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Dragon Quest IX sales top 5.3 million

Square Enix announces new worldwide sales milestone for DS title through December; publisher pledges 100 million yen to earthquake relief.

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Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies didn't waste any time becoming a hit for Square Enix, as the DS title sold 2.3 million units out of the gate. Some 18 months on from its Japanese debut, and the game has proven to have legs. Andria Sang reports today that Square Enix's Japanese arm has confirmed that DQIX has sold 5.3 million units worldwide through December.

Dragon Quest IX has more than 5 million stars in its skies.
Dragon Quest IX has more than 5 million stars in its skies.

Prior to today's announcement, Square Enix had said that DQIX sold 4.26 million units in Japan through the end of March 2010. However, that announcement came prior to the DQIX's July 2010 rollout in North America and Europe. The game is the first in the Dragon Quest series to top the 5 million-unit mark, while the series (including spin-offs) has shipped more than 57 million units through December.

Beyond DQIX sales, Square Enix also announced support efforts for the recent earthquake and tsunami that laid waste to Northern Japan last week. The publisher said that it will donate ¥ 100 million ($1.26 million) to the relief and recovery efforts in the affected regions, in addition to collecting charity donations from its employees worldwide.

Previously, Square Enix said that, beginning March 13, it had taken its massively multiplayer online role-playing games Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV, as well as PlayOnline, offline for at least a week. The publisher apologized for the service disruption on its official forums and said that subscribers to these services would not be billed for the month of April. The move came as part of a nationwide initiative to curb energy usage.

For more on Dragon Quest IX, check out GameSpot's review.

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Avatar image for xGarrettThiefX
xGarrettThiefX

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DQIX - What an absolutely fantastic game !

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Avatar image for TheTrueMagusX1
TheTrueMagusX1

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It is good to hear that Dragonquest IX sold as much as it did. Its definitely one of the best titles of last year. None the less, though it may not point what DQIX sold exactly but I do know it did well. And here is the reason, DQIX had a Marketing campaign, that most JRPGs dream of. It had commercials with Seth Green, and had two page ad spreads in magazines. Most JRPGs dream of that marketing. Most JRPGs donot even get a simple magazine ad these days.

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marinamanson

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The article doesn't say it has sold 1 million outside Japan, it says it had sold a 4.26 million in Japan through the end of March last year, and then by the end of December last year it had sold 5.3 million. It doesn't say the 1.04 million sold between March and December were all outside of Japan. For all we know 90% of those sales could have been in Japan.

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mtait01

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credit where credit is due :)

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Land-0-Funk

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I bought it..but first I have to play through IV,V,VI,VIII on PS2 and then I'll get around IX. I'm sure X and XI will be released by that point :( Glad I have them though cause DQuest is RPG heaven :)

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SaltyMeatballs

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1 million outside of Japan is not bad.

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packtop

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Dragon Quest 9 was one of the best rpg i played on the DS and certaitly the rpg with the most contents to date on the DS. But i really hope the nest time they bring a DQ here in America no matter what the console or handheld if they add multipler option they should add online multiplier. Maybe Japan had load of peoples playing that game so it was easy to find party but here in america it was hard to find even 1 other people to play with. @LoserMike i agree with you it's like Jrpg on console are stuck between the last console generation and the current generation and because of that good Jrpg on console are quite rare this generation.

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youngsexynerd

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god thank you that people are still buying jrpgs, this is fantastic maybe now we will get another dragon quest on the ps3/x360!!

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Avatar image for deactivated-60889f10c3b8e
deactivated-60889f10c3b8e

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Fantastic, fantastic game. SO much play value. And congrats to Level-5, they are a great development house and their English ports of their games are REALLY well done.

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Avatar image for Quezakolt
Quezakolt

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Good to see that a game like DQIX can still be a profitable hit in this day and age. It was my favourite game of 2010!

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VirtualTofu

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DQ IX is awfully fine!

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franzito

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Still wanting to play the previous DQ but, from what I can tell, this saga just keeps great!

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archlvt

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I love how everyone gives SE the credit for this. They did very little during the development process. This game was developed mostly by Level-5, not SE. They just stuck their hand in the cookie jar for recognition. It's the same as Atlus for a LOT of games. Atlus has a very small development list under their belts. More often than not, when you see Atlus on the game cover, it was just PUBLISHED by them, not developed. Check wikipedia on games to see who developed and who published them. The only difference is - what Atlus DOES develop is usually gold, whereas SE has become a pile of poop since their original genius developers have since moved on.

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LoserMike

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@James00715 There are good JRPGs, just that they're not made my big companies like Square-Enix and Namco. Buy games from Atlus. Also the DS and PSP have been the best systems for JRPG this generation since JRPGs haven't transition to the WiiPS360 generation very well.

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Avatar image for deactivated-636f268fe3451
deactivated-636f268fe3451

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DQ9 was awesome. Hope they make more DQ games, especially something on 3DS.

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James00715

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I hope they can start making good console RPGs again.

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Breyant

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Impressive donation considering they released one of the biggest video game bombs of all time. I'm glad to SE is still financially stable, they are still a good company! (most of the time)

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BasilVZero

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Nice move from SE Gonna get DQIX soon, cant wait for X!

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thisranks

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It's a shame SE still gets dumped on by (cough) gamers. They really are a damn good company. Good for them.

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moroumenos

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Wow! Really SE, your donation is amazing! This should help for sure. It looks like some big companies still has a heart (as opposed to many other ones, like SOE who's only offering one month free of charge of DC Universe, like Japanese people and players really care)

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DesertLynx83

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I like Dragon Quest since its basics have remained largely untouched since the beginning. Final Fantasy has sold out.

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illmatic87

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...It had me at hello

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illmatic87

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[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

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hotdiddykong

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As it should, Square is only good at their RPG's, Dragon quest being one of them. Dragpn Quest 9 is an awesome game and deserves those sales 100 Million! Damn square you guys care! Awesome job!

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WilliamRLBaker

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Not surprising not surprising either that 80-90% of its sales were in japan...Sadly the the game sucked completely the prime form of arcahic design that has hampered DQ outside of japan since the snes days. Then you have the fact that 9 has some of the most brain dead design ever the game was literally made around point to point multiplayer with no real online to speak of to do most of the extra stuff in the game you have to be in a place where people own the game...one of the more moronic ideas being that the connect and save stations that would let you get data from masses of people without having to be around them was kept japan only...Outside of those mechanic the game was short, simplistic there was only 1 character with a lame cliche story.

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Arsyad00

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that shud add some budget to japan earth quake charity funds

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Avatar image for Gelugon_baat
Gelugon_baat

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Dragon Quest has officially become Square Enix's most reliable money-printer.

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Avatar image for Fusionmix
Fusionmix

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One of those games I certainly plan to get someday. Right now I've got to make a dent in my backlog first.

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leaguer1

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Good.

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AuronAXE

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First JRPG I pretty much got 100% on. I loved it, a simple idea and yet such a great game.

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4darklink

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This game was great i friggin loved it.

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mumui10

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i love ds ,always great game.

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HaloPimp978

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Best RPG on the DS last year.

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puffadell

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good deal

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OJ_the_LION

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I knew they much preferred DQ in Japan as compared to the west, but that disparity is still amazing. Good to see a quality SE title sell well though, SE's not been doing too hot outside of its main franchises.

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blobulus

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Good fun game.

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soulless4now

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Not surprising that most of the units were sold in Japan.

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emirblade

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Congratz on the copies sold. Glad to hear Square-Enix donating funds. :)

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