"Dragon Quest IX" was primarily designed around the idea of attracting a wider overseas market by "giving the game a more action-oriented premise than previous games in the series. Shinji Hatano, General Manager for Nintendo's Marketing Division, believes that "Dragon Quest IX", which he says is a quality title, not only could, but should, sell more copies in the United States and Europe. In addition to the overseas market, the entire game is designed around the multi-player aspect. Minor aspects like party talk, which was in previous titles, and only a few pre-defined non-player characters and more significant things like the quest system which can often be taken multiple times and are presumably designed around getting friends to help with specific missions. Other changes, like the lack of random battles also are structured toward this goal, but on a more tangential level. On December 12, 2006, during a press conference celebrating the 20th anniversary of the "Dragon Quest" franchise, Square Enix announced that "Dragon Quest IX" would be released exclusively for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console, making it the first main "Dragon Quest" title to debut on a handheld.