Square Enix has announced that Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age will release on PlayStation 4 and PC in September, but that has raised the immediate question about what’s happening with the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo 3DS versions.
There’s bad news on both counts, with the publisher having decided against localising the Nintendo 3DS version for western audiences, and, while the Nintendo Switch port will release in Europe and North America, it won’t release until “much later.”
“Our aim with Dragon Quest XI and the Dragon Quest brand is to grow the audience in the West. From a business point of view, it made strategic sense to release the 3DS version in Japan in 2017. For the West in 2018, it made the most sense to focus on the PlayStation 4 and PC (Steam) platforms,” Square Enix explained with IGN.
“We are also developing the Switch version for Europe and North America, but development is expected to take a long time from a technological standpoint as well, so we still have a long way to go until its release”.
And then, speaking separately to the website at a Dragon Quest event, a Square Enix representative added that the Nintendo Switch version would not be released in 2018 and would arrive “much later.”
“Our aim with Dragon Quest XI and the Dragon Quest brand is to grow the audience in the West. From a business point of view, it made strategic sense to release the 3DS version in Japan in 2017. For the West in 2018, it made the most sense to focus on the PlayStation 4 and PC (Steam) platforms,” Square Enix explained with IGN. So, in other words, they’re only releasing the game on the systems with the highest install bases in their regions. Yeah, typical big business…