The US release date is now official:
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/63871
I am looking forward to this game, but I am wondering if they’ll change stuff for the US releases because some of the features - specifically the multiplayer support w/o wifi and downloading new quests is not so easy for many in the states (believe it not, 1/2 internet connections in the US are still via modem).
I will get it. Also Wii’s Dragon Quest X.
This game will be mine. Oh yes… it shall be mine…
maniacal evil laughter
Not certain how much this will affect most players, but NA/European versions are computable. However, SE did not add Wifi for the English release, so I’m not sure how much that will affect stuff except at conventions.
So just curious as there is only one save slot what gender you’ll make your charter and if you’ll be using one of those silly faces?
Breee-breee-dooo!
[b]A Loli draws near!
The Loli attacked before You was ready.
The Loli is breathing fire.
Excellent move!
Thy HP decreased by 999.
Thou art dead.[/b]
Male… and no to the silly faces.
Oi… did anyone else notice that Nintendo - not Square-Enix - is publishing DQ9 outside of Japan?
Rather interesting and odd situation.
I noticed too. Nintendo published Dragon Warrior (aka Quest) 1 to USA, too. =x
I noticed it. My guess is they’ve been able to take previously though unmarketable titles in NA like Brain Age and make them popular. As to DW1 comparison, I don’t think the same issues that plagued that game are present. The graphics, while not state-of-the-art, don’t look cheesy, the concept of an RPG has been ingrained in the US pcyche, gameplay has been developed from the start to be more inline with what western, particularly US, consumers want (without breaking some core principles like turn-based battles), etc.
The only real issue is the lack of internet wifi co-op which is probably needed more for the US than Japan simply due to population density.
[DQ Nine] - Dubbed over interview with Iwata asking Horii and Ichimura about DQ series. Lots of good info there about the Dragon Quest history.
Anyone else playing it? I’m having a blast.
It’s really awesome how Enix is finally using the decades of armor and weapon designs, that DQ has created (Toriyama is an awesome equipment designer), in the actual game.
I’m also really impressed with the new monster designs (not that I have anything against slimes or drackies or anything). :o
The fallen angel Narg, is saving the world with identical triplet sisters. 8)
EDIT
There’s a profanity filter in the game, for names…
Can’t name someone Rapist or Bukkake.
EDIT 2
This game has three save slots, but only one of them is player accessible. The other two are: Quick Save and a backup for the Quick Save. 
I am not surprised. Even other games with online capabilities as extensive as DQ9 that aren’t as family-friendly as DQ have filters specific words. Hell filters are on many not-so-family-friendly forums. Even ignoring the young kids playing this game, a lot of people don’t want to bump into someone in their inn whose character is Fucker.
I’m might try to see how extensive they’ve made the filter. FE can you use “Rap-ist” or Bu kka ke"
Yea that was a big issue when it came out in Japan. The only 1 accessable save slot.
If you have an Action Replay, and don’t want to grind 500 hours to get level 99 in all classes… eleven times EACH… for the last title awards.
Multiplies the XP you get from battles by over 9000 (times 16384 to be exact):
5215525C E0832002
0215525C E0832702
D0000000 00000000
Become level 99 in one battle, if you pick 'em right.
Here’s the times 16384 multiplier for Gold:
52155270 E0832002
02155270 E0832702
D0000000 00000000
No… I’m not using them. whistles innocently
On a side note, awesome translation as it is, I’m going insane over all this Cockney British English. As if Boston American English wasn’t hard enough for me.
I believe you… 
Might be due to DQ8’s popularity and wanting to give it more of ye olde Englisc fairy-tale.
BTW, you should upload pics of you and your triplet sisters.
In the month of July, DQ9 sold 132,000 copies in the US. Numbers confirmed by the NPD and other reliable data gathering groups. It broke through the 100K marker within 2 weeks, so that’s very good… but will it reach the 1 million marker before the year is out?
That being said: DQ9 shows Nintendo’s marketing efforts, did get people interested… but probably not at the numbers they wanted. For comparison, Pokemon Pearl/Diamond sold over 500,000 units on it’s first day of release. So yea… there’s successful, and then there’s OMFG successful.
