@Burche

Yes the genesis with its 5,000,000 install base and SNES with its 60,000,000 install base what a console war..

You forgot N64... and it was actually the most advanced of it's generation.

I thought a "gaming generation" was defined by time frame more than anything else :/

I take a generation as a internet population defined era in which significant consoles are introduced, one from each significant gaming company..

 I'm not sure I followed you there. What does "internet population" mean in this context?

^^He means that the population of the internet calls them 'generations'. Joe Somebody and my mother have no clue about this concept (or just a general idea).

This disqualifies you so heavily... How can you say the PS was more advanced than the N64? Your argument is that CD's are superior to cartridges, but this changes nothing in terms of graphics. The N64's graphic was way superior, and it also had more bit - therefore it was called N64, while the PS only had 32.

 This also answers your question about how generations are defined. It is really about the time the consoles come out and not about tech specs - the fifth gen proves it, and you can't negociate that argument by showing some second-tier consoles that may not exactly fit the pattern.

Everybody is overcomplicating this far too much.



Compare video games to, say, cars. Go to any car lot. You'll see minivans, trucks, hybrids, sedans, sports cars, and luxury cars. You'll see cars that sell for $15,000, and you'll see cars that sell for $50,000.

How the hell can you call a 2007 Suzuki Aerio the same generation as the 2007 Hummer H3? Different companies, different lines, different purposes, different prices... but they're sold at the same time, and someone who doesn't have a car may well buy either one with equal probabilities.

Same thing with consoles. But each company only has one model, and the product cycle is a vague 5 years instead of a strict 1 year.

"Generation" is whatever you want it to be, but has more to do with marketing than technology, or even release dates.

If Sega were to re-release the Saturn and market it successfully enough so as to get 50K units sold worldwide every month for the entire period between January 2008 and December 2010, those 1.8 million units would be enough to include them in the same generation as Wii, 360, and PS3, even though the original release was over 10 years ago.

Marketing.