No Dragon Quest IX in West Until 2010

Square Enix's CEO has confirmed that Dragon Quest IX will certainly not hit Western territories until 2010. Currently the ninth main entry into the flagship series has flown past the 3.5 million shipment that Square Enix recently confirmed as shipping to Japanese retailers and is easily on track to beat the 4 million mark to become the biggest Dragon Quest game to date. Considering the game only launched on 11th July, this is definitely a remarkable achievement since the series is usually very front-loaded and suffers from many gamers returing copies upon quick completion.

Yoichi Wada, though, has told shareholders that he fully expects 5 million copies to eventually be sold in Japan alone and believes this milestone can be surpassed due to numerous reasons to keep gamers playing through the adventure, stating "We've been able to control this well." Apparently Dragon Quest IX is being sold back to retailers at 1/2 to 1/3 the rate normally attributed with other games in the series.

Sadly Square Enix is still only in the process of analysing what countries and territories it should release the game in, with current plans call for a release post April 2010 being mentioned.