By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Nintendo Discussion - The Nintendo Switch is generation...

 

What generation is the Nintendo Switch?

Generation 8 (PS4, XBoxOne) 71 44.94%
 
Generation 9 57 36.08%
 
Generation 1 (of the hybrid era) 14 8.86%
 
I don't care...I come to VGC for the chicks 16 10.13%
 
Total:158

Generation Awesome.



Around the Network

It's definitely generation 9.  It is behaving just like every other "next gen" console that released early.

In 1989, the Genesis launched in North America.  It got trounced by the NES.  Then in 1991, the SNES finally launched and the two consoles were fairly competitive for several years.  Genesis was created to compete with the generation 3 NES, the Nintendo.  "Genesis does what Nintendon't."  However, history has always considered it generation 4, because it competed with the SNES for most of its life and also it succeeded the Master System which launched around the same time as the NES.

In 1995, the Playstation 1 released in North America.  It got outsold by the SNES that first year.  If the PS1 couldn't outsell the SNES for the first year, then what hope did it have against the much more powerful N64?  It had a lot of hope in fact.  It went on to dominate the market, destroying the N64, and becoming the best selling console ever (at the time).  Worldwide sales of the PS1 exceeded the previous record holder, the NES, by over 40 million consoles.  This little console that struggled out of the gate managed to far exceed everyone's expectations.

In 2005, the XBox360 launched.  It was far outsold by the PS2 for that first year.  If it couldn't stand a chance against the much weaker PS2, then how could it possibly ever compete with the more powerful PS3?  It turns out that it competed quite well.  For most of the generation the XBox360 hardware was selling ahead of the PS3, although the two did end up in a virtual tie at the end.

These are the sorts of things that happen almost every generation.  A console releases early, but it's performance against established consoles has no effect on its lifetime sales.  The established consoles are really "last gen" consoles.  Instead, the early release seems to help it's performance against the competitors that are going to come out.  The first console to market gets a head start and it seems to help.  It doesn't guarantee victory or anything, but it helps especially if the console is performing decently to begin with.  (Although, some consoles like the Saturn or Wii U do so badly that the head start really doesn't help at all.)

Switch is following this same pattern.  It released several years after the PS4, XB1 and Vita.  It's selling well, but it's still getting outsold by the PS4.  Doesn't this mean the Switch is doomed?  Nope.  It means it has a head start.  It's real competition is the PS5 and Scarlett.  People see the Switch competing against the PS4 now and assume it will compete again the PS4 forever?  That's just nonsense.  The Genesis competed against the NES for 2 years and got its ass kicked.  That doesn't change the fact that it was a generation 4 system that was really competing against the SNES.  The Switch is really competing against the PS5 and Scarlett and it already has a huge head start.



RolStoppable said:
super_etecoon said:

This is true, so would you answer Gen 1 or just list it as a Gen 8 hybrid?

Switch is generation 9.

1. It's the successor to both the 3DS and Wii U, and successors don't belong to the same generation. The only exceptions are unsuccessful systems that were supplanted quickly during the very early stages of generations, and the original third generation (Atari 5200 etc.) that got wiped because said generation had no winner. The NES was actually refered to as fourth generation in writeups during its time, but eventually the original second and third generations got combined into one and therefore the NES turned into generation 3.

2. Switch released six years after the first generation 8 console (3DS). That's too long of a timeframe to get around calling Switch generation 9.

3. Processing power is meaningless as generations are defined through time, hence why handhelds are grouped together with home consoles despite vast differences in power.

4. The common argument that competition defines generations can't be taken seriously until the people who say that start to call the Dreamcast generation 5. But they won't do that, because they know that the Dreamcast is the successor of the Saturn. Despite the Dreamcast featuring all the counter-arguments that are held against Switch being generation 9 in a more pronounced fashion, people arbitrarily choose to call the Dreamcast gen 6 and Switch gen 8.

