Series began in 1986

Guinness World Records presented Square Enix with the record for "longest-running Japanese RPG series" at E3 last week, acknowledging the Dragon Quest series. The series has been ongoing since 1986.

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies' "Chance Encounter" mode also won a Guinness Award in 2010 for "most popular ad-hoc wireless game feature for Nintendo DS." The feature was used 117,577,073 times as of March 4, 2010, before the game was released in North America and Europe.

Source: Inside Games via Hachima Kikō