I know almost nothing about the DQ series other than they are crazy-popular in Japan, but virtually unknown in North America. I've never played a DQ game, and my jRPG experience extends to the 2D Final Fantasies, FF7, Pokemon and Tales of Vesperia. Can a fan of the series or anyone give any reasoning for why they are virtually unknown in North America? Is there any chance of either of them making a breakthrough here, like FF7 did?
I'm not entierly familiar why FF7 broke through, but from what I understand, it's a mix of a more western-friendly story (the whole techno-steampunky thingy), heavy adverstising by Square + Sony, and a little bit of magic. I know in my case, me and a lot of my friends played Pokemon, were introduced to the whole RPG concept, and then "graduated" looking for more in the genre, and FF7 was the logical step. I dunno if that was common, or I just hung around with a weird group of 11 year olds back in the day.
