I'm a Nintendo fan. Of the 18 Switch games I own, 13 are third party.

That said, exactly what games have third parties released on Switch that have the brand power, marketing, and appeal that they should have sold on par with Nintendo's games, outside of Mario + Rabbids?

From a Nintendo press release published at Business Wire:

"In September, the Nintendo Switch system was once again the top-selling current-generation console hardware, according to the NPD Group, which tracks video game sales in the United States."

And from Nintendo's very own website:

"Nintendo Switch has become the fastest-selling video game system of this hardware generation through 21 months, according to The NPD Group."

[emphasis added on both quotes]

There you have it. Straight from the horse's mouth. NPD classifies the Switch as current-gen alongside the PS4 & XBO. Nintendo have given their tacit approval to this classification. Ergo, the Switch is Gen 8. Game. Set. Match.

Re: Wikipedia. Nintendo press releases were used as a valid source for determining in which gen to classify the Switch.

Oh, and if you want to argue that Switch is Gen 9 because it comes after the Gen 8 Wii U, I understand the rationale. It's clean, simple, and intuitive. But reality is often messy, complicated, and non-intuitive, and that includes classifications (we see it all the time in biology). If we apply this "system's gen = predecessors gen +1" rationale to other systems, it becomes quickly ridiculous.

If we classify the Atari 2600 as Gen 2, then that means the 5200 is Gen 3 and the 7800 is Gen 4. But the 5200 was discontinued in May 1984, which was during the Big Crash, and over two years before the NES was released nationwide in the U.S. (and only 10 months after the Famicom was released in Japan, if you want to count that). The 7800 was released around the same time as the NES and Master System and was discontinued just over 16 months and four months, respectively, after the Genesis and SNES were released in NA. Do you really want to consider the 5200 being in the same gen as the NES and SMS, or the 7800 as being in the same gen as the SNES and Genesis?

Speaking of the Master System, unless you agree that the Sega Mark-III/SMS was an upgraded SG-1000, then would you claim that since the SG-1000 launched nearly concurrently with the Famicom that it is Gen 3 and that therefore the SMS is Gen 4 and the Genesis is Gen 5?

And that's not the only complication. To go back to Gen 2, long before everyone started referring to all pre-Crash of '83 cart-based systems as "Second Generation" (with Pong machines being Gen 1), some sources gave conflicting accounts of what system from back then belonged to which generation. Some have stated that the 2600, Odyssey², and Intellivision belonged to Gen 2, and that the ColecoVision and 5200 belonged to Gen 3, with the NES and SMS being Gen 4 (which would mean). But the 2600, despite being released in 1976, didn't really hit it big until around 1981 according to various sales figures I've seen, meaning it spent its best years competing directly with not only Intellivision but also the ColecoVision and even the 5200, which was intended to be a higher-end companion to the 2600 (the Intellivision and ColecoVision being more powerful systems), not necessarily a full replacement. Despite those older sources splitting the pre-Crash consoles into two distinct generations, the fact that we had all those systems being nominal competition against each other in the early 80s has led most of us to lump them together into a single "Gen 2."

It's clear that the NPD considers the Switch Gen 8 based on "competition" criteria. Nintendo had to ditch the Wii U prematurely because it failed, leading them to release a new system mid-gen. It has spent the last three years serving as nominal competition for the PS4 & XBO. By time the PS5 and XSX really start to take off, the Switch will likely already be well into the decline phase of its life. No Nintendo console has lasted more than about six years before being replaced (if you count handhelds, only the Game Boy lasted longer than that, but it was an anomaly and nobody expects a system to last a decade before being replaced). Assuming a Nov. 2023 release for its successor, that means it will have spent most of its primary lifespan, and nearly all of its best years, serving as nominal competition for the PS4 & XBO, not for the PS5 and XSX. If 2023 is indeed when the Switch's successor is released, then it will have launched closer to the launch of the PS5 and XSX than the Switch did to the launch of the PS4 & XBO. If Nintendo keeps running shorter gens, that will continue to complicate things. What if the PS5 releases in 2027 and the Switch's "grandchild" system releases in early 2029? Will we seriously argue that a Gen 11 system is coming out only 16 months after Sony releases their Gen 9 system?

If we're going to classify things, we need something that makes sense in the big picture, not what seems immediately simple and intuitive. Either we need to stop putting Nintendo systems into a specific generation, ditch the generation classification system entirely, or use some criteria that doesn't result in absurd situations over time or when applied to historical consoles.

From a Nintendo press release published at Business Wire:

"In September, the Nintendo Switch system was once again the top-selling current-generation console hardware, according to the NPD Group, which tracks video game sales in the United States."

And from Nintendo's very own website:

"Nintendo Switch has become the fastest-selling video game system of this hardware generation through 21 months, according to The NPD Group."

[emphasis added on both quotes]

There you have it. Straight from the horse's mouth. NPD classifies the Switch as current-gen alongside the PS4 & XBO. Nintendo have given their tacit approval to this classification. Ergo, the Switch is Gen 8. Game. Set. Match.

Re: Wikipedia. Nintendo press releases were used as a valid source for determining in which gen to classify the Switch.

Oh, and if you want to argue that Switch is Gen 9 because it comes after the Gen 8 Wii U, I understand the rationale. It's clean, simple, and intuitive. But reality is often messy, complicated, and non-intuitive, and that includes classifications (we see it all the time in biology). If we apply this "system's gen = predecessors gen +1" rationale to other systems, it becomes quickly ridiculous.

