I always imagined the Genesis (Mega Drive) to be intended as a 'next generation' system compared to NES and Master System, because it was marketed as a "16-bit" system. And taking one glance at the games showed a remarkable difference from the 8-bit games on the older systems. Not to mention the music.

However, @The_Liquid_Laser posed this counter argument:

Essentially that the Sega Genesis re-entered the 3rd generation (NES & Master System), rather than starting the 4th generation. But the market defied their intentions.

I say the market didn't go against Sega's intentions. Because their intention was always to present the Genesis as a next gen system, which was destined to eventually compete with the SNES, once that system launched in the same markets.
The SNES was seemingly not out in America at the time of this famous commercial (the games featured in the commercial predate the SNES launch in NA. And some versions of the commercial feature NA Genesis games that predate even the Jp launch of SNES), so they taunted the significantly weaker NES instead:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7nsBoqJ6s8


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bun8tA_ksZw

In the first commercial, you they mention 16-Bit as something that Ninten 'don't'. Because NES is an 8-Bit system.
Once SNES was released, they instead started talking about 'Blast Processing' as seen in the second commercial.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Sega tried to re-enter the second generation with the Genesis/Mega Drive, and the market just defied them and considered it a direct competitor to SNES instead, despite their efforts to remain a 3rd generation console in direct competition with the NES.
As far as competition with the NES goes, imo this only occurred because SNES wasn't released yet in the same markets.

Feel free to discuss this, or any console generations for that matter.
I don't expect this topic to go anywhere though.

~Edit~
I ironically messed up the generations. Fixed.

Bonus question:

When did you first hear the term "Generation (insert number)"?
I grew up in Sweden so I can't say how it was elsewhere, but as I recall we referred to the systems as "8-Bit", "16-Bit", "32-Bit", "64-Bit" and "132-Bit".

I believe it may have been as late as "Generation 7" when I first heard that term.

The SEGA Megadrive/Genesis is a fourth generation home console.

1st is Magnavox Odyssey, Pong consols, Colour TV games and so on.
2nd is Atari 2600, Intellivision and so on.
3rd is NES, Master System and so on.
4th is SEGA Genesis, SNES, PC Engine and so on.

I have heard of people combining the first two gens but that would cover a very wide mark of 1972 to 1983.

It's common to be confused by the Master System (Also known as the SEGA Mark 3 in Japan) as it was the third iteration of SEGAs SG-1000 8-bit consoles but the first to be sold overseas, therefore it was given a new name.
Also the SEGA Mark 3 was originally released in 1985 in Japan.

It's gen 4 baby! This is an easy one. 🍆

 Not so easy it didn't have to edit it though.

🍆

Sega does what Nintendon’t referring to the Nintendo AKA the NES?

That’s as stupid an argument as can be, since the Nintendo was called the Famicom in Japan, and that Sega tagline is an American one, made long after the Japan release of the Mega Drive.

The Mega Drive/Genesis is a gen 4 console, and I really don’t know how this can be seriously put into question.

The Mega Drive? 4th gen! It's the gen before the PS1/N64. Plus, I'm not old enough to have played a 2nd or 3rd gen console, but I did have a Mega Drive.

Please excuse my ignorance but I was under the impression that the Snes is a 4th gen console and as such ive always considered the Genesis as a 4th gen console since it shared most of its active years in the market with each other. In fact they released with just 1 year of difference.

That is also the criteria I thought was used to separate generations: the years they are active in the market. As opposed to specs/tech. Because what then the n64 and psx shouldnt be in the same gen right? And they are as far as I understand.
Ive been noted in this very forum that the Switch/Ps4/Xone are the same gen but my understanding is that Swith/Scarlett/PS5 are their own gen, so this whole conversation is a bit blurry for me.
Sorry for my bad english

How is this even a question? It's a 4th generation console that competed directly with SNES and TurboGrafx-16.

Nothing gets by you guys!

It's ironic because I messed that portion up as well, and had to edit it...
NES is not a 2nd generation system, I realized.

@Jpcc86 Yeah that was my mistake, and not intended as an elaborate joke. (Although it made some of the replies funnier.) I made an edit to hopefully avoid confusion.

Aside from the NES already being a 3rd gen console (SNES/Genesis are 4th gen), this commercial clearly isn't using third generation in regard to console generations, it's talking about the "third generation of the hot arcade hit Shinobi".

Sega's intention was probably never to fit into one generation or another, they simply wanted to surpass the current market leader. Although we now have a very clear idea of console generations, it probably wasn't such a defined concept in the late 80s, so it wouldn't do them much good to throw around generation numbers in an ad. Sega had been refining their previous hardware over successive iterations (SG1000, SG1000 II, Mark III etc) The Genesis/Mega Drive was a new concept, based around the System 16 arcade board so I think it's fair to say that Sega saw it as a completely new system. Though it began development under the name Mark V, Sega wanted completely new branding to stand out from their current batch of consoles and computers. Plus, even if the NA launches of Master System and Genesis weren't very far apart, Sega had been selling a variant of Master System hardware in Japan for as long as Nintendo had sold the Famicom, so if we need an arbitrary number of years between consoles, then the Master System was more like a mid-gen refresh than Sega's entry to that generation.

The Mega Drive is a fourth gen console, because that is how we've decided to categorise it, along with SNES, PC Engine and other consoles released roughly 1987-1993.

Yeah, that's the conclusion I made as well after I realized that NES was Generation 3 and not 2, so I edited it out to avoid potential unnecessary confusion.
I blame that it's late. Which is always a good excuse. -_-

I wasn't aware of it being developed under Mark V originally, so that's interesting. Especially because I actually started thinking about when these "Generation 3" terms began to be commonly used. This is something I want to ask people in here about as well.

I grew up in Sweden so I can't say how it was elsewhere, but as I recall we referred to the systems as "8-Bit", "16-Bit", "32-Bit", "64-Bit" and "132-Bit".

I believe it may have been as late as "Generation 7" when I first heard that term.