Can Nintendo Sell America on Dragon Quest 9?

There is no calling into question the quality of the Dragon Quest series. While they may be too stripped down for some RPG fans, they represent the absolute pinnacle of both JRPG design and narrative, not to mention Japan's biggest franchise. However, it has had a very hard time catching on here in the U.S. It was beginning to look as if Square had accepted that Dragon Quest would be nothing more than a niche franchise here. But it seems the series has a second chance. This time, it's Nintendo's turn to give it a shot.

For Dragon Quest's 9's DS release, Square Enix has partnered with Nintendo to give the game a chance at market penetration. Nintendo will be handling the publishing and all the marketing for the game. In a way, this makes sense, as Nintendo has broken many different games to a wider audience. Nintendogs and Brain Age were the dawn of the non-game's dominance, and Professor Layton had sensibilities that both hardcore and casual players identified with. Dragon Quest 9 actually shares a certain simplicity with those games, so the game fits right in with Nintendo's lineup. However, there are several challenges that Nintendo must overcome before they can succeed. The first is Nintendo's complete lack of experience with RPGs. They're going to have to dig deep and go back to their SNES heyday when they were pushing other publishers' successful RPGs left and right. The other big obstacle is 9's large multiplayer features. The main quest lets you create a party using premade characters, but you can also hook up with three friends to complete the game together. This works well in Japan, where the dense population means partners are easy to find. The U.S., however, can't benefit from the same assumption. Given that the Japanese release didn't include online play, Nintendo and Square Enix are going to have to come up with some sort of solution to make the mode viable.

There is little question that Dragon Quest 9 will satisfy RPG fans. The big question is whether the series can finally find a larger audience. Given how successfully Nintendo has been at creating and promoting successful IP, this might be the best chance the series has ever had. Stay tuned.

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Jason Wilson

April 15, 2010

Does it need to be successful in America?

Jeremy Signor

It absolutely doesn't need to be successful here given how successful it is in Japan, but how successful it is here can have an effect on the games that come here. The most obvious consequence is if future games come out here. Most of the Dragon Quests since 7 have come out here, including the DS remakes. However, the Super Famicom games never showed up here, and given the dismal sales of the remakes here, Square Enix may decide it might not be worth it and give up again. Given that niche games like 7th Dragon and the SaGa 2 remake have yet to be announced over here, companies may be cutting back on what they bring over here given the economy.

The other effect it could have is in feature localization. Dragon Quest 9 doesn't have online play because it was made for a Japanese audience, who don't need online given their city density and game culture. We, on the other hand, thrive on online and are often not in range of someone with local Wi-Fi. The World Ends With You had a similar problem with its Mingle Mode. Since you would be hard-pressed to find anyone to mingle with normally in the country, Square put in UFOs worth a wealth of mingle points that you could find by yourself sometimes. This was a band-aid for the situation, but ultimately it would have been nice if they could have found a way to accurately transplant the intended experience over here. Dragon Quest 9's multiplayer is by far a bigger part of the experience than Mingle mode, so we're missing out on key functionality that might have been compensated for had it been worth it to the publisher. For an extreme case, look at what happened to Yakuza 3 and all the missing content, though I doubt Square would go that far.

Brian Shirk

I don't think it'll be very successful despite being released on a very successful handheld. The majority of JRPG fans in America prefer Final Fantasy-style role-playing-games that have a greater focus on storytelling and character development, so it's unlikely that they'll find Dragon Quest's traditionalism appealing.

I'm interested in trying it, but DQ6 is of greater interest to me having recently enjoyed 4 and 5.

Matthew H. Mason

April 16, 2010

I know this sounds cliche at this point; but if anyone could pull this off, it's Nintendo.

You've already mentioned my biggest concern, that being Square-Enix's disinterest in bringing other games to North America because the audience isn't there. Hell, I'm eternally grateful and relieved that DQ9 is coming here.

But they do need to do more with it than just a mere port; like you said, North America is expansive and the odds of anyone outside of a metropolitan area using local wi-fi is slim to none. I have this gut feeling it will be online, and this will be the impetus for sales.

I don't agree with Brian's assessment that we prefer Final Fantasy styled games; in this instance, I see Nintendo approaching DQ9 much like Pokemon. The DS flat-out has a different audience than people think; DQ9 is being aimed at that 7 to 14 age range, not JRPG fanatics. If they can advertise in a way that focuses on it's strengths as a customizable adventure with a crack-laced hook to leveling up akin to Pokemons addictive monster catching, they'll be doing better than anyone will think.

It's strange, I'm almost as anxious to see how this all rolls out as much as I am about the game proper.

Alex Gagne

Could Nintendo make it succeed? Oh yes.

Will Nintendo make it succeed? Probably not.

Could they advertise the crap out of it, aiming commercials and print ads at the Pokemon crowd? Certainly. It would probably work, as well. Nintendo is not going to do that, because it is not a franchise they can really continue with. Sure, the marketing budget they put into the game may also pay off for the next Dragon Quest (most likely) coming to the Wii, but after that they have no idea if the next DQ game could show up on a Sony platform in a couple years. Then the money they put into selling DQIX could backfire somewhere down the line.

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Michael Bradley

April 29, 2010

The last DQ game I played was part III on the NES. Part 8 on the PS2 caught my eye but I was so inundated with games at the time that an 80+ hour game turned me off. I will be picking this one up though. Something about having a huge time-sink of a game on a portable platform makes it okay. Plus I keep hearing amazing things about it.