Will the Wii be Detrimental to Dragon Quest X? - News

by VGChartz Staff , posted on 07 September 2011 / 5,130 Views

After nearly three years of waiting, Square-Enix finally unveiled Dragon Quest X. While many speculated that the title had been pushed to Wii U or even moved to the PlayStation 3, Square Enix kept their promise and intend to launch the title on Nintendo Wii. While it still makes some sense to launch a huge title like Dragon Quest X at this point in the Wii's lifespan, what is a bit more questionable is launching an online RPG.

Square Enix isn’t willing to put the MMORPG label on Dragon Quest X , but much of what we’ve heard about the game definitely seem to categorize it as so. Not only will the title require subscription fees in at least Japan, but it will also support patches and downloadable content. It also appears to have a larger open environment for players to interact, something that rarely happens on consoles outside of small confined rooms with a handful of players, let alone on Nintendo's Wii. While a lengthy online experience is almost always something to appreciate, the title is launching near the end of the Wii’s life span. It will launch in Japan sometime during 2012, over five years after the console has been on the market. More importantly, it is launching the exact same year as the Wii U, which seems like, from a core perspective, will be flat out replacing the Nintendo Wii. Thankfully, Square Enix is preparing a Wii U version to extend the life of the title. They’ll offer the ability for players to transfer characters to the Wii U version and even play with Wii players online, but could this have long term effects on the growth of Dragon Quest X ?

While we haven’t really seen exactly what the Wii U is capable from a hardware perspective, it’s clear that the platform is going to be much more technically sound than the Wii is. From the media we’ve seen, Dragon Quest X looked pretty impressive for the Wii, considering it may have to deal with a large amount of character models at once. Looking at the environments, its easy to tell there was a trade-off, specifically in towns. We haven't gotten a complete look at towns yet, but again from what we've seen, the areas seem large and barren. Instead of a large population of buildings, there appear to be a handful of oversized ones, which feels like it accentuates the barrenness of the towns. The outside environments look comparable to that of Dragon Quest VIII, but the towns may leave something to be desired.

Dragon Quest X Announcement Screenshot

What could also become an issue is storage space on the Wii. It seems Square Enix plans on using USB storage, so an external hard drive or flash drive. This gives the title more flexibility than any other online title before on the platform, but it may still limit it. If Square Enix plans on extensively updating the game, once they set the minimum requirement for space, there’s a good chance that they’ll be reluctant to budge from that over time. They may be hesitant to force players to upgrade their USB storage to continue playing. It’s a problem that one of Square Enix’s other MMOs, Final Fantasy XI, suffers from today. The PlayStation 2 version of the game is still active, which shipped with a 20GB hard drive. The size limitations have stunted the growth of the title, making it difficult to add fresh content. The Wii U also uses flash memory, but the amount has yet to be specified.

Last, but not least, the releases are going to be near identical due to cross platform play. This could discourage the use of the Wii U's functions to manage your inventory or some other unique Wii U feature that could enhance the game. It could end up giving Wii U players an edge over Wii players, causing some backlash from the Wii community.

Much speculation is floating around questioning if the Wii version will even come out in western territories, but the Japanese release still could affect the updates around the world. Is Dragon Quest X doomed because of the Wii? Of course it’s not. At the very least, in Japan, it will most likely perform extremely well. It also depends on really how far Square Enix plans on taking the title. Right out the gate, there probably won’t be too much trouble. But if the title takes a form similar to Square Enix’s other MMOs, the Wii could have significant effects on the title's future.

29 Comments

Moren (on 07 September 2011)

Once again, why would it be on PS3? It was stated hundreds of times it was still for Wii, and it just feels like whenever PS3 fans don't have 1 single exclusive they freak out and try to find excuses for the game to be on PS3.

Carl Moren (on 07 September 2011)

Its an online focused game, the Wii's online is terribad. PSN is much, much better. RPG's tend to do better on PS3. Japan's home console market has moved towards PS3. Japanese developers have moved towards PS3. PS3 has the fanbases of Final Fantasy, Tales, Monster Hunter, Star Ocean, Etc. All major Japanese RPG games, Dragon Quest would do amazingly well, sales-wise, on PS3.

The reason it's not on PS3? $$$ is your answer for that.

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teigaga Moren (on 08 September 2011)

And that exclusive monster hunter title underperformed on the wii. the ps3 port of the 3rd G almost equaled the launch of monster hunter Tri despite being a port and the ps3 having half the user base of the wii. Clearly that tells you that the franchise would so better on the ps3.
"Once again why would it be on ps3" If you actually read the article it outlines a whole load of reasons why dragon quest would have been better suited to the ps3. Thats normally the basis for picking a platform to develop for.

