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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.
This is a huge announcement, One of Japan's biggest franchises headed to the biggest handheld. The more I think about it though, the more it makes sense. Square-Enix has stated before that while it wants to support Sony it doesn't want to pour all of its development into the system. Essentially spreading the wealth to other consoles/markets.
Since the PS3 is already getting a Final Fantasy game, it's probably a little late now to bring out a new Dragon Quest game for the PS2, I can't imagine them sticking on 'waggle' functions for a Wii version and due to their current support of the Xbox360(have they released any games for the xbox360?) the DS is the best choice.
Chewie does not get a medal. Come on, George. Can a Wookie get a medal?
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.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
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?
I'm sure the mods had a hard time deciding between troll and flamebait on this one, but I'm gonna bite anyhow.
Nintendo actually takes the time (and risk) to develop different things for their series, instead of releasing the same old crap with a bit of spit and polish. Yes, that means they come out with crap some of the time. It means they will piss off people that wanted more of the same. But it also means fresh games and innovation. I'll take the latter, thanks.
If you don't LIKE the games, you are perfectly free to not buy them. You don't even have to buy the console for them. You can just let the rest of us who DO enjoy new stuff play them instead. In 10 years, if Nintendo is dead, then you can gloat and say 'I predicted their demise in a troll thread on Slashdot!' I doubt you'll get the chance, though.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
There's another article at GamesAreFun which includes links to some gameplay footage and other tidbits.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I'll wait for a Jessica-shaped controller
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.
So the other troll's problem was that they changed games too much, and your problem is that they don't change games enough.
Let me help both of you: You're talking about different games.
Nintendo doesn't release 1 or 2 games a years. They release tons. Some of them are the same (New Super Mario Brothers) and some are completely different (Metroid Prime). Some are similar in feel and mechanics, but different in plot (Twilight Princess). They also have completely new and innovative games (Pikmin).
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
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).
The PSP is actually much deader in Japan than in Europe as the DS has consistently been outselling it 5:1 to 10:1 for more than 30 weeks (since the release of the DS Lite in March)
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Nintendo nor Xbox need to put any nails in Sony's coffin. Sony has all the nails and hammers to do it themselves. The PSP tried to be too many things all at once, but ended up becoming so unfocused that it couldn't get a strong base from either gamers, movie lovers, or audiophiles.
Can I bum a sig?
As of November 30th, 2006, DS had sold about 26 million units, while the PSP had sold about 22 million units (worldwide, source: Wikipedia) - not that much of a installed base discrepancy.
I could be wrong but I believe those are shipped numbers for the PSP vs. sold numbers for the Nintendo DS. The reason for this is that vgcharts.org tracks North American and Japaneese sales and has the DS at about 21.25 Million sold in these regions (8,497,000[NA] + 12,809,750[J]) with the PSP at about 11 Million units (6,460,500 [NA] + 4,457,000[J]); basically, I doubt 9 Million PSPs were sold in Europe if only 5.75 Million Nintendo DS' were sold being that the PSP launched much later in Europe and has been reported to be far less popular.
Furthermore, the PSP is, at first impression, a more desirable machine - despite the higher cost, it has (by comparison) lovely graphics abilities, and far more storage. Sure, it has loading time issues, but these could certainly be fixable if the developers were willing to address them (of course, I haven't worked for the PSP, so perhaps that's more difficult than I make it sound). Why the strong developer support for the DS, then?
The DS love (from developers) comes largely because of the larger install base [in particular in Japan ~ 3 DS to 1 PSP), the better software tie-in ration [in particular in Japan ~3.5 pieces of software per DS to 1.75 pieces of software per PSP), and the much lower development costs of the Nintendo DS; in essence, if you are developing a game for Japaneese gamers you can spend 1/4 as much developing a DS game and are likely going to sell twice as many copies as a PSP game.
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.
They are thinking, "We are making this for the Japanese market where the DS is outselling all other consoles combined by 2:1 every week, and the reason DQ outsells FF every single time certainly isn't because of the graphics."
just some guy
That's a load of crock. It was money out of Yamauchi's pocket that funded Square's return to Nintendo, via the Game Designer's Studio. It wasn't his stepping down that allowed Square to develop for Nintendo systems again. It was the public apology from Square for their actions during the N64/PSX era, and the demotion of their officers.
Basically, Square flooded the consumers with anti-Nintendo propaganda, and publicly stated that they would never develop for a Nintendo system again, during the FF7 promotions. There is also a rumour that Square convinced Enix to move Dragon Quest to Playstation, costing Nintendo BIG TIME. Nintendo took a huge loss in sales over the incident, and held a grudge against Square for years.
Square started to feel the pain as well when the GBA came out. It was a PERFECT system for them to develop for. They could port many of their old games to it, and make tonnes of money. In addition, the FF Movie bombed big time, and Square was in TROUBLE. They really had no choice but to bite the bullet and give Nintendo their apology, to gain permission to develop for the handheld. A side effect of the deal was a Final Fantasy game for GameCube.