There have already been a handful of stories about the sales success of Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake in countries like Japan, and now Square Enix has shared an update about how the game is performing globally.
Since launching on 14th November 2024 across multiple platforms including the Nintendo Switch, two million units of this remake have already been shipped and downloaded worldwide. Square Enix shared a graphic alongside this and thanked everyone for joining the adventure so far:
If you haven't already played this title, it's well worth a look - especially if you're a fan of this genre. Here on Nintendo Life, we gave this latest HD-2D Remake eight out of ten stars - calling it a faithful adaptation of a treasured RPG classic, even if it did have some performance issues.
"It goes without saying that fans of the original will want to snap this up, but if you’re looking for a good ‘entry-level’ RPG or you just want to know what the long-running franchise is all about, Dragon Quest III is the game for you."
Have you contributed to the sales success of Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake? How are you finding it so far? Let us know in the comments.
Comments 34
About half would be in Japan alone. Still good numbers considering it's a remake and costs way way less to make unlike VII Rebirth.
I still need to play through this game. I only just beat Brothership, so my schedule is freed up, but I don't know if I want to jump straight into another turn-based RPG so soon.
Nice. Good for Dragon Quest. It's a great series. Would love to see a more flesh out "monster" side series after this. ^^
I hate when game companies go 'X copies were shipped', because it's pretty irrelevant info that can be used to be disingenuous. I'm sure this game did fine, it's Dragon Quest, but units shipped and units sold are not the same - they could be shipped but unsold on the shelf. And when they actually do sell something like 1 million or more, they will very much specify it was sold, not shipped, because they know there's a big difference.
Wow, must be the first time this decade, that Square Enix isn't "disappointed" by one of its million sellers xD
This is like Pikmin where a huge portion of the sales come from Japan. This seems probably around 2/3 of the sales in Japan (I could be wrong though, since we only have physical sales from there)
easily one of the best games ever made.
bought it from a website where you printed out the list of games, checked the box of the thing you wanted, put the cash or a check in the envelope with it, and HOPE you got the game in the mail in a couple of months.
and it worked - I think it cost me 25 bucks in 1998.
Loving it so far.
Now keep up the good work and apply this same quality to the Dragon Quest I & II HD 2D Remakes.
That sounds good! Can’t wait to eventually grab it and try it for myself… after I beat the original.
Still waiting until I beat brothership before I buy it.
A needed W for Square-Enix. And right on the heels of yet another of its Games-as-a-Service (Foamstars) ventures being prematurely taken off of life support.
Bought it day one, it’s great. If they have a soundtrack I need it.
Square-Enix is failing because they have no idea how the industry works. Not one person there knows how to judge and create realistic goals. They have been clueless for years. This is great news but they are still out of it.
1,800,000 of those sales could be in Japan for all we know tho right?
Happy to see it either way tho.
@MJF 😂 I remember those.
Got it on my wishlist for Yule, so here's hoping I'll get it. Otherwise, I'll have to get it myself
Glad to see this remake is performing well. Hopefully that means they won't be pulling any plugs soon.
Yeah I do not trust shipped sales, makes me even more skeptical of its success. Well time to wait for the real sales.
@MJF Mail order games… Those were the days! Imagine waiting 1-2 months for something from Amazon now? When that parcel finally arrived it felt like Christmas.
I'd say it's pretty good considering it's a remake and there are regions like the UK where it's seemingly barely selling at least physically because of less copies available and people there generally being less interested in JRPGs - of course had no doubt that Japanese sales would be almost half of the total!
That's quite a success, congratulations!
@shoeses @Jhena To be fair and correct me if I'm wrong, copies shipped means those sent out to retailers, wholesalers and even directly to customers while sold those exclusively in the hands of customers no matter how they bought them - as much as the latter is more interesting for those curious about how many people will be playing a game, the former is what matters the most to companies as it's what corresponds to their revenue for a game.
@JohnnyMind
You have to consider, that if the series keeps on underperforming, which is the usual by now for Square Enix, the retailers will buy less copies, the next time a game gets released. Furthermore sometimes they have agreements with publishers or distributors and return unsold copies.
In the end what really matters is, that the customer buys the product, is at least content with it and trusts the company enough to buy the next game.
Well I do not trust Square Enix anymore and their big games do not sell as much as they used to.
@Erigen Square-Enix have said several times that these HD-2D games are far more costly to make than people think.
Obviously still cheaper than FF7 Rebirth, but they aren’t low budget games, they still need to sell more than some think.
@Jhena That's true, but you have to consider also how many copies were sent to retailers in the first place (as already mentioned, one of the reasons why it might be selling less in the UK physically is because apparently there aren't many copies there in the first place at least according to several people here on Nintendo Life), that we unfortunately don't have the digital sales (and returning copies barely matters in that case as it's almost always not allowed, especially on Switch) etc. - that is all to say, while it's safer to take these numbers with a grain of salt at the same time I doubt there will be a particularly big difference between shipped and sold copies for it to matter when it comes to this game's revenue and even more so considering that again, we know for sure that 742,918+212,853=955,771 physical copies (so almost half of this number) have been sold in Japan alone!
@JohnnyMind
Well if you try to argue, that they did not send many physical copies in the UK, then this means retailers there already have no reason to buy their games in large quantities.
And I was not talking about customers returning their copies, I was talking about big retailers sending back unsold copies. Where did you read, that this is not possible with Switch games?
We really need to know the digital sales though.
@Jhena I mean, I'd say that's just being smart considering JRPGs don't sell particularly well in the UK in general, just look at other games in the genre like Metaphor: Refantazio for example - in 7th when it came out, in 24th the next week, absent from the charts for several weeks and only now back in 30th (https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2024/11/uk-charts-dragon-quest-iii-hd-2d-remake-crashes-out-of-the-top-40 and previous charts from there).
The returning copies was referred to digital games specifically so also considering that yes, to have the full picture or at least close enough we'd need to know the digital sales, indeed!
I used to work in video game retail (24 years ago) and to the best of my knowledge...the retailer doesn't send back unsold copies...they're marked down in price and eventually end up in a bargain bin.
@JohnnyMind
Okay, I was just wondering why you mentioned, that the copies can not be returned, when I was talking about retailers returning unsold copies. I agree with you, the games do not seem to sell in the UK.
@MeanBeanEgg
There is no need to get personal. If you do not want to talk with me, you are free to ignore my posts.
It should be closer to 5 million. It is a wonderful remake and a fun adventure. I am rather sad it is over for me.
@MeanBeanEgg
Okay then. I hope in the future we both can enjoy a Dragon Quest game and be happy about the sales. Hope you have a good day.
Should've been the full Erdrick trilogy for $60.
And people said turn based rpgs died lol
Just give me 9 or 10 or 12!
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