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IxisNaugus Moren (on 09 September 2011)

@ Carl2291

What you say is all true, to a degree, but I believe you're letting those facts cloud your judgment. The title would likely not perform any better on PS3. The Wii's online is terrible, yes, but the appeal of Dragon Quest in Japan isn't primarily it's multiplayer or online features, despite the franchise walking down that path. It's Dragon Quest, people are going to be snapping it up in droves regardless or whether they plan to play it online or not.

RPG's in general do tend to do better on the PS3, but Dragon Quest isn't your typical RPG (at least, not from an appeal perspective), it is not RPG fanatics that buy Dragon Quest titles, or perhaps I should say the fanbase is not entirely made up of RPG fanatics, the ones who buy Tales games or Star Ocean titles that you brought up. The everyday man and woman in Japan likely make up a larger portion of the Dragon Quest audience. Possibly the same individuals who the Wii appealed to in the first place.

As for the japanese home console market moving toward the PS3. Well, yes, that definitely appears to be happening, however it would not mean much in this particular case. The Wii has already established itself, it doesn't sell nearly as well as it used to, but the console is much more widespread than the PS3 is. It's not likely people no longer own Wii's and only own PS3's, many would gladly break out, or hell, even buy the Wii for the next numbered installment to the Dragon Quest franchise, don't you think so?

Japanese developers were always developing for the PS3. I can't recall a time where Wii development was favored, at least by major Japanese devs like Square-Enix and Namco-Bandai. I don't know how you feel this is an important factor in the game being better fit for the PS3, in fact I'm not quite sure why you even brought this up to be honest, it doesn't really have a place in this argument.

I suppose you could say the PS3 has the fanbases for those popular JRPG's you mentioned, though I'm excluding Monster Hunter from that list, since that's obviously not true. I don't know what makes you think the PS3 has the MonHun fanbase, they're all on the PSP, unless you're assuming all those PSP MonHun fans also own PS3's as well, which really isn't the case. The Wii has a bigger MonHun fanbase than the PS3, not that it matters here anyway.
But as I mentioned before, those who are buying Tales games or Final Fantasy titles are likely not the ones buying Dragon Quest titles, or, more accurately, the casual, everyday person likely make up a much greater portion of the Dragon Quest fanbase. The kind of people with a Wii.

Perhaps the game would run better online had it been made for the PS3. It would certainly look better, hey it may even have played better. But I absolutely don't buy that it would have sold better. Not in the slightest. What I don't think you took into account while making your points, showing how much better off the title would be on the PS3, is that this isn't just an online focused RPG. This is Dragon Quest X.

@ teigaga

Monster Hunter Tri did not underperform in Japan. What on earth are you talking about? Please don't come in here spouting nonsense, and do not link to me a foolish Kotaku article or something of the like and cite it as a source of proof. Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD didn't come close to matching the the opening sales of Tri, what in heavens name are you reading? And if you really wan't to compare the two titles, then not only did Monster Hunter 3rd HD open far, far lower than Tri, as expected, the second week drop off for the game was even more dire than Tri's (82% drop off, as opposed to Tri's 74%). Its selling trend is currently worse than that of Tri's, once again, as expected. So there you go.

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menx64 (on 08 September 2011)

Ps3? Sources pls?... The ps3 version was only a forum topic... This game is going to sell tons of copies, mine included for both versions. Pls stop basing the wii, the best selling home console of this gen...

Salnax (on 07 September 2011)

Dear God, we were board of these articles back in 2006. Stop trashing the Wii for hypothetical start trashing it for real issues, like the dearth of games since December.

Hephaestos (on 07 September 2011)

I'm not reading this article... How can an 80M userbase be a bad thing?
any online aspects lacking in the wii can be solved in software by SE when you log into the game...

jacks81x Hephaestos (on 07 September 2011)

Because half of that userbase are casual gamers who would rather play Wii Bowling than a MMORPG. Regular RPGs haven't really fared well on the Wii. A MMORPG would have even less success. A lot of people bought the Wii because it was cheap. To release a game that requires a monthly subscription fee goes against everything the Wii stands for.

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kutabacchimae Hephaestos (on 07 September 2011)

@Heph
Read the article. It brings us the issues SE faced when porting FFXI to 360. On top of the graphical disparity, they had to keep functions within the PS2's capabilities. DQX could face those same issues.
@jacks
You have no idea what you're talking about. MHT already has a similar format and has been successful. For more on that, see my other response to your other post.

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UnknownFact (on 07 September 2011)

Hope it's a good game.

Araknie (on 08 September 2011)

This game for me, will be released the same day for Wii and WiiU. And it's good, because if the WiiU (at the time of the release) does not have still a good base of at least 5 must buy games, i still can buy for the Wii and have the same content, so yes to that question.