Current generation has been "way too long", says Square Enix

Square Enix has said the length of the current generation of consoles from Sony and Microsoft has been "way too long".

Technology director Julien Merceron stressed that Sony and Microsoft's decision to keep the current-gen running for so long is, apparently, the "biggest mistake they've ever made".

"We have Sony and Microsoft talking about this generation lasting seven, eight, nine or even 10 years and it's the biggest mistake they've ever made. This generation has been way too long, and I say this because you have a lot of developers that work on a new platform, and perhaps will not succeed, so they will wait for the next generation, and will jump on that platform. You could not do that with this generation though.

"So these developers went elsewhere to see if the grass was greener. They found web browsers, they found iOS, they found other things and a lot of them won't come back to the hardware platforms. So you could look at it that thanks to Microsoft and Sony and the length of this generation, it helped the emergence of other platforms and helped them get strong before the next hardware comes out."

For future console generations, Merceron suggested that they should become shorter or platform holders will face the consequences.

"If you start to make the entry bar really high, more studios will die, more publishers will die, there'll be less titles on platforms, etc. If you make it accessible, you give more chances to people, you'll have a better portfolio at launch. Now you don't need to manage longevity by complexity of programming, because your longevity is ensured by your online model. And I would suggest that maybe we don't want long generations."

Square Enix itself has already created its next-generation engine in the form of Luminous.