Square Enix: current generation has been "way too long"

The current home console generation has stretched on far too long, causing a drain of talent to mobile platforms.

That's the view of Square Enix's top technology director, Julien Merceron, who argued that developers who tired of the current console space were pushed into developing elsewhere.

"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," Square Enix's worldwide technology director Julien Merceron told GamesIndustry.

"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."

"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."

Julien Merceron, worldwide technology director, Square Enix

Console generations in future should be shorter, Merceron suggested, as companies rely less on complicated and costly hardware.

"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."