Well, looking at the sales as a percentage just changes the perception of the numbers and focuses on how well the game is selling in comparison to the Japanese sales. But it lacks the raw data of many of the things I was bringing up. Also, it messes with the statistics. Americans aren't showing more interest in DQIV over DQVIII... Japan bought 3,600,000 copies of DQVIII, while America bought 450,000. In comparison, Japan bought 1,300,00 copies of DQIV DS, while American bought 150,000. Percentage wise, you say that's a 1% jump. But obviously, visually, the numbers show the huge support and popularity for the series in Japan while we had a massive gap and decline. Percentages are more like a rough estimate...but can't account for things like popularity shifts.
And frankly, Dragon Quest has never reached a level where it could say it was 'popular' in America. I really think the only reason DQVIII sold was because it came with a preview disk for FFXIII and had voices added to it. And the reason DQM: Joker sold was because of its early TV/internet marketing and word of mouth. The other two games didn't have such marketing gimmicks if you will. So they've only sold to well...the base Dragon Quest fans and hardcore RPG crowd. Their localizations and all the alterations done to the recent games sure aren't helping give people an incentive to pass the word around.
Six upcoming games you should look into:
