Game Development Giant

On the first day of release, sales reached 190,000 copies, which is a very, very amazing figure.

When this data was transmitted to the Japanese branch of Mars Entertainment, everyone including Hironobu Sakaguchi was shocked by this number. You know, even Nintendo's "The Legend of Zelda" relied on the popularity accumulated by Shigeru Miyamoto. , did not achieve such sales volume on the first day.

Although this number is still far from the first-day sales record created by "Fire Emblem", the market for "Fire Emblem" is after all in the United States. The U.S. market is not comparable to Japan at all. Naturally Cannot be used for comparison.

Hironobu Sakaguchi did not return to his residence, but was experiencing his direct rival "Dragon Quest" this time with the "Final Fantasy" development team. They did not get the cassette of this game beforehand, and now Only after it is officially released can you experience it in person. Although in the past month or so, on "faitong", many people who participated in the test of this game were reported - nothing wrong - .{}{}{}{s} With the news of the trial, the evaluation of this game has been pushed to a level that is not inferior to "The Legend of Zelda".

But as a game designer, you shouldn't judge a game based on other people's words before experiencing the game yourself. Moreover, when a designer experiences a game, it is completely different from when an average player experiences it. The focus is different, and the feelings you get after experiencing it will naturally be different.

First of all, the free naming system of "Dragon Quest" really gave Hironobu Sakaguchi a great sense of immersion, although Jester said before that the game lock can be increased by allowing players to name their own characters. However, Hironobu Sakaguchi didn’t take it seriously, as there were advantages and disadvantages to it, because it would seriously damage the storytelling and epic feel of an RPG game.

From Hironobu Sakaguchi's point of view, in an excellent RPG game, there must be a way for players to play heroes. The feeling of completing an epic story, that is to say the storytelling, is the most important thing in Sakaguchi Hironobu's eyes.

Moreover, in terms of graphics, "Dragon Quest" is much brighter than his "Final Fantasy", and in terms of painting style, "Dragon Quest", a cartoon-oriented style written by Akira Toriyama himself, is also more It is obviously loved by younger players, and there is nothing that can be done about it. Sakaguchi Hironobu did not regard younger players as the main audience of his game from the beginning.

"His music is very well written and has a different style from ours. Ours is more ethereal, while theirs is more atmospheric." This is Nobuo Uematsu's evaluation.

Hironobu Sakaguchi was naturally convinced of Nobuo Uematsu's musical quality, and Yasumi Matsuno also said that the game script of Dragon Quest is also very outstanding. Regardless of other things, just relying on such an excellent script to write a movie is enough. Can get very good sales.

The entire "Final Fantasy" development team just played the "Dragon Quest" cartridge and talked about it all night.

The final conclusion. It is similar to what was said in the review of "Fai Tong". This is an excellent and very Japanese game, even though it is a Western fantasy story. But it was perfectly interpreted in a Japanese way. As evidenced by the sales of 190,000 copies on the first day, this game is indeed very suitable for Japanese aesthetics, and...

"I'm afraid starting tomorrow. This game will have a terrible sales boom."

Sakaguchi Hironobu said to everyone with some worry that it was only the first day of "Dragon Quest" and such enthusiasm for buying could explode. This is before word-of-mouth has been established. If the excellent quality of this game is spread by word of mouth over time, the purchasing power it can arouse among the player base will be very terrifying.

Although Jester is far away in the United States, he is always paying attention to the news about the release of "Dragon Quest".

He also issued an order to the employees of the Japanese branch to pass on the news of "Dragon Quest" to him as soon as possible. When Jester heard about "Dragon Quest", he sold it extremely crazily on the first day. He was also extremely shocked when the book sold 190,000 copies.

For Jester, what he is most worried about is the loss of the game console share in Japan that he has finally regained in the past six months, and "Dragon Quest" is what he is most worried about.

Because he knows that this is a game that can make players all over Japan go crazy.

As for the European and American markets, he is not too worried, because the audience of this game was not targeted here at the beginning, and in the history he is familiar with, the sales volume of "Dragon Quest" in non-Japanese regions has not been very good. This is also a common problem with Japanese games. More than 20 years later, there is a similar game with a similar style to "Dragon Quest". It is also a game with a strong Japanese style. It also has very high sales in Japan, but once After leaving Japan, sales immediately fell to the bottom.

