think it's because most people wanted X to be like VIII. Including myself.

Okay, that's sad...

Sometimes I feel like I know more than SE does about the Japanese market. The Japanese don't like MMOs just like they don't want games exclusive to the 360. I mean as a majority, there are some that do. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

And your sources?

Greed. Dragon Quest IX is the best selling game of the franchise but they had to turn X into an MMO in an attempt to earn even more $$$.

I blame Sleeping Dogs too for their financial results.

Here's an example

http://store.tsutaya.co.jp/item/sell_game/4988601007801.html

Tsutaya offers an 8 day trial period for the game. You go to their store, they give you the game, and trial registration info. You need to provide your own 16gb+ USB flash drive to install it to. If you choose to keep playing after that you pay 3800 yen for the full registration, which is quite a discount. Offer from 12/1 to 3/8.

http://www.gamer.ne.jp/news/201211260014/

Reported on game news sites such as the above, 2ch, etc. In a hilarious twist I just noticed, you don't get to keep your save data from your trial period. How backwards is Squeenix's online management?

Edit: In another indication of the health of the active DQX player community, an official player event held last year ended in failure. The event was to kill 1 million total of 3 different slimes, by all players over 10 days. These events are usually easy and meant as player morale boosters. The results: http://blog.esuteru.com/archives/6789604.html (the official site no longer carries the end result it seems).

I think those sales for an MMO are damn good, I also expect the WiiU version to do real well. But it serves them right, a regular game would easily hit 2mil and would have kept the Wii relevant for a fair while...

I agree, a single player DQ game would have done quite well on Wii, without the hassles and downsides of an MMO.

No online connection, no lag, no need to install to a separate USB drive, no reliance on other players to get content done, no chance of getting hacked, no botting, no gold farmers/sellers, no monthly fee to play as long as you like, better storytelling capacity, better characterization. The list goes on.

SE launched DQX too late in Wii's life. By the time it released Nintendo was already focussing on WiiU.

Also not releasing on PS3 was stupid, specially now that they are making the HD version for WiiU. A port would be cheap.

the biggest problem with DQX is the Wii is not ready for this kind of games, entire installation is chore even soft modding Wii is trivial in comparison to this