It will be Gen 9.

Nintendo basically invented the concept of a mass-market home console with the NES, a mass-market handheld with the Gameboy, and has literally been in the video game business longer than Sony and Microsoft put together. Generations are really artificial terms, but I think Nintendo gets to define when generations begin and end. They've earned that right.

It would certainly be good for Nintendo if they could place the launch of their consoles in the mid-term between ps4/xbox generations. This means they can provide a console more powerful than the current models and have 2 years before the competitors launch with more powerful hardware.

I still feel that Nintendo are going to concentrate on a console that is both portable and provides a base station for mains power and connection to a tv. I guess for japan this model will be mainly a portable but in Europe and the USA the TV connectivity becomes more important.

I think more competitors will enter the home console market and Nintendo will work towards keeping its large handheld gaming market share. I still feel a Nintendo phone is a possibility.

Virtual reality headsets will become a big part of the console market in the future but I see Sony competing with PC based systems for that marketshare. Xbone is not a realistic console to compete in the VR market.

If Nintendo does release a new dedicated home console I honestly think 2016 is a realistic launch year because of the disastrous sales of wii u. Even the Gamecube looks likely to massacre it in sales.

8.5 gen.

I don't think they will.. Wonder how they are going to shape the next system, More like HD twins or another gimmick. If they do, buy illumi-room from MS, so I can have it.

In my humble opinion, three elements define a console of a new generation.

1) News on the gameplay. (motion crontrol, virtual reality, touch screen in control, etc .)
2) graphics power. (A better hardware, better graphics)
3) Extra (you can share your game, watch netflix, online community, online play, uses Bluray / DVD,...)

if Nintendo put that 3 factors in a higher level than the current 8th generation, then yes, even comming in 2015 it will be 9th ... however, if Nintendo does the same as the Wii U .. . well ... I think that will be 8th generation in 2016, because of Graphics power and Extras. (the game pad was simply not enough)

Because the number 8 comes after the number 9 and because the Wii U was an 8th Gen console, their next home console would be 9th gen irregardless of whether or not some people either cannot count, or make misstatements of fact. When one action precedes another, it is another action. If my son is weaker than me, he is still a generation younger than I.

In other news, rain is wet and it's dark tonight.

Magnavox invented consoles and Atari made the first truly popular console, why don't we go ask them how to define when generations begin and end? Surely they've earned the right. Atari's even been in the games business longer than pretty much anyone else that's still around.

Of course. Who better to enlighten us about current consoles than the makers of the Laserdisc?

The makers of ROB the robot and the Virtual Boy, obviously.

No one has the "right" to define what constitutes a console generation; That is decided collectively by everyone who uses the term. If everyone decided that a console generation encmpasses every system released in a decade, and started using it as such, that's what it would mean. If everyone decided that it depends on power, that's what it would mean. Currently it means roughly that this batch of competing systems were all released relatively close to each other and relatively far from the previous batch.

But if things changed so that Sony always released a new console 2 years after Microsoft, Microsoft 2 years after Nintendo and Nintendo 2 years after Sony, the phrase Console Generation as it is used today would become useless to describe the situation, since it wouldn't be so much a batch of new consoles as it would be a constant stream of new consoles. If Sony released consoles every 4 years, Microsoft every 6 and Nintendo every 8, after 20 years we'd be on the 6th gen of Sony consoles, 4th of Nintendo consoles and 3rd of Microsoft consoles. Defining which system falls into which generation with our current definition would be a headache because the current usage of the word has never dealt with a similar situation before: All the major consoles from each generation have always released in a span of time no greater than 2 years (the only possible exception being the Dreamcast, but only if you consider it a "major" console).

Because those situations I mentioned are unprecedented, they would cause us to reevaluate how we define a console generation, and we would either redefine it so we can still apply it in those situuations, or keep the meaning intact and possibly come up with a new term for that situation.

Likewise, the situation given in the OP would be very different from any we've seen so far. Wii U released very close to XBOne and PS4, so  they're obviously in the same generation, but if Nintendo released another system halfway between the next Sony and MS systems, and then released another one just within a year of those systems' releases, we might interpret that as either a mid-gen system, or the entirety of the 9th generation. However, looking back at the definition of console generations, "A batch of competing systems released relatively close together and relatively far from the previous batch", we find the word "competing". Who would the Wii 3 be competing against? The other companies' 8th gen systems. From this point of view it would make sense to call it a part of the 8th gen still, thugh still separate from the other 8th-gen systems. As such, "8.5th gen" seems like the perfect way to describe it.

Yes and no. It's probably a mistake to even compare Microsoft and Sony generations with Nintendo because Nintendo really hasn't directly competed with them since the Gamecube. When the Wii launched we hadn't figured this out, but in retrospect it's clear that we've had two separate console generations going on concurrently in the market.

Sony's releases are consistently longer than Nintendo's, too, and Microsoft is probably going to synchronize with Sony for the foreseeable future because they ARE in tight competition. It's inevitable that Nintendo will have an extra launch mixed in eventually because Nintendo is NOT in close competition with either Sony or Microsoft (as the console generation definition would wish to imply) and Nintendo operates on a slightly shorter window.

So which one makes more sense; saying a console is "gen 8.5" or saying Microsoft and Sony skipped a generation? I say the latter because as tempting as it is to average all three console makers to make "a generation," Nintendo isn't really in tight competition with them. The Wii U will have a completed product lifecycle and not a half generation. Different tempo, sure, but still a completed generation. Saying Sony and Microsoft skipped the gen is the only way to convey that. Saying Nintendo launches an 8.5 gen implies product confusion.

The Wii 3 probably will be a confused product, but not because of that. The Wii U will have had a planned EOL.

In 2 years the tech for more powerful and advanced consoles will be much cheaper. I think it would be hard for nintendo to make a weaker system than the ps4 at that point in time.