This game is Yo-Kai Watch.

But it was useless for Jester to worry. He could only quietly wait for the news to come and hope that "Final Fantasy" could successfully snipe "Dragon Quest".

In fact, in essence, "Final Fantasy" and "Dragon Quest" are two completely different games in terms of content and style. Compared with the Japanese style that can be seen everywhere in "Dragon Quest", the style of "Final Fantasy" It has more freedom and is more likely to be welcomed by players from other regions. However, in terms of style, "Final Fantasy" is much more gloomy. Such a game will naturally not be loved by younger players.

Of course, the content of this game is also much deeper than "Dragon Quest".

Although Jester is confident that the quality of "Final Fantasy" is not inferior to "Dragon Quest", although he has not played the current version of "Dragon Quest", he relies on his experience with "Final Fantasy" In terms of playing, unless "Dragon Quest" can reach the level of the third part, it will not be as good as "Final Fantasy" by Hironobu Sakaguchi.

However, he doesn't have much confidence that he can successfully attack "Dragon Quest" in the Japanese market.

Beating "Dragon Quest" in sales is not a victory for him, because the game "Dragon Quest" has serious inherent shortcomings, and he has never worried about "Final Fantasy" To put it bluntly, even the combined world sales of "Dragon Quest" may not be as high as the North American sales of "Final Fantasy", because compared to FC/NES, Dreb's market share in the North American market is really Too high, too high.

However, in the Japanese market, my idea of ​​​​relying on "Final Fantasy" to further shorten the share gap with Nintendo may be in vain, because with the performance of "Dragon Quest" on the first day The power of it, not to mention shortening the platform share, would be a blessing if it is not further expanded.

The next day, the sales of "Dragon Quest" did not rise as much as Hironobu Sakaguchi expected, but instead declined to a certain extent.

The final statistics calculated by Nintendo were 20,000 copies lower than the first day, only 170,000 copies.

But this news did not make Jester breathe a sigh of relief. This data that was slightly different from his prediction did not mean that there was a problem with his prediction, but that the excellent reputation of the game "Dragon Quest" was changing. It is brewing, and when it breaks out, it will be unstoppable.

This is what worries Jester the most.

Because "Final Fantasy" will be released just three days later, on July 25th.

What can be expected is that the sales boom caused by the reputation accumulated by "Dragon Quest" broke out within those few days.

The second day of its release in Japan was also the first day of its release in North America. However, in the North American market, "Dragon Quest" was far from showing its strength in the Japanese market, although it was initially released due to publicity. There were many players watching, but many people gave up buying after experiencing it, but many still chose to buy it in the end.

In addition, NES's market share in the North American market is already very low, so this time "Dragon Quest" did not cause much waves in the North American market. According to Nintendo of America's statistics, the sales in North America on the first day were only Less than three thousand copies.

Compared with "The Legend of Zelda", which caused a certain sensation in North America and greatly increased the share of NES, it is simply not the same.

In Japan, the sales of "Dragon Quest" continued to decline on the third day, but the number was much less than the decline on the second day. Finally, when Nintendo counted the sales on the third day, it also reached 168,000. Book.

This is a very obvious signal, which means that the early reputation of "Dragon Quest" has almost been accumulated, and they are about to explode.

The release date of "Final Fantasy" has been set long ago, and it is absolutely impossible to change it.

Hironobu Sakaguchi saw how "Dragon Quest" swept across the Japanese market. Even "The Legend of Zelda" probably didn't have such success when it was released in the Japanese market. It's impossible for him not to be worried at all, but Now the arrow is on the string and has to be fired.

On the fourth day, the sales of "Dragon Quest" began to rise, changing the downward trend of the previous few days. The final data counted by Nintendo was 210,000 copies, which was more than the 190,000 copies on the first day. Published 20,000 copies.

It was under this circumstance that Hironobu Sakaguchi's "Final Fantasy" was first released in Japan.

Hironobu Sakaguchi doesn't know what Jester is thinking now, but for him, as a work that is not inferior to "Dragon Quest" in the slightest, it absolutely cannot fail.

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