If we classify the Atari 2600 as Gen 2, then that means the 5200 is Gen 3 and the 7800 is Gen 4. But the 5200 was discontinued in May 1984, which was during the Big Crash, and over two years before the NES was released nationwide in the U.S. (and only 10 months after the Famicom was released in Japan, if you want to count that). The 7800 was released around the same time as the NES and Master System and was discontinued just over 16 months and four months, respectively, after the Genesis and SNES were released in NA. Do you really want to consider the 5200 being in the same gen as the NES and SMS, or the 7800 as being in the same gen as the SNES and Genesis?

Speaking of the Master System, unless you agree that the Sega Mark-III/SMS was an upgraded SG-1000, then would you claim that since the SG-1000 launched nearly concurrently with the Famicom that it is Gen 3 and that therefore the SMS is Gen 4 and the Genesis is Gen 5?

And that's not the only complication. To go back to Gen 2, long before everyone started referring to all pre-Crash of '83 cart-based systems as "Second Generation" (with Pong machines being Gen 1), some sources gave conflicting accounts of what system from back then belonged to which generation. Some have stated that the 2600, Odyssey², and Intellivision belonged to Gen 2, and that the ColecoVision and 5200 belonged to Gen 3, with the NES and SMS being Gen 4 (which would mean). But the 2600, despite being released in 1976, didn't really hit it big until around 1981 according to various sales figures I've seen, meaning it spent its best years competing directly with not only Intellivision but also the ColecoVision and even the 5200, which was intended to be a higher-end companion to the 2600 (the Intellivision and ColecoVision being more powerful systems), not necessarily a full replacement. Despite those older sources splitting the pre-Crash consoles into two distinct generations, the fact that we had all those systems being nominal competition against each other in the early 80s has led most of us to lump them together into a single "Gen 2."

It's clear that the NPD considers the Switch Gen 8 based on "competition" criteria. Nintendo had to ditch the Wii U prematurely because it failed, leading them to release a new system mid-gen. It has spent the last three years serving as nominal competition for the PS4 & XBO. By time the PS5 and XSX really start to take off, the Switch will likely already be well into the decline phase of its life. No Nintendo console has lasted more than about six years before being replaced (if you count handhelds, only the Game Boy lasted longer than that, but it was an anomaly and nobody expects a system to last a decade before being replaced). Assuming a Nov. 2023 release for its successor, that means it will have spent most of its primary lifespan, and nearly all of its best years, serving as nominal competition for the PS4 & XBO, not for the PS5 and XSX. If 2023 is indeed when the Switch's successor is released, then it will have launched closer to the launch of the PS5 and XSX than the Switch did to the launch of the PS4 & XBO. If Nintendo keeps running shorter gens, that will continue to complicate things. What if the PS5 releases in 2027 and the Switch's "grandchild" system releases in early 2029? Will we seriously argue that a Gen 11 system is coming out only 16 months after Sony releases their Gen 9 system?

If we're going to classify things, we need something that makes sense in the big picture, not what seems immediately simple and intuitive. Either we need to stop putting Nintendo systems into a specific generation, ditch the generation classification system entirely, or use some criteria that doesn't result in absurd situations over time or when applied to historical consoles.

Nobody will ever agree with that nonsense.

The Dreamcast is universally recognized to be 6th gen despite launching three years before the GameCube and Xbox. A few extra months on top of three years between Switch and the PS5 and XSX aren't a problem when it should be clear to people that generations have gotten a bit longer. When generations themselves get longer, the launch timings naturally have to have more wiggle room as well.

3rd gen: 1983-1986
4th gen: 1987-1990
5th gen: 1994-1996
6th gen: 1998-2001
7th gen: 2004-2006
8th gen: 2011-2013
9th gen: 2017-2020

The launch timings of major consoles of any given generation are only messy in the early stages, but especially early on it was an "anything goes" because it had yet to be figured how video game consoles can be turned into a sustainable business. There's an omitted generation (Atari 5200 and the like) in this list, but it needs to be remembered that this categorization is a construct built by the gaming community, not by any console manufacturer. The reason for this omission and the subsequent stuffing of that generation into 2nd gen has to be because this lost generation had no winner and that's no good for the endless narrative of console wars.

If anyone has an issue with 9th gen launch timings stretching from 2017-2020 because that's too long of a timeframe, they should ask themselves why they'd want to advocate for 2011-2017 for the 8th gen.

Neither the PS5 or XSX is a successor to Switch. Also, Switch is a successor to both the 3DS and Wii U, so you are looking at a gap of six years.

The one thing that is really throwing people off is Sony's exit from the handheld market. If Sony hadn't done that and released a Vita successor in 2016/2017 where it would have been due at the latest, then we would be having two 9th gen consoles on the market and nobody would claim that Switch is 8th gen. Because if Vita's successor is not in the same generation as the Vita (which it clearly would not have been), then it obviously makes no sense to count Switch towards the same generation as the 3DS.

The reason why it's clear that Sony consoles play such a large role in the categorization of generations is the stint we had on VGC in 2010 where a lot of people refused to acknowledge the upcoming 3DS as the first 8th generation console. But in 2011 when more news about the PSP successor came out, it dawned on people that they have no choice but to count the 3DS as 8th gen because otherwise they wouldn't be able to call the Vita next gen.

Sony's exit from the handheld market doesn't mean that the generational count is suspended. That's why the thought that Switch could be 8th gen has never crossed my mind because it's abundantly clear that Switch marks a new generation. Different concept, new games, new ecosystem, it's all there. Unfortunately, way too many people in the gaming community use Sony as the measuring stick for everything. That's how we got where we are today with lots of people seriously believing that the 3DS and Switch are part of the same generation. All those same people understand that the Saturn and Dreamcast belong to different generations, but for some reason they keep stumbling when it comes to identifying Switch for what it is.

Unfortunately, way too many people in the gaming community use Sony as the measuring stick for everything. That's how we got where we are today with lots of people seriously believing that the 3DS and Switch are part of the same generation.

No, I'm saying A.