J: Square made a statement to the press recently mentioning that the development of the Switch version will take a long time. Could you give us any info about the stage of development the Switch version is in, and possibly quantify this “long time” a bit more precisely?

Unfortunately we can’t quantify the time frame yet based on the current situation, but we can let you know what we’re currently doing. To give you some background, when we were initially developing XI we did have the Switch version in our outlook for the platforms we wanted to release the game on. That being said, at that moment in time the SDK (Software Development Kit) for the Nintendo Switch wasn’t ready, which means we couldn’t start working on the port of game.

Now that the SDK is ready and the engine supports it we were able to startworking to support that platform for the game. That being said, the version of Unreal Engine 4 that supports the Switch is actually a version that’s higher than what Dragon Quest XI was built on, so that means we need to upgrade the engine and that comes with a slew of issues.

Right now we’re in the midst of resolving all those issues. Of course, we did consider bringing the Switch version out at the same time at the same time as the PS4 and PC versions but that meant since we don’t have a precise outlook on the development timerframe, we still believe it’s going to be a long way out.