No, Tom Henderson heard that Sony plans to manufacture 30M PS5's, which gives the rumor a lot of weight considering his track record. 

I'm just speculating from the info Tom Henderson gave. I think stockpiling some consoles for FY24 is likely, if Sony actually manufactures 30M+ PS5's in FY23, especially if some of those units are being manufactured in November/December. 

He just sullied the hell out of any previously venerable track record he built with such a projection.  

I say that based on demand (controlled by Sony) and supply (controlled by thousands of suppliers).  30.5 million PS5s produced in the current fiscal year is a figure that should not be conceptualized, uttered, written, typed, or spoken by anyone even partially connected to the industry on a professional level.

When are the new numbers for japan coming out ? After 2 hours ?

Why would they? They have always followed the market leader and have recently gone multiplat. Accepting a moneyhat from Sony would be detrimental to the growth of the IP and the sales of DQ XII and future installments. Square Enix executives like taking checks for short term profit. Yuji Horii on the other hand is making DQ games out of passion and wants them to succeed. Dragon Quest is his baby.

If he does say yes to a PS5 exclusivity offer for DQ XII, they will be lucky if it sells 2mil WW lifetime. 80% of the DQ fanbase is in Japan. DQ XI sold 2mil at launch in Japan on PS4 and 3DS.

Sorry for the late reply, it's been a hectic few days.

Icaro and Kyuu beat me to most of what i was gonna say, but MH World is the main example I'd point to, DQ may be trying to follow that route to wider global success, pushing for a high end console release to impress a Western audience.

Monster Hunter always had two lines of games. MHW and MHR are the continuation of that. The same is not and has never been the case with DQ. DQ XII will release on the Switch and/or Switch 2, depending on when the game releases. That is guaranteed.

I don't think it's guaranteed necessarily, money can always change hands and deals can be made. Sony has been aggressive in moneyhatting big games many times before.

DQX Offline having a 65/35 (was it?) FW physical split is hardly a flex. PS4 is a dead system in Japan, PS5 is yet to take off, and digital isn't factored in, though obviously in this instance digital might favor Switch depending on shipments vs demand.

Playstation exclusivity isn't happening (even a timed exclusivity is highly unlikely), but Switch getting skipped and Switch 2 being temporarily skipped are both possibilities. I guess you weren't around when everyone swore the next big Monster Hunter game couldn't possibly skip Nintendo platforms unless Capcom wanted to kill the franchise (and themsleves!!). Look how that turned out! Capcom's best decision ever. If Sony actually paid then that's the cherry on top, it simply means Capcom made all the right decisions.

Can you name me those JPRGs that sold better in the west? The general pattern I noticed is that games designed for lower specs and scaled up generally sell better on Switch than Playstation. But games that are designed around Playstation specs can perform very well as evidenced by countless Japanese games including JRPG's or JRPG-esque games like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Persona, Monster Hunter, FromSoftware games, NieR, Nioh etc.

Low tech games (like DQX Offline) make little sense to buy on Playstation because the bells and whistles PS versions offer are easily outweighed by Switch's portability. I'd also argue that Switch's lower resolutions can mask some of the visual flaws that are made clearer on high resolutions. Low fidelity games can look uglier on bigger screens.

Designing for Playstation is essentially the same thing as designing for Xbox and PC. So the comparison in Square Enix's mind isn't Switch vs PS5, but rather a lower tech multiplat (Switch + PS + Xbox + PC) vs a higher tech multiplat (PS5 + Xbox Series + PC + Switch 2 late port or otherwise). If SE wants to go ambitious, it's possible that THEY would be approaching Sony for a deal as a safety net in the case the project doesn't match their commercial expectations. It's not always the platform holder that makes those deals. Hell, Sony likely never made a deal with Capcom on Monster Hunter World. They just went experimenting on their own, and the experiment was a success.

The best selling Japanese games in the west are all high tech/designed around fairly high specs. Dragon Quest may or may not benefit greatly from being a high tech video game if it ends up excellent and SE backs it with a strong marketing campaign. The biggest Japanese games in the west aren't even available on the Switch, with a few exceptions like MHR, Dragon Ball, and late ports/cloud versions.

I'm not making any bets, but skipping Switch 1 does have a lot of potential benefits to the IP with or without Sony's moneyhatting, and it's something that SE has to consider. Dragon Quest will be just fine without a Switch because gaming is so much more than just Switch, and the DQ brand is big enough to survive skipping Nintendo platforms in Japan just like MHW did before it.