Dragon Quest IX for Nintendo DS

PKFC writes "Square Enix, at the 20th Anniversary Dragon Quest conference, has announced Dragon Quest IX: Defender of the Stars ... for the DS. Developed by Level 5, the game will feature four player co-operative mode and an action battle system. Also announced is a Dragon Quest arcade game called Battle Road. Both are expected to hit sometime in 2007 in Japan." This is huuuge news, as it puts the immensely popular Dragon Quest together with the immensely popular DS. Odds are Nintendo will pick up even more sales on the heels of this announcement. Relatedly, DS Fanboy got a few tidbits of info on the upcoming Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles , also for the DS.

The real DQ9?

[hansamurai]

The real question is, is this the real and official Dragon Quest 9 (with no subtitle)? Square-Enix's latest craze is developing and announcing spinoff titles at the same time as the original game. Look at Final Fantasy XIII, there's the FF13 (no subtitle for the PS3), Final Fantasy Agito XIII (for the mobile phone), and Final Fantasy Versus XIII (also for the PS3). That's just one example, look how they're starting to milk Final Fantasy VII, according to Wikipedia there's something like five titles released or in development.

I am willing to bet that the "real" Dragon Quest 9 is being released on the PS3 and that Nintendo scored a one-off title and the early announcement. Either way, I'm sure the Japanese will continue to buy many millions of whatever console it is released on.

Re:Wow.

[ParaphiliaNOS]

With your reference to the Wii I assume that you acknowlege the Final Fantasy III for the DS and other Square properties for handhelds.  (For newcomers it was already released in North America November 17th.)

Square began supporting Nintendo again when Bandai's Wonderswan Color/Crystal began losing traction in Japan and the Advance was the clear handheld winner.  The support for the DS is just an organic extension of the Advance SP market share.  I'm sure we'll see a few more for PSP, but only as much as Sony makes it easier to port console titles.

For console titles, I'm with you here: Who's going to get the Squaresoft/Square-Enix love?

Re: Yamauchi vs. SquareSoft

[trdrstv]

Square began supporting Nintendo again when Bandai's Wonderswan Color/Crystal began losing traction in Japan and the Advance was the clear handheld winner.

Actually there was never a threat there. Square started supporting Nintendo when Yamauchi stepped down, and Iwata became president of Nintendo. There was real bad blood from the N64 / PS1 years, and Yamauchi didn't WANT Sqaure properties on Nintendo platforms. Iwata basically made amends, and Square began supporting Nintendo again with the GBA.

Re: Yamauchi vs. SquareSoft

[HappySqurriel]

There's a little bit more to that aswell ... Square lost a lot of money on Final Fantasy the movie and Iwata approached Square about how inexpensive game development was for the GBA and how (with Nintendo's help) they could make cheap games for the Gamecube; Final Fantasy: Chrystal Cronicles was a game made by a joint venture between Square that was funded by Fund Q (the new studio fund produced by Yamauchi when he steped down).

Re:Why not the PSP?

[MemoryDragon]

Easy, stronger game buy rate, many psp owners simply have bought it to play emus and shy new software due to firmware updates which close the homebrew hole. The games are way less expensive to develop for and the controller interface opens possibilities formerly only being possible with a mouse. Btw. the sales numbers have been corrected by others I do not comment on them.