Four million Dragon Quest VIIIs shipped

TOKYO--Square Enix announced today that its cumulative shipments of Dragon Quest VIII have reached more than 4 million units worldwide. The 430,000 units shipped in North America as of the end of December helped push the game over the milestone number.

In Japan, Dragon Quest VIII was released in November 2004 and shipped 3 million units in its first three days on the market. The English version was released in North America on November 17, 2005.

The Dragon Quest series has been a popular role-playing franchise in Japan, and Square Enix will release a Dragon Quest VIII spin-off named Dragon Quest: Shounen Yangus no Fushigi na Daibouken in the country on April 20. The game will follow DQVIII hero Yangus through his childhood. Like previous releases in the Fushigi no Dungeon series, it will feature randomly generated dungeon maps.

Also, at his Dragon Quest concert over the weekend, series composer Kouichi Sugiyama told the audience that additional DQVIII spin-offs aside from Shounen Yangus no Fushigi are in development at Square Enix. However, he told the crowd he isn't allowed to disclose any details at the current time.