Dragon Quest IX ships 5.3 million, becomes series best-seller

Square Enix put out a rather strange announcement yesterday, announcing that Dragon Quest IX has shipped 5.3 million units worldwide as of the end of 2010.

That's a strange number to announce - not rounded, not a major milestone - but it does represent the fact that Dragon Quest IX is now the best selling entry in the series, and the first Dragon Quest game to ever top 5 million units.

Dragon Quest IX shipped a massive 3 million units in Japan a couple of days after its launch, but a big help in hitting the 5 million figure will have been the fact that Nintendo published the title in the West.

Nintendo's marketing campaign helped to push Dragon Quest to those who would've never heard of it before - specifically kids who enjoy more basic RPG titles like Pokemon. It seems to have worked quite well.

Dragon Quest X was announced for Wii a while back, but nothing has been said on that since - but if we had to guess, Nintendo will publish that in the West too. Don't forget that you can check out the screenshots and artwork from Dragon Quest IX over in the Media Vault!