The Wii is a gen 6 console (Hiroshi Yamauchi)

[Viper1]

happydolphin said:

Viper1 said:
1. Wii-remote, Wii Balance board and Wii Wheel were conceived as GC add-ons to extend the life of the console (much like Kinect is for MS and the X360).

2. The corporate marketing philosophy was 'new gen, not next gen". Again, it's a marketing philosophy which falls in line with the oft mentioned Blue Ocean strategy.

3. It later became understood that the concept would be better realized and successful with a new console rather than as a market divergent peripheral of the GC.

4. Wii console itself conceived AFTER gesture based controller was developed.

5. Wii is launched in November of 2006 as the flagship console successor to the Gamecube thereby establishing itself as a 7th generation video game console.


Any questions?

Yah. *raises hands* For point five, what exactly was the philosophy for Wii, the flagship console, and how does it differ from what Yamauchi said about what we now know as the Wii?

Not really a whole lot.   But a marketing philosophy and a systematic generational organization construct are 2 seperate things.

In other words, "new gen, not next gen" is a marketing ploy like "blast processing" from Sega.   The intent is to get you to think of the hardware as something different, something unique, something unseen.   It doesn't alter it's place in the actual heirarchy of video game generations.