On Saturday, July 11th, Square Enix's hotly anticipated Nintendo DS RPG Dragon Quest IX: Hoshizora no Mamoribito officially hit store shelves in Japan, with many gamers finally being able to play the latest game in the country's beloved video game series.   With over two million preorders for the game clocked last week, many were expecting success for the DS title, and it did not fail to disappoint.  According to Japanese sales tracker and Weekly Famitsu publisher Enterbrain, Dragon Quest IX's sales for its first two days on the market total 2,343,440 copies.

This automatically makes the Square Enix title the best-selling game of 2009 in Japan, easily outpacing the closest competitior, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story for the DS by approximately 1.6 million.  It is also the DS's largest launch, besting Pokémon Diamond and Pearl's launch total of 1,586,360 by a little less than 800,000 copies.  The number also barely surpasses Dragon Quest VIII's opening week of 2,236,881 on the PlayStation 2 by 100,000 units. 

Japan's largest launch still belongs to Final Fantasy VIII for the PlayStation, which is at 2,504,044, but had the benefit of a regular launch week.  The typical day for new game releases in Japan is on Thursday, and with the tracking period for both trackers Famitsu and Media Create ending on Sunday, Dragon Quest IX had only half the time on the market for its first week of sales.

Nintendo's brand-new red-colored Nintendo DSi also released on the 11th, but no hardware numbers are available at this time.  Stay tuned to Neoseeker later this week when this information becomes available with the rest of the sales numbers from the Japanese gaming industry for last week!