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Shadow1980 said: We have precedent for two consoles in a single brand being released in a single generation. Hynad pointed out the Atari 5200, the most obvious example. Now, our current understanding of the pre-crash "generation" comes from Wikipedia, as does the numbered generations as we know them. Prior to that, there were only a couple of sources that numbered generations. The ones that did listed the 2600 and Intellivision belonging to one generation, while they had the 5200 and ColecoVision as part of another generation. Be that as it may, the 2600 dominated everything from 1977 to the Crash of '83. While older materials may have listed the ColecoVision and 5200 as "next wave" systems, they were still competing with the 2600. Effectively, the 5200 was a second system from Atari released in a single generation. Competition perhaps defines a generation more than anything else. From the 8-bit era to the current generation, things were pretty clear cut. The NES competed with the Master System, the SNES with the Genesis, etc., on up to the Wii U/PS4/XBO. They're all pretty discrete. The Switch does appear to challenge that understanding. At first. But once it becomes clear that the Switch's primary competition in its life will be the PS4 & XBO, not the PS5 & Xbox 4, it will become clear that it belongs to the current generation, not the generation that is still likely nearly four years off. |
Finally someone had completely convince me that Switch belongs to 8th generation (HCwise). If Nintendo decides to make a new home console in the next 2 years, then Switch is a portable from the 9th generation. But I really cannot see right now a scenario where Switch is a 9th gen home console.
