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The story
The price of the Switch 2 version of ‘Dragon Quest XI S’ was announced at ¥5,478, sparking an outcry on 5channel’s Hardware/Industry (Geha) board that it’s “way too expensive for a 9-year-old game.” Posters pointed to ‘Metaphor: ReFantazio,’ priced at ¥3,900, as a comparison, and frustration over the price gap boiled over. On the other hand, some argued the game’s quality speaks for itself, citing its 92% positive rating on Steam. The discussion then spread to comparisons with ‘NieR: Automata’ sales (7.27 million copies) released around the same time, and to debate over whether the buyer base skews toward people in their 40s.
What people said
I genuinely think Dragon Quest is a trash game series
Calling DQ11 trash when it's sitting at a 92% positive rating on Steam just isn't convincing
Sounds like sour grapes…
Can't hide the fact it didn't sell well though
Plenty of indie games get overwhelmingly positive ratings too
If it's not selling AND well-reviewed, the rating alone doesn't mean much
10,000 reviews is way too few. Even Metaphor had almost 40,000
Only the diehard fans are buying it, that's why Square Enix games always score high
Steam only gives you two choices
Between thumbs up or thumbs down, it's obviously going to be thumbs up
For better or worse, that's Dragon Quest
And once again she's voicing a tomboyish female character
Who's going to buy it and start all over from scratch at this point
Like did the graphics get bumped up to the original DQ11 spec or something?
This is probably the only difference
Performance Priority Mode
(runs at 1080p, 60fps)
Graphics Priority Mode
(higher resolution at 1440p, 30fps)
Having played the original version, the Switch version's visuals are clearly downgraded — kind of a letdown
If you think they're taking us for fools, doesn't that mean you'd still buy it even at a higher price?
Give us stuff like an 8x battle speed option, faster movement, or new costumes
Porting, tuning, and bug-fixing all cost real time and money
If you think it's too expensive, just wait for a sale
Doesn't Capcom charge the same price across platforms too?
Both Resident Evil and Monster Hunter do
That's what you call a sore loser's whining 😅
Two games made the same year ↓
NieR: Automata — Very Positive 88%, 7.27 million copies
Dragon Quest XI — Very Positive 92%, 620,000 copies
Nine years on, NieR's sales keep climbing while Dragon Quest's have flatlined
It's obvious which one actually has value
That's what real user reception looks like
No matter how high the rating, a boring game just doesn't sell
There you go dodging again
DQ is a huge hit with middle-aged guys in Japan but gets zero love from young Japanese people
Being popular only with older guys doesn't mean much, since it doesn't sell
In other words, if only a slice of people rate it highly while the whole isn't on board, that rating isn't trustworthy
That kind of hand-wavy "just trust me" logic (a jab at flimsy excuse-making) only fools the bubble generation
Anyone who can actually read the numbers accounts for the people who didn't rate it too
If it sold 9 million copies worldwide and got good reviews, there's no problem here lol
So even if it's well-received overseas, it's a trash game as long as young people in Japan don't like it? lol
That's a pretty novel definition lol
Also, if you're claiming young Japanese people are negative about it, show me the data
You've got a stat like that, right? lol
Square Enix HQ hasn't touched that "9 million" figure at all though 🤔
This is the same Square Enix that dutifully announces every single million NieR sells, complete with a graphic, every year
Throwing out free-download numbers doesn't count for anything
If it never showed up in an earnings report, just give it up 😁
If you're claiming young Japanese people are negative about it, show me the data
You've got a stat like that, right? lol
↑Second time I'm asking this
Quit dodging lol
https://imgur.com/a/hdG1foA
That's a statement from the producer who's worked on Dragon Quest for years
There you go, it's Square Enix-approved 😁
Once you've played a bunch of indie games
You can't help but notice how lavish Dragon Quest actually is
I honestly don't get what's supposed to be "lavish" about Dragon Quest, specifically where?
Square Enix games generally feel like watered-down versions of some other game. They roll out weird systems, but they're always shallow
That statement flies in the face of the facts
Especially the claim that it has zero recognition overseas
If, like he says, it's only bought by Japanese guys in their 40s, there's no way it hits 9 million copies
Even if every 40-something guy bought 10 copies each, the math doesn't work
https://imgur.com/a/yW1i1tM
No matter which data you look at, it's clear only middle-aged guys are playing it 😨
No, like I've said from the start, it's huge overseas
That guy claims it has zero recognition abroad, but if that were true there's no way it hits 9 million
It doesn't sell overseas, it doesn't sell domestically — so who exactly bought all 9 million copies?
https://imgur.com/a/7BXHG8d
Literally everywhere agrees Dragon Quest is an "old guy's game" 😭
The situation is this obvious, so what's going on in the heads of the DQ uncles (diehard middle-aged Dragon Quest fans)? 😨
That figure's adding up every version and complete edition combined, so it's just the diehard fans double- and triple-buying
If they'd at least added voice acting to the 3DS version, I might've bought it again
Honestly, I'd have bought it too if that were the case lol
I'd even pay 8,000 yen for that
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
‘Dragon Quest XI S’ is an enhanced edition released in 2019 for PS4, Switch, Steam, and other platforms, and this new Nintendo Switch 2 release marks yet another re-release of the game. The point of contention in the thread was how far Steam’s review score (“Very Positive” at 92%, based on roughly 12,000 reviews) can be trusted as an indicator of quality or popularity, with multiple posts going back and forth over whether the sample size was statistically meaningful. However, the thread never really addressed the fact that Steam’s rating is simply the ratio of positive to negative reviews, not a figure representing actual units sold. Sales comparisons with ‘NieR: Automata’ also came up, but since Square Enix only discloses ‘Dragon Quest XI’ sales as a combined total across all platforms, such simple comparisons should be treated with caution. As for whether the buyer base skews toward people in their 40s, the only evidence offered was individual social media posts and citations from aggregator sites — not official sales data broken down by age.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “Switch 2 version of ‘Dragon Quest 11’ priced at ¥5,478 — needlessly expensive for a 9-year-old game.”
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