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Many a gamer is no doubt still coming off a euphorial high from experiencing the transcendental RPG of 2005, Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King. And surely many of these gamers are looking forward with anticipatory glee to the game's assured sequel. But if you're one of those people and you're expecting to soon be playing this game on your PlayStation 3, there are, alas, only four words to share: don't bet on it.
It's generally taken as a given that the PS3 will dominate the RPG market as surely as its predecessor, the PS2, has done. This would be a faulty assumption to make, and despite the natural belief that Dragon Quest IX will appear alongside Final Fantasies XIII through XV, it's simply way too early to draw such a conclusion. In fact, there's considerable evidence to suggest the exact opposite, that the Dragon Quest franchise will be vacating the PlayStation brand heading into the next console generation. Those eager to sample the delights of Dragon Quest IX may just need to buy a Wii, instead. It may not be the likeliest console on an immediate glance, but the evidence suggests that it just might happen.
For starters, one must consider Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada's professed goal of seeing his company take a more balanced approach to the market, including taking a look at offering a healthy development slate for more than just one console. And why not? Square Enix gains very little benefit in Sony being the enormous publishing and hardware manufacturing powerhouse it is today. By splitting its two major franchises, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, between Sony and Nintendo, Square Enix has the ability to force a great degree of parity into the market. That would be exactly the right strategy for Square Enix, one of the largest third party publishers, to take. If Nintendo and Sony are more equal in terms of marketshare, then Square Enix has more influence and power. Equalizing hardware manufacturers means more power to software publishers. When one hardware manufacturer controls 66% of the market, software publishers are extremely limited in their options vis-a-vis development -- they're entirely subject to all the regulations, restrictions, and demands of the hardware company, and they have little to no leverage with which to reverse policies which may be harmful to the third parties' interests.
The Xbox 360 is just not a viable platform for the Dragon Quest series. The console has a beyond negligible presence in Japan, and Square Enix simply cannot place a multimillion-unit franchise on a console which can barely crack a hundred thousand. The Dragon Quest series derives nearly all of its sales from its home region, unlike the Final Fantasy games which appeal to a more worldwide audience. First and foremost, for Dragon Quest, a console must be successful in Japan, and, for those who haven't been paying attention to current sales trends there, the Wii is almost guaranteed to become a huge hit. If the Wii sells slightly less or about equal to the PS3, Dragon Quest IX is an enormously strong possibility. If it actually outsells the PS3 in Japan, it's nearly a certainty. So let's look at why.
Square Enix clearly recognizes how beneficial equalized hardware manfuacturers are to third parties: by promising two high profile games for the Wii console's launch, Square Enix is sending a very strong sign of early support to the console. While some can argue that their importance is mitigated due to their status as franchise spinoffs, each is likely to sell at least a million units worldwide -- numbers it would be hard to see Square Enix disappointed with. Main series games or not, two titles within launch says to gamers, "We want you to buy this brand new system, and you can count on games from us to convince you to do it." It's unlikely their support will end there.
And what about one of those two titles? There is much to set Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors apart from other Dragon Quest spinoffs, but the most notable thing about the game is the fact that it is utilizing the main creative team for the Dragon Quest series, each in their main series roles: Akira Toriyama will do character designs, Koichi Sugiyama will do the music and sound composition, and series creator Yuji Horii will do game design and story scenario. This might seem like a minor thing, but it's actually unprecedented in for any Dragon Quest spinoff to be treated so seriously. While Sugiyama has taken composing duties for nearly all of the many, many spinoffs, Toriyama has only infrequently lent them his character design skills. And meanwhile, though Horii has served as executive producer for all Dragon Quest spinoffs, the man who first brought the series into existence and has seen it through each of its installments has never once performed his main series roles of game design and scenario for a spinoff. Never. Why the sudden change of heart? I would suggest it is because the father of Dragon Quest, as well as his team and the Square Enix higher-ups, view this as more than a simple new spinoff: it's viewed as a major game to test the waters for Dragon Quest on Wii in order to determine the viability of the franchise making its new home on that console.
Consider, also, the following. While the Final Fantasy series has oft graced competing platforms in order to function as the most spread-out and diverse RPG franchise around, this has never, ever happened with Dragon Quest. Final Fantasy may have appeared on both the Wonderswan Color and the Game Boy Advance, it may have appeared on both the PS2 and the GameCube, and it may be appearing on both the PS3 and the Wii as well as the PSP and the DS... but Dragon Quest hasn't. The series has always found a single platform and stuck with it, even including spinoffs. Dragon Quest spinoffs appeared exclusively on the Game Boy, the GBC, and the GBA. The series and its spinoffs appeared exclusively on the PS2. And so far Dragon Quest has stayed far away from Sony's PSP while the DS has acquired at least two Dragon Quest games. Will this coming console generation be the first one in the series twenty-year history to see Dragon Quest go multiplatform? Maybe. Anything's possible, after all. But the history here has shown a clear preference for finding a single console and sticking with it, and there's a strong chance that's just what Square Enix will do. And with Dragon Quest Swords, that console of choice is the Wii.
Plans can change, of course. If Dragon Quest Swords performs horribly and reveals itself to be a failure in game design or sales appeal, then that will probably force a reevaluation of Horii's and Square Enix's plans. The game is an example of testing the waters, and if the water's not fine, Dragon Quest won't come in. But don't expect that to happen. If Swords sells decently, look for Square Enix to sit Dragon Quest to the sidelines until a clear and decisive victor is determined between the consoles in Japan. If the game performs very well, however, I would wager we'll be hearing about Dragon Quest IX pretty soon, and it won't be on the platform most people are expecting.
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