Here’s an odd and somewhat sad observation for your weekend. Square Enix recently began asking Kingdom Hearts fans to fill out this survey about the series. It asks the usual questions you’d expect from a marketing survey — some demographic qualifiers, what websites you read, how likely you are to buy certain games, and so on — but one particular page stood out when I took this survey.
On the list of which consoles you own, the PlayStation Vita is not an option. Observe my screen grab:
The question below that one, which asks you to rank which ones get the most of your attention, also lacks a PS Vita option.
On a large scale, could this imply something about how irrelevant Vita is to Square Enix’s marketing team? I have no idea, though I can foresee this question being raised.
More applicably to myself, this preventing me from being 100% honest in my survey. I own a Vita, but couldn’t check that box, and therefore, couldn’t list myself as a potential buyer of Square Enix games that might come to Vita (such as, oh, maybe Final Fantasy Type-0?). Furthermore, the Vita is currently the game system with which I spend the most time, especially since I’ve been playing Final Fantasy X HD and Final Fantasy X-2 HD on the Vita. Ironically, the survey asks questions about your intention to buy those very games, which will appear on PS3 and Vita. Yikes.
Hopefully oversights like this don’t end up having too big an impact on the decision Square Enix makes about the data it receives from the survey. I’d hate for the company to shy away from making great Vita games because of a self-sabotaged questionnaire.
Some people have joked that the Vita is dead, but Square Enix (or at the time, Squaresoft) character Freya might disagree:
It’s not dead, it’s forgotten. And that, according to her, is worse. Sad face.
On the bright side, our forums haven’t forgotten about Vita. We’ve got a whole sub-forum for it!
