Square Enix went with a pretty big gamble by taking Dragon Quest X into the MMORPG route, but it looks like it’s paying off. In Japan, the game has about 300,000 active subscribers in its world.

Those figures come from last week’s Nihon Securities Journal, relayed in turn by the Anime News Network:

[Dragon Quest X] sold approximately 550,000 copies since it shipped in Japan on August 2. The game is the first multi-player online Dragon Quest game and retails for 6,980 yen (about US$86) while the Wii disc plus USB memory version costs 8,980 yen (US$111).

By comparison, Square Enix’s other MMORPG, Final Fantasy XI, peaked at about 600,000 subscribers.

That’s actually an impressive number, especially considering that DQX is only available for the Nintendo Wii in Japan.

When the Nintendo Wii U version of the game launches for that region in March next year, it wouldn’t be a shock to see the subscriber numbers double or triple. It’ll be especially helpful that the Wii U version will be cross-compatible with players using the Wii version, given that the Wii has the largest install base among current consoles and handheld systems in Japan, excluding the hugely success Nintendo DS models.

Source: Anime News Network