Agreed. Thread needs to be closed. Trying to pass off opinion as fact is not beneficial for the community. 

History will determine WiiU's gen status.

If WiiU continues to stalls, only ever has current gen 7 ports and is replaced quickly, history will view it as in competition with PS360 and therefore Gen 7.

If WiiU picks itself up, starts having good-great sales, get next gen ports and lasts at least 5 or more years it will be considered a competitor to PS4/720 and Gen 8.

It is not unprecidented for two seperate consoles from the same manufacturer of different power to be lumped together - Atari 2600, 5200 - both gen 2. So if WiiU fails to compete with Sony/MS (and possibly other's) new systems, it would fall into this same pattern as Atari had.

Miguel_Zorro said:



Mazty said:




dsgrue3 said:
When people say the Wii U isn't Next Gen, they aren't referring to time/competition, they are referring to power/graphics. Get a clue Jay.

.Close this.




Agreed. Thread needs to be closed. Trying to pass off opinion as fact is not beneficial for the community. 




This must be 8th gen, because it came out in 2012. :)


Did it/Does it compete with XBox 360/Wii/PS3 for shelf space in the video game market? No? Well then, there is your answer.

Kinda a hidden rule that you have to be relevant to be counted. Kinda the reason why people dont count Dreamcast in the 6th gen.

How do you determine relevancy though?

Let's be honest; it's all to do with power. A 2d game with the graphics of the SNES will never be called next-gen if it's announced to be released for the PS4. Next-gen games are ones that are considered to show significant technical improvement over previous games.  Why people then change it for consoles is beyond me. 

Sorry, but disagree. I don't think that the term next gen can be unanimously defined. While I agree that your definition makes sense and can be used to define the console generations, my idea of what a console generation is different, as with many other people out there. Definitions are created by popular understanding. Many people believe that generations are started with a leap in technology, therefore a new generation can be and should also be defined as a generation that is a leap ahead of the prvious technology. Both our definitions are valid.

Once again I perfectly agree with you on this.

I stand by my statement that the WiiU is indeed the first what will presumably be the 8th Generation of consoles. These arguments about the power of a console determining a consoles "Generation" are simply incorrect. For example, the N64 was a 64-Bit console, and had superior graphical capabilities when compared with the PS1, which was only a 32-Bit console. Anyone who thinks that these two consoles were a apart of a different generation is simply wrong. The two were in direct competition with one another for sales and market share.

The Wii claimed a large casual market share, but the console was launched to challenge the PS3 and X360 in direct competition. It had its share of hardcore games. It was a 7th Generation console, there's no doubt about it.

Consequently, the successor to the Wii is the WiiU, and it is undeniably an 8th Generation Console.

To me it seems like the hardware in the wiiu is more similar to ps4 than xbox 360/last gen. I don't mean overall power I just mean the architeture. Slow cpu cores with gpgpu and several times more ram than last gen makes it something that is actually utilizing next gen tech even if it is poor next gen tech. To say it utalizes last gen tech is a false statement.

It is either that each console has their own gen for example 6th gen: PS2 7th gen: Gamecube 8th gen: Xbox 9th gen: Wii 10th gen: 360 11th gen: PS3 12th gen: Wii U
Because the difference in power between the Xbox and PS2 is the same difference between Wii and Xbox 360. If Wii was not competing for the same consumers as PS3 then PS2 was not competing for the same people as Xbox.

Wii, 360, and PS3 are from the same generation imo, and Wii U PS4 and 720 are the same. Otherwise they all have their own gen with the difference in power.