Clearly, both are significant titles.  Dragon Quest IX has been in production, for what seems like forever.  Surely this means a lot of effort has gone into it to make it a top notch game.  I really can't see it failing.  I also expect it to be the bigger seller in Japan.

When it comes down to it, if you had to make a choice, which one for you want to get into your DS first and which one will consume more of your time?

To answer that question for me, whilst it is very tough and line ball, I choose Dragon Quest IX based on the strength of VIII.  I loved that game and I also enjoyed the two recent Dragon Quest games on the DS as well.

So, which is for you and why?

I'm so excited for both upcomming KH games, but I'll admit that my favorite game i've played is Kingodm hearts 2, so i'm a bit of a KH fanboy,  and i'm really intrigued by organization XIII.

edit: whatever. they are both squeenix games, how can they fail?

Well, KH2 is my favorite game of all time and DQ8 a very close second, so I'm looking forward to both these games pretty much equally. Perhaps KH 358/2 Days a bit less so due to its large multiplayer focus which could result in the story mode being a bit on the short side (plus, there's still KH BBS to look forward to as well, which is actually my most anticipated game of the year). I'll definitely be sinking more time into DQ9 since I won't have anyone to play KH 358/2 Days' multiplayer with.

Either way, both should be great games and I'll probably import the Japanese versions of both games.

Oh, and the fact that DQ9 will be the bigger seller in Japan goes without saying -- that game will sell 4 million in its first week of release and could easily become the best-selling game in the series. Unfortunately the days of DQ being the best-selling game of the year are probably over now with all these casual Wii-branded games coming out. I'm sure Wii Sports Resort will beat it, and it makes me a very sad panda.

I hate pretty much everything about the Kingdom Hearts series. However, I've played both DQV and DQVIII and liked them quite a bit.

I'm convinced DQ9 will be pretty good. The new KH game I'm less convinced about though just because I'm unsure about how well the gameplay can be translated onto the DS.

KH because I haven't played a DQ game yet.

It is nice to see that Dragon Quest has edged to the lead.  It will be a true hardcore gamers game and should deserve the love.

Oh its not even close. Dragon Quest for sure

Dragon Quest for sure. Never played any of the Kingdom Hearts games so i'm guessing i wouldn't want to start with this one.