Square Enix today announced that it has pushed back the Japanese release of its highly anticipated DS title Dragon Quest IX until July 11th. The Level 5-developed game was originally scheduled to ship on March 28th. According to Square Enix, the three-month delay is the result of a major problem that occured during the game's development.

Since Dragon Quest IX will now ship only during the coming fiscal year 2009/2010, the company had to downgrade its projections for the current fiscal year ending on March 31st. Specifically, sales are now expected to total 133 billion yen ($1.47 billion USD) instead of 160 billion yen ($1.77 billion USD), with net profit reaching 4.5 billion yen ($49.85 million USD) instead of the initially anticipated 12 billion yen ($132.94 million USD).

• Famitsu