Famitsu sales: Week 21, 2021 - (May 17 - May 23)

[The_Liquid_Laser]

IcaroRibeiro said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

Dragon Quest XI is an anomaly.  It was the only time a mainline Dragon Quest was originally developed for two systems at once.  Usually they just put it on the most popular system in Japan.  In generation 8 this was a problem though.  Do they put it on the 3DS and have low quality graphics and lower price point like DQ9, or do they put it on the PS4 but hugely gimp their sales?  In the end they did both.  PS4 was not good enough to carry the franchise alone though, so they had to make a 3DS version for Japan only.  Japan is the main market for DQ.  They aren't going to alienate the Japanese market no matter how badly they want to sell to the rest of the world.

With the Switch there is no need for a second platform.  It's easily the preferred platform in Japan, and it's also really popular in the rest of the world.  On top of that it's always been Nintendo (and not Sony) who has wanted Dragon Quest to sell in the rest of the world.  They have been trying this since DQ1.  They made a major push (unsuccessfully) with DQ9 as well.  And if you recall when DQ11 came to the Switch it got a whole lot of marketing from Nintendo even though it was a port from another system.  They probably marketed DQ11 about as much as MH Rise, which makes no sense when MH Rise is an exclusive and DQ11 is a port of an older game.  Nintendo has always been very gung ho to get DQ to sell outside of Japan.

This notion of getting DQ to sell outside of Japan is something I've been hearing from Nintendo for decades.

No, even with a Switch becoming the best console of all time they absolutely need a second platform if the point is to increase the IP branding.

If the point was to sell only to Japan where Xbox and PC gaming are irrelevant and PS5 software are struggling to sell 50k, then yeah, Switch is enough because japonese people play on Switch and that's about it

The point of increasing the strength of an IP is to make it available in as much system as possible, that's why even Sony is releasing Horizon on PCs, they want to increase the IP awareness and farm some coins in the process. Not releasing DQ XII on other platforms is just plain silly because we are ignoring where gamers are playing the most

Of course, Enix can be satisfied with current DQ popularity and decide they only need Japan, but looking the news about UR5 and the more darker and mature style? I doubt, my gut feelings are telling me they want a new Monster Hunter and they will need PCs and Playstations to make this work 

DQXII could turn out to be multiplat.  I am not ruling that out.  It could also be Switch exclusive.  Nintendo is willing to moneyhat DQXII.  Nintendo seems to love Dragon Quest like it is one of their own IP.  What will definitely not happen is PS5 exclusivity.  Sony is not willing to moneyhat DQXII.  They will make deals for more Final Fantasy games before they ever make a deal for Dragon Quest.

What you need to realize is that marketing Dragon Quest to the West and Nintendo exclusivity actually go hand in hand.  It may not seem logical to you, but this is the line we've been fed since DQ1.  Nintendo gave out free copies of DQ1 with a subscription to Nintendo Power.  Every time I've ever heard of marketing DQ to the West it's always had a strong Nintendo backing.  This goes back to the very origins of the series.