Hiku said:
The_Liquid_Laser said:
Uhm, let's just forget most of this discussion, and focus on your concept of generations and game library. You know that the PS4 runs lots of generation 7 games like GTA5 and the Last of Us right? That doesn't make it generation 7. It also has plenty of games unique to it like God of War 4 and Spider-Man and Horizon Zero Dawn. That is what makes it a different generation. Some of the games have to be unique, but not all.
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Playstation 4's game library is primarily made up of Generation 8 titles. (Not counting old classic/emulated PS1 games, etc.)
So to figure out in which generation a console belongs, I'd say you can look at where the majority of it's new releases come from.
That is the best definition of a console generation I have come across, as it will most certainly always pan out this way every time, meaning it won't run into the same contradictions that other definitions tend to.
For instance, "Power is irrelevant" is a popular one. This is not entirely true. And we can see that by making an extreme example. If Sony's Playstation 5 is an 8-bit console, while the next Xbox and Nintendo systems are around as powerful as XBO and Switch are now, Playstation 5 will get 0 current gen games from third parties.
Any company can technically, if they want to, re-enter the same generation again with a new piece of hardware. Neo Geo did that at one point with a CD based console replacing their cartridge based system. The specs were still the same, but that's not the point. There's no unwritten rule the console manufacturers have to follow. They can essentially release whatever system they want, but they will always want to strike a balance between cost efficiency, and what developers want to work with.
PS4 Pro has better specs than PS4, but is designed to primarily take advantage of the same exact games on the market, as it's weaker version.
But unlike PS4 Pro which was planned from the start, Nintendo did not plan on WiiU being so poorly received, causing them to undoubtedly escalate the release of their next gen console. Because of that they ended up with a system that's primarily designed to handle games developed with Gen 8 technology. (And it struggles to do that most of the time, since it's also a handheld, which is the tradeoff.)
It's fair to say that Switch is Nintendo's next gen system, but when we look at what games it is designed for, it's not made for next generation games.
What's mostly relevant in these situations is the game library.
Sony can release an 8-bit system based PS5 seven years after PS4 was launched, and people can call it a Generation 9 system. But if it can't run Generation 9 games, there's no point in calling it that.
So where do you draw the line? If it has 1 single 'Generation 9' game, and 1000 'Gen 8' games?
Or 5 'Gen 9' games, and 995 'Gen 8' games?
That's why I think 'the majority' is a fair assessment.
If you have a better definition, that none of the previous systems contradict, then by all means, I'd very much like to hear it.
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