In recent gaming news, the online community blew up upon hearing Square Enix president Yoichi Wada indicated that the company is considering a multi-platform release for Final Fantasy Versus XIII during an investor meeting in Tokyo. Previously at it was announced that the title would be a Sony PlayStation 3 exclusive.

In the video game industry, as in any business, the primary objective is to get your product in the hands of as many people as possible. Then from this point of view, going multi-platform makes a world of sense. Why should a company limit themselves to one audience when you are able to put out your product to another audience that also fits your target market? When looking at the market objectively, there are currently 34,794,815 PS3 and 39,808,128 Xbox 360 worldwide as of May 15, 2010 according to VGChartz. The numbers do not really matter and probably can be argued, but it shows that by releasing the game as a PS3-exclusive, you only reach around half of your market. By going multi-platform, the company would be able to increase the number of sales. It's really not rocket science... hell, it's not even high school algebra.

This post isn't really about the merits of going multi-platform though. This is more to point out the level of brand loyalty that has been exhibited in response to these types of announcements. This rampant "fanboy-ism" is, from a marketer's point of view, an absolute dream. Rivaling brand loyalty that of Major League sports teams and American Detroit Muscle Cars, console makers Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have amassed product zealots that have pretty much thrown logic and reason out of the window and rely solely on emotion.

In this specific case of Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy XIII, some people in the gaming community have felt betrayed by this decision to go multi-platform. You can go to any internet news story about this multi-platform announcement and see some very emotional reactions. My theory is that Square Enix may have created a cognitive dissonance in some of their consumers causing confusion in their understanding of their brand and company. Think of your previous perceptions of the Toyota brand. It was as a safe and reliable brand for over decades, but now in light of their recent troubles, you probably don't know what to think. In Square Enix's case, many people in the gaming community may have associated the Square Enix and Sony brands together due to past decisions of Square Enix. On the previous Sony platforms, Square Enix had released the majority of their titles for those machines since those two platforms dominated the marketplace for their respective generations. However, since this was seen by the community and specifically the Sony brand-loyals, as the status quo from 1996, starting with Tobal #1, until only just recently, it could be perceived that the Square Enix brand had almost become synonymous with the Sony brand. In over a decade, Square Enix had indirectly branded themselves as a Sony-exclusive publisher who the Sony brand-loyals have taken as their own, hence the feeling of betrayal. This would happen to any company that has been publishing for only one console company.

The difference between this situation and normal branding perception changes is that this has probably absolutely no negative impact on Square Enix's bottom line. Sony brand loyalists will continue to purchase their titles and they will now also have the new Xbox market to sell their product to. For those people that are refusing to purchase the new multi-platform titles because of this decision are only robbing themselves of the experience and missing out on a game or two.