Posted on 09/07/2009 by Shawn

It appears that Square Enix's Dragon Quest IX, one of the most hotly anticipated titles in Japan, has broken its street date, getting sold two days before the official launch.

Dragon Quest IX is the ninth main-series entry in the long running series, and is the first original numbered entry in the series to be released on a handheld. The game was set to release back in 2007, but has been delayed numerous times since, ending up at the July 11th release date.

While the image at NeoGAF's forums is unconfirmed, the game case, Nintendo DS cartridge, instruction manual, and the Nintendo DS running the game can been seen, so it is unlikely this is a faked shot. 

http://www.gamingunion.net/news/dragon-quest-ix-street-date-broken-in-japan--229.html

Will the copies already sold count towards the full week sales figures?

This is VERY illegal; there's law in Japan that forbids a Dragon Quest game from being launched besides weekends.

@routsounmanman I think I remember reading a story about this its because its very popular and they don't want people to skip work just to buy a game am I right?

SE as always subestimated DQ, since the merger it has seemed square has complete control over everything and that means FF gets all the attention.

interesting, does anyone have a link to this?

What are you trying to say?

There is a LAW in Japan that no Dragon Quest game can be released during the week. Previous entries in the series caused children to skip out on school, and grown adults to abandon work, so the games may only be released on Saturday or Sunday.

Getting it beforehand is technically illegal. I doubt we cancount these "broken date" sales either. VGC has enough of DQ to track with a "Week 0" getting in the way.

there was a story before where they used to cancel school when DQ games were released because people would not show up.

That being said, I hope these count.

I was looking for something more like the following

for the full story of DQ go here - http://rpgland.com/specials/special-features/the-history-of-dragon-quest/

Anyways, this won't be a week 0 issue, since the early sales are occuring in the same week as the release week. (week ends sunday, game launches saturday, street date broekn thursday) Week 0 issues occur when games luanch on Sunday in America and the street date is broken (week ends saturday, game launches sunday, street date broken on friday/saturday)