'Dragon Quest XI' spawns the best and worst special edition consoles
Too much of a good thing?
Square Enix is on a bit of a merchandising mission in the lead up to the July release of Dragon Quest XI in Japan. For its latest trick, it's partnered with Nintendo and Sony to today announce two new Dragon Quest consoles.
The first is the black 2DS XL, with a matte silver slime bulging up from its lid, and a small Slime icon on the inside. There's also stencil work on both the lid and base, which matches the gray software theme. It's understated and rather lovely, and will be released on July 29th priced at 22,480 yen (about $200) in Japan.
The second, a Dragon Quest PlayStation 4, is the antithesis of the Nintendo console. Styled with all the subtlety of a Thanksgiving Day Parade, it's a standard slim PS4, albeit in a deep blue, emblazoned with a giant gold Emblem of Erdrick and a smaller slime. The DualShock 4 also has the same artifact festooned across its touchpad, and a slime on its right grip.
The chintziest detail is left for last, though -- a gold slime USB cover that droops over the front of the console. It's all a bit much. The Dragon Quest Heroes PS4 from a couple of years back had a similar USB cover, but all of the logos and icons were presented in grays and silvers and worked well with one another. Despite all this, I still kind of want both of the new consoles.
The Dragon Quest PS4 and 2DS XL are currently only slated for Japanese release. Given the successful infiltration of the West with Builders, it's not impossible that we might see some of this hardware in the US. Square Enix has commited to releasing more Dragon Quest titles outside of Asia after all. If not, there's always importing. (The 2DS is region locked, the PlayStation 4 is not). Or, you could always settle for Hori's crazy Slime DualShock 4:
