The Nintendo DS entry in the long-running series that defined the Japanese RPG has sold 5.3 million units worldwide as of the end of 2010, Famitsu reported (via Andriasang). This brings the series’ 20-year total up to 57 million.
That’s one of the biggest franchises in the world, but it’s lopsided since the vast majority of those sales come from Japan. That’s something that Nintendo has taken it upon itself to fix, publishing and marketing the last two DS games in the series in the U.S. and Europe. Famitsu has said that Dragon Quest IX sold roughly 4.2 million copies in Japan, meaning that we can infer that it went over 1 million overseas.
This, by the way, is why you shouldn’t expect mainline Dragon Quest sequels to appear on any console other than Nintendo’s for the foreseeable future. Nintendo has made grand overtures to get its tendrils into Square Enix’s series, and the fact that it managed to crank out enough foreign sales to make the game the first in the series history to crack the 5 million mark will not be lost on Square Enix.
Series creator Yuji Horii said over two years ago that Dragon Quest X was in development for Wii. Last month he confirmed that “Wii versions” of Dragon Quest games are in development, but didn’t get more specific than that.
