Massive sales predicted for Dragon Quest IX on DS
Japanese sales should make Monster Hunter's look paltry...
An analyst has predicted Square Enix's DS game Dragon Quest IX will sell over 5 million units in Japan, which - in turn – will produce 20 billion yen ($190 million) in revenue. Unsurprisingly, share prices for Square rose yesterday following the prediction, by 1.9 per cent.
Not that we're too interested in shares obviously, but we are quite interested in just how big the game is expected to be. Few DS games have shifted over 5 million copies solely in Japan, and the ones that have – Pokémon, Brain Age 2 and New Super Mario Bros for example – have all been first-party Nintendo games.
Still, Dragon Quest is massively popular in Japan. At the end of 2007, the series had sold a total of over 43 million units. And the thinking behind Tokyo analyst Takashi Oka's 5 million prediction is that the game will do even better on a handheld console than it has in the past on home consoles.
Despite the optimism on how big the game is going to be, we're still awaiting news on when it will be released here in the west. Going on its expected popularity in Japan though, we're guessing Square might be too busy counting its millions of yen to get round to the localisation that quickly...
