I wonder why the gameboy is considered a 4th generation console?
I mean, the Gameboy was relesed in 1989, at the time the Sega Megadrive was already released in Japan. That was a true next-gen system, you could really see a generation leap compared to previous systems like NES or the Atari 7800.
With the Gameboy Nintendo, rather than focusing on a serious next-gen system (hi-end tecnology), they just decided to play it easy and focus on heavy marketing and the portable gaming cheap novelty. If you look at specs, the Gameboy has much more in common with the NES in terms of performance rather than with Mega Drive, not to mention it was still a black and white console ( I mean, even 2nd generation consoles could achieve more than 2 colours!), in the end I think we could just barely call it a 3rd generation console.
Thankfully, Nintendo payed for its mistakes...Due to the fact Gameboy couldn't support next-gen tecnologies and middleware and so it couldn't recieve multiplatform games, the platform quickly became irrilevant. Nintendo was then forced to move up quickly, so they released the SNES only one year later.
