RPGs, especially JRPGs, do not do well in the US for the same reason RTS games don't do well, it requires too much investment. US gamers like US citizens need the high quickly, thus why FPS games do super well.

*should be noted that "well" is in context of its comparison with other genres like FPS*

games like persona 5, nier automata, xenoblade, ff15 and kingdom hearts seold the most in the US though, even more than in Japan.

That's why I included the asterix. The US gaming population is huge and I was think percentage more than sheer number. However, rpgs are doing better here than 5-10 years ago.

Oh my bad, didn't get that Asterix thing haha

Pretty sure when Final Fantasy 7 was released the amount of PS1 units was more in the 20m to 30m range. Same with Final Fantasy 10 which came at a relatively early stage of the PS2. On PS3 and PS4 you can also almost half the number of installed systems when they got their Final Fantasy games.

As for Dragon Quest, well, lack of marketing. Most people may think that this is this Pokemon rip-off series where you have to catch and breed monsters.

Bad marketing, poor release window. I mentioned the game on Reddit once to some guy who knew about Dragon Quest he said "Wait there's a new Dragon Quest Game? I had no Idea". So, yeah basically because Square Enix didn't bother to promote it.

But I have heard it has sold decently in the west. The Steam Version did about 200k and the PS4 version was around 700k. Not bad for a niche JRPG that released around the same week as Spider-Man.

So guys I did the math and according to VGC DQ11 sold 260k in 2018 in the US with 17 weeks on sale. This means that it sold an average of 15-16k a week which is more than the games I mentioned (Persona 5, Ni No Kuni 2, Nier etc.).

So let's see how it does in 2019, it seems like it has very good legs. In the US at least, in Europe it didn't even chart in the top 100 for 2018 lol.

1. No simultaneous WW releases date
2. Minimal marketing and no hype event
3. Uncomprehensible decision to release during one of the busiest release weeks in 2018 with no hype to back it up
4. Music/Soundtrack fiasco

SQE did really well to botch the release of DQ11 in every possible way.

Not on Swith at the same time?

The best selling DQ is in Nintendo plataform. 

There was already a 3DS version. I don't believe there will be another Dragon Quest game to outsell DQ9, had far too much going for it that no other title will have.

and even if the Switch version hit at launch, I don't think that pushes it past DQ 8, or 9. Certainly not at this point at least.

I also think pretty are being a little hyperbolic when talking about the "struggles" of this game. It's going to be the best selling game in the series in the West. What were expectations set to if that's not enough?