Whilst we patiently await the first 7th Dragon in the West, Japan might be getting a sequel, if some roughly translated snippets of information from Famitsu are to be believed.
The first project for Kazuya Niinou when he joined imageepoch was 7th Dragon, a dungeon-crawling RPG that many saw as the true successor to Etrian Odyssey, which he created during his time at Atlus Japan, alongside the Trauma Center series. In Japan, the SEGA-published title sold 140,000 units through to the end of 2009, following its release in March of that year. However, SEGA itself has yet to announce a Western release of the highly-rated game (33/40 in Famitsu). Word of the grapevine is that 7th Dragon will indeed come to the US, although it might not be through SEGA.
Now it appears the Director wishes to work on a sequel, along with a true Japanese-style RPG in 2011. Yet this is not the only tidbit from Famitsu, with Square Enix stating that it will have some exciting news related to Dragon Quest during the summer period of this year, as well as five new non-DQ titles to announce soon, two of which will hopefully launch in 2010. Akihiro Hino of Level-5 added that his company has a new RPG in the making, with an announcement due soon, Hiroshi Matsuyama stated that CyberConnect 2 (makes of the .Hack series) has a new title in development, Bandai Namco has something unexpected to reveal in terms of the 'Tales of' RPG series and Nintendo's Eiji Aonuma re-confirmed that the new The Legend of Zelda on Wii will use MotionPlus and his team is working hard to get a demo version ready for E3 in July.
Nothing concrete, but some interesting little comments none-the-less.
Would you like to see 7th Dragon finally arrive in the West, and what sort of Dragon Quest surprise could be on its way?