Has to be a first for the industry in a few ways, mostly in that it was the first market leader to win entirely on the efforts of the first-party, showing the strengths and weaknesses of such an approach (granting that Nintendo is the only publisher on the planet capable of doing such a thing in the first place, if they are willing to do it).
If only Nintendo had given the finger to third parties and stuck to their guns, and built up more development capacity internally, we wouldn't be seeing this lacklustre departure of the console from the scene (though Nintendo consoles have died ignominiously from the N64 onward, a market leader shouldn't be, but given that the industry did all it could to reject that market leadership, it's somewhat understood)
This was the generation that taught me to never trust the gaming media unless it's Nintendo-specific (and even then to scrutinize, scrutinize, scrutinize, a la IGN Nintendo), and to hate certain third parties, as well as teaching me that the Nintendo fanbase is functionally an independent entity from "gamers" as a whole
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
