That's what I keep telling the baby boomers.

too early to say...

If Nintendo focus all power on switch, and it becomes a unification of Hanheld/homeconsole whit titles like pokemon (main series), Fire Emble and others... i think Nintendo will be fine and will hit at the very least 35 M consoles util PS5 or late 2020- early 2021. if we get a good price drop, to something like $199, and a new model whit a much better battery 40M, or more, becomes a real possibility.

but...

If Nintendo makes a dedicated handheld (3DS sucessor), and starts to treat Switch as the "portable home consoles"... well.. Switch will have a painfull death like WiiU, i predict less than 20M, perhaps even less than 15M...

edit: also, there is a huge chance that nintendo will lauch a sucessor for switch at the time Ps5 comes to life... Switch sucessor at 2020-2021 it's something that is alson on the table.

Is there some type of generation god that has deemed what a "generation" means? I don't understand why people make it so hard for themselves to answer a simple question.

...And yet, I'm not going to fully answer mainly because I'm not completely certain. I can only safely say it should track considerably ahead of what the Wii U gap brought in.

The release of PS4 Pro and Xbox Scorpio as part of the 8th gen make it natural to add Switch to 8th gen as well. There's nothing in Switch that makes anyone feel like it's next gen ant it will die alongside the upgraded PS4 and Xbone as part of that gen. It's a new console, but not a new generation.

I think it as more of a late 8th gen console than an early 9th gen console.

First you need to determine which generation the Switch is before you can determine whether or not it has a lead.

I'll give you a hint as to why you won't get any agreement or consensus - every single rule you can come up with to define a generation, there are exceptions to that rule, sometimes multiple exceptions. The Atari 2600 and 5200 being a part of the same generation is one, whatever generation the gameboy belongs to is another, whatever generation the Virtual Boy belongs to is yet another.

The concept of a generation is completely arbitrary and differs from person to person. There are no definitive rules, and therefore any discussion revolving around generation, especially when it involves combining handheld and home consoles is completely ridiculous.

Switch is competing with PS4 and Xbone and it'll be regarded as a 8th gen machine, by the time PS5 comes out, Switch will be halfway or more thru its life. Nintendos next machine will be only like 2 years away from then.

That's your definition of a "Generation" I guess. My definition is more about the system itself, what it brings to the table (new concepts, technologies, etc...) and also the release date compared to the competitor (Sony and Microsoft).

The Switch is definitely a 9th gen console from my point of view; it starts a whole new cycle for Nintendo.

As for the OP: I believe the Switch will be another Wii. And will have a huge lead over the next Xbox and Play Station. The Switch brings a lot of nice concepts and having the ability to make it fully portable is also making it very unique (which is a big advantage).

Let's pretend like generations still matter. In that case, only Nintendo is to blame for killing their consoles faster, Switch or anything released by them in the future won't be part of any generations since they will be competing with 2 different products from Sony/Ms each time. They just don't belong anymore, they have their own thing. At least that's how I see it

Apparently Nintendo expects the NS to sell as well as the Wii.So at the very least they expect it to do 100M.

Personally I don't even see it doing 3DS numbers.We will never have a handheld that does DS numbers again. And nintendo is not making a home console that can do even PS3/360 numbers much less the PS4 potential numbers by the time this gen is done.