Topic: Nintendo to Help Promote Dragon Quest X

[NWR_Neal]

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata wants to 'to increase the number of people worldwide that understand the appeal of Dragon Quest.'
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=17394

 Hot on the heels of Square Enix's announcement of Dragon Quest X for Wii, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata made a statement to the press that revealed that Nintendo might be aiding Square Enix in promoting the hotly anticipated RPG. Iwata said he wants to "build a thriving Japanese game market together with Dragon Quest that rivals the West's (and) form a strong tag team to promote Dragon Quest overseas." He compared what he wants to do with Dragon Quest to what Nintendo did with the Brain Age series.    

Concluding the statement, Iwata said he is "looking forward to working together with Mr. Horii and Square Enix." I'm sure we're all looking forward to more information being revealed about this Wii exclusive."

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

WOW NINTENDO, since when did you start caring?

[Ian Sane]

Nintendo started caring when they landed the most valuable third party franchise in Japan.

Dragon Quest isn't really a big deal here in North America.  The first game shows up in "most influencial" videogame lists for inventing Japanese RPGs.  As a result it's more like the answer to a trivia question.  While most gamers and a fair amount of the general public is familiar with Final Fantasy (or at least knows of it and that it is some videogame series of some kind) Dragon Quest's existence is largely the knowledge of hardcore gamers and those that actually buy the game and like it are an even smaller group.  So yeah trying to make it a big deal in the West is a pretty damn good idea.

Though one problem: Dragon Quest actually somewhat deserves it's minor status in the US.  It's like the archaic old-school RPG that caters to people that want their RPGs to play exactly like they did in the 8-bit era.  That's not something that has wide appeal.  When people think of classic RPG gameplay (or should I so "gameplay"?  Cut the jokes off before they're thought of) they think like Final Fantasy IV as old-school RPG action.  Dragon Quest is like if Mario still played like Super Mario Bros.  Not Mario 3 or Mario World but Mario 1.

It's going to be hard.  I think the real benefit of Dragon Quest X is that it will likely attract the support of other Japanese third parties who will make their own awesome "core games" that will be more accepted by North American gamers.  Dragon Quest X will likely end up being one of the Wii's most historic titles but not necessarily one of its best.

But Nintendo these days seems to be able to pick and choose what games, good or bad, sell like hotcakes.  So if they can catch that same type of magic in a bottle with Dragon Quest then good for them.  Might as well try.

[DAaaMan64]

ugh. oh brother

[nickmitch]

Naturally, NOA will show commercials with a woman and her 5-year-old daughter looking at the game, talking about the game, maybe holding the game and call it a day.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Either Iwata sincerely wants to save the Japanese game development industry, or he likes having it in the palm of his hand.

Emperor Hiroshi Palpatine taught him well... or created a MONSTER.

[Toruresu]

Ok, I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but come on. NOA advertising/pr suck (for hardcoar games). Perhaps this will mark a shift in trends for the NOA marketing campaign?

[NWR_Lindy]

This just in: Nintendo helps promote the Bible.  BECAUSE IT NEEDED THE EXPOSURE

[Bill Aurion]

Dragon Quest isn't quite as popular as the Bible over here...

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Maybe it was Nintendo's fault DQ bombed here 20 yrs ago.

[King of Twitch]

Their Blizzard is pretty good

[broodwars]

*yawn*

Whatever.  The only way that series is going to sell well over here is if Square-Enix stops using its 20-year old design document from Dragon Quest 1 for every game in the (main) damn series.  And if they did that the series wouldn't sell well in Japan, so that's just not going to happen.  A shame, really...I could really dig a DQ RPG that expanded on the concept of Dragon Quest Swords.  But no, it'll be the same damn game as the 9 other games in the series that came before it, with slight graphical tweaks.

Nintendo can promote that game all it wants here, throw up all the commercials they want of "casual" players fiddling with the thing...but if the game itself isn't significantly different it'll sell tepidly here just like all its (numbered) bretheren before it.