For the record: DQ8 sold over 400,000 copies in North America and DQ7 sold over 200,000 copies in North America. Nintendo investors were looking for something like 600,000 to 800,000 total with DQ9. We’ll see if they can reach either in 90 days.
Yea, I know I’m digging here, but black friday sales reports are stating DQ9 was the top seller for DS games. I don’t know whether that’s good (it being that high) or bad (because it was discounted in many places and may have pushed sales). From what I’ve read it topped the DS games sold, but it was in some places as low as $17.
It’s good because the retail stores were able to empty their warehouses of poor selling games that were taking up valuable storage space. It also means Nintendo doesn’t have to worry about getting back unsold copies of games for “retail trade” on newer released titles.
It’s bad because retail stores are not going to restock more copies of DQ9 because it sold poorly at MSRP, and thus Nintendo won’t be making more $$$ directly off sales of DQ9. That subsequently means Nintendo’s warehouses full of DQ9 waiting to be sent to retailers, will either remain full, or require Nintendo to spend $$$ on disposing of the packaging and recycling the gaming cards.
All in all: DQ9 was a failure, and this is why the English release of DQ6 has been placed on hold until 2011 (or may be outright cancelled if Square Enix suffers a poor 4th Quarter).
Looks like DQ9 managed to squeak past the million mark outside Japan with 1.02m.
http://www.siliconera.com/2011/01/27/he … -overseas/
Nice find. 
Personally I think the financial report is kinda miss leading: 1 million is how many Nintendo sold to retailers, but not indicitive of how many copies the retailers actually sold. As you mentioned previously, the game is going for $15 to $25 these days… which is somewhere between 30% to 55% off the MRSP. However 1 million would mean the game has broken even for investors - they got back exactly as much as they put in.
I would argue though, that the main problem with warehouses full of DQ9 (which appears to be the case, given the price slashing), is retailers won’t be keen on ordering a lot of DQ6 from Nintendo: which is how they make their money. I suspect that DQ6 will be very limited run: maybe 100,000 cards pressed on initial run. If for nothing else: everyone has Pokemon on the brain.
NPD reported two months ago, that DQ9 sold under 400,000 copies in North America. If that remains the case, then it would appear the series did better in Europe and the Middle East.
EDIT
The report about Super Mario Galaxy 2 is rather disappointing. Everyone was claiming it be a 10 million seller. Only 6 mil in the end… I mean, yea, 6 mil is a lot… but Nintendo rates “true” success on the 10 million scale. Especially for a Mario game, which as the charts show, are usually 20 million sellers.
As someone who’s currently playing Mario Galaxy 1, I can attest to the fact that the game has sporatic, yet severe issues. Roughly 15-20% of the time I’m playing the game, I’m swearing a blue streak at the [censored] [beep]ing god-damned piece of [beep] camera. Getting killed cause you can’t see what’s going on flat out sucks. It manages to be worse than Mario 64 in this regard because of the unusual geometry in the levels. Another 5-10% of the time I’m having a problem with the controller deciding to correlate the direction I’m pushing the analog stick, and the direction Mario moves, in rather odd ways.
Of course, we ARE talking about Super Mario Galaxy 2 here. I mean, this is a Mario game from Nintendo, and last I checked, New Super Mario Bros was to this day regularly showing up on monthly top sales charts - nowhere near the top, of course, but if it’s a relatively slow month - there is is, ranked #16, moving another however many units. And this is five years later. (Edit: I just checked - between April 1 and Dec 31 of last year, it sold 3.7M copies.) So if MG2 hasn’t sold ten mil yet, well, I’d venture all Nintendo has to do is wait.
And if they for some reason get really desperate, they can always wait a while, then release Super Mario Galaxy Collection and include both games in one package.
Edit: And apparently New Super Mario Bros. Wii has sold 21.2M total copies, 6.58 million of which between April 1 and Dec 31 of last year. Super Mario Galaxy 2 “only” sold 6.15 million during that same period. (It wasn’t out before Mar 2010 anyway).
So Galaxy 2 got beat by a pretty significant margin by a game that was released six months earlier. Of course, there was maybe six to eight weeks in that reporting period where NSMB Wii was on sale, but Galaxy 2 wasn’t out yet. Too bad Galaxy 1 isn’t in either source document so we can’t see how it did.
My sources:
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2011/110128e.pdf
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2010/100507e.pdf
