Square Enix speaks out against longer console generations

... and the rest of us say "wha?"

I often find myself agreeing with Jim Sterling, a lot. And, I completely agree with his assessment of Square-Enix's latest PR line on the negative impact of a longer console generation:

If anything, the bloated development costs of games forced many developers to think smaller, and I think that a new generation will only make that worse, not better.

I think the upgrade to HD has hurt more than helped the industry, as the corpses of once venerated developers and publishers are easily found along the roadside as evidence. You could argue that this is the cost of doing business in the games industry, and bad developers should be squashed, but there is little arguing that the HD shakeout has killed innovation in the console arena, as evidenced by the smaller number of games being released, and the lack of innovation.