[NWR_pap64]

I just love how even the most positive of Nintendo news can be turned around into a negative, angst filled event :p .

Guys, this is normal. Dragonquest X might be the biggest Wii third party title yet, one that isn't a spin off, a party game or a quirky new IP. Its a canon entry to one of the biggest franchises to ever come out of Japan. Can you blame Nintendo for pledging support?

Not to mention that if this works out, other third parties will want to offer their big games and know that Nintendo will support them.

[broodwars]

I just love how even the most positive of Nintendo news can be turned around into a negative, angst filled event :p .

Guys, this is normal. Dragonquest X might be the biggest Wii third party title yet, one that isn't a spin off, a party game or a quirky new IP. Its a canon entry to one of the biggest franchises to ever come out of Japan. Can you blame Nintendo for pledging support?

Not to mention that if this works out, other third parties will want to offer their big games and know that Nintendo will support them.

I said at the outset of the news that the Wii would be getting Dragon Quest X that this would be huge for the console in Japan, and that even though I dislike the series it was good for 3rd party support that Nintendo got it.  Bringing it over here is a completely different story however, because no amount of marketing spin will get that series to sell well in North America if the game itself doesn't offer anything new.  Good for Nintendo to stretch out the olive branch...again...to Square-Enix to establish stronger ties to 3rd parties.

[King of Twitch]

That would be awful, then we really would have nothing to ***** about

[AV]

they should of done this to Metroid Prime 3 or World of Goo or something. Some people outside of Japan will care but squarenix will gets its 4 million sales in Japan without a single TV ad, what else do they want 4.3 sales worldwide ? now thats just greedy.

[King of Twitch]

Ah, that's better.

[KDR_11k]

Last I checked DQ9 was going to be an action RPG so the series isn't completely stagnant.

[MaleficentOgre]

no, I hear they changed DQIX back cause people got mad.
Marketing works. If they do this right then Nintendo will break every sort of sales record Japan has. only if the marketing is good though.

[NWR_Lindy]

Dragon Quest 9 is not going to be an action-RPG.  It's straight-ahead Dragon Quest, thank God.

[Bill Aurion]

Enemies are finally visible on the map, though, which is a HUGE improvement that should have been in VIII...

Random battles are just INEXCUSABLE these days...

[Sundoulos]

I think Nintendo wants to continue to repair those inroads it lost with Square in the 90s.

I still think this is awesome news, and a great fit for Nintendo both in terms of marketing and art style.  Dragon Quest is still a behemoth in Japan, and probably wouldn't require much in the way of expensive marketing (in Japan) anyway.  It sort of fits with Nintendo's low-key advertising style.  Outside of Japan, is a tougher sell, but maybe they don't care as much; there's not much in the way of competition with other RPGs.

Dragon Quest VIII was easily one of my favorite RPGs of the last gen consoles, and I'm loving DQ IV DS so far; buying IX and X are both no-brainers for me.   

[Ian Sane]

Enemies are finally visible on the map, though, which is a HUGE improvement that should have been in VIII

Oh, really?  That's great news!  Not only will that make DQ a little more marketable but it will also make it a better game.  I might buy it because of that.  Random battles is usually a deal breaker for me.  Without that I'm much more willing to give DQ a chance.

Nintendo should also heavily promote DQIX and the recent DQIV re-release.  The DS is a popular system for RPGs.  If DQIX is a hit in the US then it will be much easier for DQX to be a hit.  Don't put all your eggs in one basket, right?  DQIX can act as a test run for Nintendo and they can learn from that what to do better with DQX.

[Schadenfreude]

Maybe it was Nintendo's fault DQ bombed here 20 yrs ago.

Maybe giving away copies wasn't such a good idea.

[Mario]

Ugh, disappointing, let third parties do their own damn work . They don't deserve anything handed to them on a plate.