Square Enix’s Attempts To Break The MMO World Fail Again With Dragon Quest X Online

Square Enix are most well known for their high quality RPG franchises such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, but recent efforts have shown that even a franchise with a massive following can fall short on the MMO scene

[NewMonday]

SE seem to only break themselves, after FF and Kingdom Hearts its now DQ.

[CaptainCamper]

A sad fact for a company that I once held in such high regard :(

[Capt-FuzzyPants]

KH is broken? I've loved every single game that's in the series.

[user5467007]

Why is this a MMO?....I mean wouldn't you just start a Dragon Quest MMO franchise instead of doing it in the main series.

[phantomexe]

I agree with you mike but didn't they say this game is a big success in japan right now. i know a friend of mine wants it for the wii u here in the states.

[Chrono]

They could have easily sold millions by now if it wasn't an MMO. This sold 450k in its first week, while the other ones sold millions.

[oldfriend86]

^ That's what we've all been saying for Final Fantasy XI and XIV.

I was unaware that DQIX did that well. On the outside, it appeared to be empty of story compared to the others. Guess it's true to not judge a book by its cover.

As for DQX, he's merely basing his "Square Enix MMO fail" claim to low sales. I was expecting to hear something bad about the game itself. It's only natural for gamers to wait until the Wii U, before buying this game.

[wishingW3L]

the game's an MMO with monthly fees. I think that's bad enough... This is just Square thinking that since an MMO makes more money than a normal retail game then combined with the huge popularity of the franchise they would been swimming in a pool of money right now but the strategy failed. The game itself under-performed, not even the name of DQ, the biggest and most important video game franchise in Japan can sell an MMO to people that aren't interested in the genre.

[oldfriend86]

I realize you made an update to your post. That said, DQX will be released for Wii and Wii U. People probably want to wait for the Wii U release, since the Wii itself is at the end of its life. Keeping that in mind, that number is pretty good for only four days and being for the Wii release.

You mentioned the game under performed, how so? The article only covers the sales and nothing about the game itself.

[Moncole]

Most people are probably waiting to get it on the Wii U because it will be way better.

[Menchi]

They did pretty damn well with Final Fantasy XI. Better than most in fact. If I remember correctly, it's one of their biggest income streams out of all the series.

Of course, because it is Online only, it has to be rubbish, right? Couldn't be more wrong. One of the best stories in the series with the Chains of Promathia expansion.

[oldfriend86]

It's profitable because of its monthly subscription and paid-expansion packs. Of course it's going to make more money than any other FF game.

I believe people when they say that it's a fun game, as well as addictive. I also know that it has a deep and very detailed narative. It still should not have been given a numerical title. They should have made it Final Fantasy Online or some creative title; but my opinion doesn't reflect the quality of the game. If a good Final Fantasy or a bad one determined its right to be a numerical title; Final Fantasy Tactics should've been one too.

[Servbot41]

FFXI also released in a time before WoW (in Japan), before the F2P boom, and is available on 3 platforms. There's no way a Nintendo-only P2P MMO can flourish like FFXI did.

[knifefight]

"Dragon Quest X Online has only sold a mere 367,148 copies since launch four days ago. For any regular title, that’s a pretty impressive number but a large majority of Dragon Quest games have been known to sell amounts in the millions within the first week of release."

^ Right...within the first week. So how about give it a week instead of 4 days?

And yeah, that *is* a huge sales number in Japan. Big huge, especially when you consider those sales are to a group that probably doesn't usually play MMOs and that all of it represents $12 a month coming your way.

It's way too early to call the game a flop -- these numbers are actually pretty good.

[Servbot41]

You think its going to sell 2 million more copies in 3 days? Because that's how well DQIX sold.

[knifefight]

Not at all, nor did I indicates such.

Please read and understand the point of the comment though.
"And yeah, that *is* a huge sales number in Japan. Big huge, especially when you consider those sales are to a group that probably doesn't usually play MMOs and that all of it represents $12 a month coming your way."

^ That's the money right there.
It doesn't NEED to sell 2 mil. It's already bound to make more *money* than DQ9.

[leahcim]

where are you my beloved squaresoft?

where is your Magic?

Long ago you dear Squaresoft were synonymous of perfection with gems such as:

Secret of Mana
Secret of Evermore
Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy
Bushido Blade
Tobal
Einhander
Soukaigi
Ehrgeiz
Parasite Eve
Threads of Fate
Legend of Mana
Vagrant Story
Xenogears
Saga Frontier
Chrono Cross
Brave Fencer Musashi (my personal favorite of all times)

[Spenok]

This is a bad article flaming SE because its the cool thing to do at the moment. The game hasn't even been out for a full week yet and all of a sudden this game is a fail of a game and SE can just do no good.

Come on, give me a break. This is an MMO title, of course its going to sell less than your average non-mmo rpg. A lot of people don't have the kind of time required to put into an MMO and or just don't like the genre. Not to mention a Wii-U version has been announced and will more than likely add a decent amount of subscribers to the numbers.

Jump off the bandwagon.