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Forums - Gaming - Do console generations still make sense?

Porcupine_I on 29 April 2011

before the generation started everyone would predict that the console cycles would grow shorter and shorter, but so far Microsoft and Sony have not recuped their losses, so they trying to extend the cycle, while Nintendo is just what everyone said would happen and starts a new cycle, as they had made enough money with their last model



“It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.”

- George Orwell, ‘1984’

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pariz on 29 April 2011
d21lewis said:

They sorta never made sense.  In the past, they could be defined by hardware power (16-bit, 32-bit) but even then, there were always lesser known consoles launching all of the time. Sometimes, they'd even be a generation ahead, as far as power and still be part of a gen that started years before.

It's just another non-existent thing that we use to define a certain period in time.  There's no official rules, criteria, time span, or logic.  

He said it better than I could have.

You could try and name generations not by its hardware characteristics but from the standpoint of wheter the company behind it shows full support their own console with no other product of higher specs competing with it or not. It's not perfect but better non the less.

We are still to see what Project Cafe really is but I get the feeling that they will try it to be:

  • worth it enough for those in wii userbase who were considering on upgrading to an HD console, both for the graphics and as for the 3rd  party jewels Wii missed.
  • innovative and atractive enough in its social emphasis to be attractive to people who are not traditionally gamers
  • atractive enough (yet not necesarily powerful) to give good battle even if considerably upgraded hardware is released by Sony and Microsoft 2 or 3 years after.


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noname2200 on 29 April 2011

The Playstation 2 launched in March, 2000.  The Xbox and Gamecube launched a year and a half later. Unless you think six months makes a world of difference, this situation is not unprecedented.



Mr Khan on 29 April 2011
noname2200 said:

The Playstation 2 launched in March, 2000.  The Xbox and Gamecube launched a year and a half later. Unless you think six months makes a world of difference, this situation is not unprecedented.

Right. And the September 99 Dreamcast was lumped in with the same generation as well. Also the 3DO which was nominally a competitor with Saturn/N64/PS1, but released a solid three years before the N64 did

Not unprecedented at all. Sony and Microsoft aren't holding out further than 2014, and i'm saying 2013 would be it. Microsoft has incentive to release sooner because they'll really be the one on the defensive



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

Rainbow Yoshi on 29 April 2011

Cloud gaming will take over, no need for consoles then.



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Squilliam on 29 April 2011

No not really. All that matters is the current number of consoles sold and the current active userbase and overall profit/revenue from a particular console compared to another. If a console is still selling, still being played and still bringing in reasonable quantities of revenue then that console is still current.



Tease.