Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - 26th Sept

[Dcubed]

Dragon Quest CAN be successful in the west.  DQ8 and DQ9 are living proof of that.

 

DQ11 wasn’t able crack the western market for two key reasons.

 

1: It didn’t get the marketing push it needed the first time around; and was marred by controversy surrounding its lack of orchestral music.  The PS4 as a platform, is also not generally kind to traditional JRPGs, certainly nothing like the audience Nintendo cultivated with the 3DS (and subsequently Switch).

 

2: When the game finally did arrive on Switch, it was too late.  The game was already a year old in the West (And two years old in Japan).  Even though it came with a slew of massive improvements and additions, got a big marketing push by Nintendo and was an all round miracle port; it is ultimately still a very late port, and that puts a hard ceiling on its potential sales.

 

The silver lining is that the game is not done selling on Switch.  Switch games are characterised by strong legs and DQ11s still has the holiday season left to go.

 

Ultimately, the game’s sales failure (both in and out of Japan) was a result of a series of poor decisions all around on the part of S-E.  First off, DQ11 should’ve just been a 3DS exclusive to begin with, released back in 2013-2014, during the system’s prime.  S-E spent the majority of the generation spinning their wheels and pissing about with mobile, instead of just throwing their full weight behind 3DS like they should’ve just done in the first place.  They should never have bothered with a PS4 game and have just saved their big HD game for Switch’s launch period and have released it as DQ12; instead of making two entirely different games called DQ11 that both sold less than half of what DQ7, DQ8 and DQ9 managed.

 

It should have then been localised in 2014-2015; around the time the New3DS released.  Would’ve easily have cleared 1 million without question; the 3DS schedule had an open slot around that time that was just begging to be filled by a big RPG, and DQ11 would’ve fit that bill perfectly.

 

DQ12 as a Switch exclusive would then have been able to neatly ride the coattails of Xenoblade 2 and easily would’ve cleared another 1-1.5 million in the west.  Instead S-E ended up with a huge list of mobile failures and three different games (all called DQ11) which all ended up underperforming.

 

This was all avoidable and everyone with half a brain cell saw this all coming a mile off.  But of course, S-E just had to S-E...

Edited October 18, 2019 by Dcubed

[Emerald Emblem]

To be honest, I'm sure the West sees it as a more kiddy RPG that fits most peoples image of Nintendo which has the likes of Pokemon and Yokai Watch, I'm sure they would have seen more sales on Switch than Playstation if they released on the same day. Didn't Dragon Quest Builders 2 sell a lot more on Switch than Playstation 4?
 

Edited October 18, 2019 by Emerald Emblem

[Dcubed]

13 minutes ago, Emerald Emblem said:

To be honest, I'm sure the West sees it as a more kiddy RPG that fits most peoples image of Nintendo which has the likes of Pokemon and Yokai Watch, I'm sure they would have seen more sales on Switch than Playstation if they released on the same day. Didn't Dragon Quest Builders 2 sell a lot more on Switch than Playstation 4?
 

Yes it did.  Both in and outside of Japan.

[Dcubed]

Better late than never! (In short, this port is a miracle!)

 

And yes, they're right.  The battle music totally sounds like 60s Batman!

[Jonnas]

I've always seen Dragon Quest as an RPG version of Zelda. Marketing that to Switch owners should be a no-brainer.

Personally, I'm chalking DQXI's underperformance to Link's Awakening being released during the same month.

[Mandalore]

The name doesn't exactly do it much favours. 

[Sheikah]

The Switch version is £34.85 right now at Simply Games

[Tim B]

There will be no problems with Dragon Quest 12 becoming successful in the west if they launch all of the versions at the same time.

In Dragon Quest 11, I’m 25 hours in now and could not love it any more than I do. I’m enjoying all of the plot twists and I suspect there are many more to come.

I finally got one of the keys which allows me to unlock some of the locked doors that I keep seeing everywhere. It was frustrating not being able to access them at all.

I haven’t been bothering crafting weapons with the fun-sized forge and I seem to be managing just fine without it. One of the bosses *almost* wiped out my entire party, but I managed to get through it.

It’s really refreshing using the auto-battle system for an RPG, but the concept took a while to get my head around. When I eventually move on to Pokémon Shield it might feel weird to be actually selecting the moves individually again.

[Ike]

Switch version is currently 43% off for the digital version.

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch/DRAGON-QUEST-XI-S-Echoes-of-an-Elusive-Age-Definitive-Edition-1514406.html

The game has sold 6 millions (total across all platforms/version).