Should we consider Switch successor as 10th Gen?

[Shadow1980]

NPD/Circana seems to consider "current-gen" to be any system that's currently on the market but hasn't been replaced yet. They considered the Switch current-gen when it was nominal competition against the PS4 & XBO, and they apparently still consider it current-gen now that its nominal competition is the PS5 & XBS. In other words, it's both Gen 8 & Gen 9. Assuming that holds, the Switch 2 will be Gen 9 until the PS6 & Xbox 5 release, at which point it'll be a Gen 10 system.

Honestly, the only reason we still use "generations" is because from the NES on up through last generation, all notable home consoles were cohorts with each other and almost always exhibited clear jumps in power over previous systems. The confusion sets in both for pre-Crash of '83 systems and for post-Wii U Nintendo consoles.

The Atari 2600 was the dominant console from the late 70s on up through 1983, but there was also the 5200 as well as other systems that didn't pop up until the very early 80s like the Intellivision and ColecoVision. They all offered about the same type of gameplay experiences, but the 2600 was weaker than the others, though it still set the pace. They all competed directly with each other, and the 5200 was meant to serve as a companion to the 2600, but the highly staggered releases gives enough wiggle room for people to argue whether the pre-Crash cartridge-based consoles were one or two generations.

Meanwhile, the Wii U's failure meant Nintendo had to expedite its successor. Instead of releasing in, say, holiday 2018 or 2019, their next system released in March 2017, about halfway through the life cycle of the PS4 & XBO, fully three years and eight months before the PS5 & XBS were released. Because this system was successful and had a normal lifespan, Nintendo is kind of stuck releasing systems right in the middle of the life cycles of the current PlayStation & Xbox consoles. That provides all sorts of wiggle room for people to argue.