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Conina on 27 January 2017
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Pyro as Bill said:
SpokenTruth said:
Once more for the people in the back....

It's interesting that so many of you have a subjective notion of what a generation is when an industry accepted definition already exist.

A generation is demarcated simply by the predecessor/successor relationship of flagship consoles.

You do not get to decide what generation Nin Switch belongs to. It's 9th generation because it is.

Are you trying to imply that I'm not from the same generation as my grandfather even though we're the same height?

Oh, do we do comparisons to generations of people now? Cool!

A1 and B1 are both born in 1870. A1 gets successors every 20 years, B1 every 35 years.

So A2 is born in 1890, A3 in 1910, A4 in 1930, A5 in 1950, A6 in 1970, A7 in 1990 and A8 in 2010... so A8 is the 8th familial generation.
In the other family B2 is born in 1905, B3 in 1940, B4 in 1975 and B5 in 2010... so B5 is the 5th familial generation.

But there are also social generations:

A3 and B2 are both part of the "G. I. generation" with a similar cultural identity.
A4 and B3 are both part of the "Silent generation / Lucky few" with a similar cultural identity.
A5 is part of the "Baby boomers generation", family B skipped that gen.
A6 and B4 are both part of the "Generation X" with a similar cultural identity.
A7 is part of the "Generation Y / Millennial generation", family B skipped that gen.
A8 and B5 are both part of the "Generation Z / Post-Millennials / iGeneration" with a similar cultural identity.

Do you think it matters much to A8 and B5 (or to their friends, family, collegues...) that they are 3 familial generations apart?

So of course the Switch is Nintendo's next generation. It ain't even compatible to the WiiU and 3DS software, there is a clear break. It is Nintendo's 7th "familial" generation (or the 9th generation if we go by the popular classification of GC+GBA as 6th gen, Wii+DS as 7th gen and WiiU+3DS as 8th gen).

But similar to the shift from familial generations to social generations if you look at the big picture, the familial generations of consoles also lose importance. "Namen sind Schall und Rauch"... names are hollow words. It doesn't really matter if the Switch gets classified as 9th gen, 8th gen or 8.5 gen. Its classification won't help or hurt, the competition to it stays the same: PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox One, Scorpio, iOS and Android.