Square Enix has certainly seen better days, but one statement made by retiring president Yoichi Wada has sparked some curiosity. Dragon Quest X seems to not be meeting expectations.
“We have done everything we can do to adapt and respond to the drastically changing environment. However, we have not been able to accomplish satisfactory results since FY2011. I intended to do what had to be done, but these results came despite my best efforts. We are performing negatively in the Amusement sector, negative in EUR/NA console games, and although Social Media Games are doing well, MMO is not performing to the level we anticipated.“
The MMO in question is probably Dragon Quest X, seeing as it is the only MMO that Square Enix has been in a position to make money on, as Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn has yet to be released. And since the Wii U version of the game only moved 33,000 units its first week, for a game that was announced back in 2008, and thus has been in development for at least four years, that’s not a great number.
While there is no word on a Western release, in my opinion, it kind of needs one. MMOs have never been popular in Japan, so while Dragon Quest may be a massively popular franchise, it seems that most of the fans aren’t really interested in Dragon Quest X. Westerners on the other hand do like MMOs. So long as it is free to play in some fashion (i.e. a couple of hours free a day on the user’s time, not Square Enix’s; a real money item shop, etc.), most Wii U fans will probably give it a shot. And it could bring people who wouldn’t normally play a Dragon Quest game into the fold. Or it could be I’m overly optimistic, because I want to play Dragon Quest X.
