No Dragon Warrior/Quest 9 for consoles?

[JTK]

It's kind of related to PS3, but it's actually related to the entire console gaming scene in general.


http://www.gamespot.com/news/6163073...stnews;title;0

Dragon Quest IX exclusive to DS
Square Enix surprises many by announcing next installment of popular series will be strictly portable on Nintendo's popular handheld.

By Tim Surette, GameSpot
Posted Dec 12, 2006 11:41 am PT

Though not exactly a household name for gamers here in the United States, the Dragon Quest series is one of the most popular gaming franchises in Japan. The release of Dragon Quest VIII in Japan was met with the same frenzy that typically accompanies the release of the latest edition of another Square Enix franchise, Final Fantasy.

Square Enix released Dragon Quest VIII on the PlayStation 2, which was a great boon for Sony. However, it appears as though the benefactor of Dragon Quest IX will be one of Sony's rivals. Forbes reports that Dragon Quest IX has been announced as an exclusive for the Nintendo DS.

LOL, what about the Wii?

Some analysts think this could be a big blow against Sony because the Dragon Quest franchise is considered a top-tier franchise and has sold more than 41 million copies worldwide. Hiroshi Kamide, analyst at KBC Securities, said the decision to put Dragon Quest IX exclusively on the DS "was rather unexpected, so it's not a huge vote of confidence for the PlayStation 3," reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

Thanks for nothing, would be my response. This is stupid.

Square is also preparing a Dragon Quest game for the Wii, due early next year, and recently released Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, a series spin-off, for the DS.

Ok, so are we back to the 1990's now where Square and Nintendo are going to be all lovey dovey again?

This sure seems like a pretty obvious move against Sony.

I own the DS and love it but I can't imagine playing something this time consuming and in depth on a portable.

What mystifies me to no end is not bringing out a huge, flagship title like this to ANY console at all?

This last DW game on the PS2 is a modern classic and easily the best console RPG I had played in years.

If nothing else, why not make this a PS2 swan song title? Ps3 owners could do the whole backwards compatibility thing and maybe even direct port the thing to the Wii? Ignoring that gigantic userbase seems like sheer folly to me, regardless of the nice early boon the Wii is enjoying.

Why not do DS, Wii, and PS2?

These kinds of decisions just make me want to hit my head against a wall sometimes.

They talk about how they're not confident abou the PS3's prospects in the first year and all that crap (same reason THQ cancelled RAW vs. Smackdown 2007 which was also stupid)...but guys?

If you build it, they will come. If these games are available, people will buy them!

It's a chicken and egg argument but they're creating the very doom and gloom problem that they're lamenting in wretched decisions like these.


Oh well, if that's the case, I guess I'll end up buying a Wii if it means getting DW9 on something besides just a portable. A DW game for me is a system seller in and of itself. That's how awesome these games are.

That and Zelda combined alone gurantee a Wii purchase by me no later than day and date release of the new DW game if that's how it comes out in the was.

[phranctoast]

they have been re-releasing the final fantasy series on the DS. The awesome sales of those titles, and the great expense of developing on "next gen" systems is probably making square enix think twice. I think we will get a dragon quest game for the ps3, it just own be any time soon. We do have Final Fantasy XIII and Versus coming though, and neither title will be too shabby.

[NuSoardGraphite]

The handhelds (DS and GBA) are simply doing better in Japan than consoles have been for the past few years. It stands to reason that the major Japanese developers want to support them...its instant money.

And since developing for the handhelds (both DS and PSP) is much, much cheaper than developing for any console (including the Wii), major developers are likely going to put the majority of their releases on the handhelds to make enough money to put out their major console releases. At least, that seems to be SquEnix's method of operation lately...

The PS2 is another option for cheap development. In fact, there have been a few developers in Japan who said they weren't ready to stop PS2 development yet, since developing for any Next-Gen platform was going to be prohibitively expensive, and the userbase for the PS2 is so ridiculously high, they think it will still be profitable for another 2 years at least.

[JTK]

^^ Agreed 100 percent.

Sony's been upfront about that for quite some time: They know that they have this huge PS2 userbase that's going to take a very long time to get a lot of them to finally upgrade to a PS3, so they know it's in their best interest to keep that platform viable and alive.

[blitz6speed]

Yes, the DS is selling like hotcakes all over the world. I am also about to get one after the holiday season is over, and the last portable ive owned was the original gameboy that came with tetris. So that definetly says somehting about the quality of software on the unit.

That being said, i absolutely ADORED DQ8 on PS2 and was looking very forward to DQ9 on PS3, so when this news hit, it was pretty horrible to hear. However, its not even a turn based RPG like we all know and love, has all these weird online features, etc. It wont be like DQ8, so i dont mind it being on the DS. A big RPG on PS3 is an absolute in the DQ series and it will not disapoint im sure. Nintendo has always been the handheld leader, and as you can see, theres still no big square titles on the wii, since 3rd partys do horrible on any nintendo system since the 64.