Furthermore, competition cannot define generations, because it would be ridiculous to say that generations are stopping because Nintendo now holds a monopoly in the portable console market. Switch does not belong to the same generation as the 3DS, no matter how much people keep insisting.

For only the 2nd time in my life I agree with Rol.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1gWECYYOSo

Please Watch/Share this video so it gets shown in Hollywood.

It's generation 9. I think all the confusion comes from Nintendo's weird release date....and not giving a fu@k about defined generations. They've shown time and time again they simply beat to their own drum and don't follow the rest of the industry.



I hope it's gen unknown as in the same switch name caries forward to an indefinite amount of generations like the XPS laptop or something similar. So the switch upgrades are called switch 2019 switch 2023 etc etc etc.



Just a guy who doesn't want to be bored. Also

Around the Network

The question is


Does it matter?



NintenDomination [May 2015 - July 2017]
 

  - Official  VGChartz Tutorial Thread - 

NintenDomination [2015/05/19 - 2017/07/02]
 

          

 

 

Here lies the hidden threads. 

 | |

Nintendo Metascore | Official NintenDomination | VGC Tutorial Thread

| Best and Worst of Miiverse | Manga Discussion Thead |
[3DS] Winter Playtimes [Wii U]

Generations are only used to compare some devices against each other, but it actually doesn't matter at all. The boundaries are arbitrary and every rule to define a generation can be countered with an exception. Business decisions and environmental situations don't care about arbitrary generational definitions. Should Nintendo have waited longer and postponed the Switch to a later date so that it aligned better with the competition? Just because we wouldn't have to scratch our head about where to put the thing? I don't think so. The market decision pushed Nintendo to act accordingly, and every other exception to the generation system can be explained by market situations.



Platina said:
The question is


Does it matter?

We're on a sales site.  In this thread  the question is posed about whether Sony's PS4 can maintain 50% market share over its competitors as listed on the front page. Those competitors are currently listed as the XBoxOne and the Switch.  It's a fair question since we are on a sales site and that is the graph that this sales site currently uses.  However, it has created some confusion and ire by posters suggesting that the Switch shouldn't even be on that chart in the first place.

Now does it matter in purely existential ways? Of course not.



Isn't Nintendo the only one that subscribes to that generation nonsense by now anyway?



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

These Generations shared between platforms are an artificial and arbitrary concept that haven’t really meant much in about 12 years. Nintendo’s hardware is not related to Sony or Microsoft’s so there’s little point in trying to pretend like it is.

If we’re talking Microsoft/Sony, it’s the 3rd generation.
If Sony alone, the 4th.
If Nintendo, it’s the 7th for home consoles, 4th for handhelds, or 1st for hybrids (I kind of like that one =D)

I honestly have no idea how people get the whole idea of 8th and 9th generations, at most we’re on the 7th. The concept of generations of consoles began with the birth of the 16-bit generation - and the stuff before it was designated the 8-bit generation. Some guys on wikipedia fabricated two earlier generations that NEVER EXISTED. Making up two arbitrary groupings of consoles prior to the NES adds nothing important to the conversation of videogame history - except misleading information. It is not how we (old-time gamers) saw it as it happened:

Gaming hardware prior to the 16-bit was seen as kind of a waterfall of releases, there was new stuff coming out all the time and most of it was junk, the rest of it shit - but it was all damn cool at the same time. Your friend had one of the Ataris, you had a Commodore something, and you heard about a dude who had a Vic 20 or Amiga... your really nerdy rich friend had an Apple with monochrome green and black, and another with some kind of an IBM featuring a math game with cats on it.. The best games were still in the arcade. The first major gaming consoles with substantial brand-based fans were the NES and SMS, then the SMD and SNES followed as the first really discernible next generation of consoles.

Maybe we can take a page from actual history and assign the mess prior to the NES as the “Pre-dynastic” or “Pre-generational” era. If we have to have these generations.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.