It’s safe to say that the current top two MMORPG titles in Japan are Dragon Quest X and Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Long before that, it was Final Fantasy XI that led the chage, and even today continues its service in the competitive marketplace. Recently, the producers of all three games got together for a 4Gamer interview.

The interview starts with 4Gamer asking the three producers to talk a little about the present state of their respective titles.

“I’d like to start out by talking about the current number of players (accounts for Final Fantasy XIV), as we currently surpassed the mark of 1.8 million,” starts Naoki Yoshida. “The total number of characters is at 6.75 million, and the total playtime just surpassed 400 million hours.”

4Gamer then asks how many of the 1.8 million accounts are active on a daily basis.

“Hmm, daily actives are numbers that can easily be misunderstood… and the peak time between Japan and other countries are different,” responds Yoshida. “If we go by the amount of people who log in each day, it’s about 500,000 people worldwide. There are people who also log in at least once every two days, so if we were to include those, the the figure would be much higher.”

“As far as the number goes for specific countries… sorry, you’ll have to excuse me on that front. Although, I believe a global administrator for MMORPG titles would say something along the lines of China having the most people,” says Yoshida with a laugh.

Next, 4Gamer asks Dragon Quest X producer Yosuke Saito to share a few words on the current state of his side.

“We’ve only released the game in Japan, so you’ll be getting only Japan’s numbers, but we have about 300,000 people a day who actively enjoy the game,” answers Saito. “Thanks to having released version 2 at the end of last year, we’ve had even more active players since then.”

“At the time, we feared that version 2 could have actually decreased the amount of players,” he continues. “However, that didn’t happen so we were relieved. Well, it was a little unexpected that people who purchased version 2 and haven’t even been to Lendagia [One of the main continents in Dragon Quest X].”

4Gamer asks what the reason for that could be.

“… Maybe they’re spending their time in the casino. It feels as though they’re all playing at their own paces,” suggests Saito.

Finally, 4Gamer asks about how Final Fantasy XI is doing.

“Comparing it to the previous two titles, it’d be hard for me to say,” responds Final Fantasy XI producer Akihiko Matsui. “Last year we released ‘Seekers of Adoulin’ and we’ve had quite a lot of players return to the game. However, due to the influence of Final Fantasy XIV, we’ve had a lot of people go over to that game.”

“Now now, if you say that then companies who manage other online games might get upset by hearing that!” chimes in Yoshida. “I’ve seen the actual numbers, and you guys still have a lot of players. In the midst of Dragon Quest X and Final Fantasy XIV’s competition, you guys still manage to have that many players, which I think is actually amazing.”