The idea of console generations no longer makes sense
PostPosted:Fri Apr 22, 2016 7:12 am
With the coming of PS Neo and Nintendo NX, people are getting confused "Are these 8th or 9th generation consoles?" - and the answer is it doesn't matter.
I don't want to get into too much of a rant here, but in this day and age the idea of console generations, as a grouping of related consoles in a certain time period, makes as much sense as identifying India, Japan, Eastern Russia, and Turky as an identifiable distinct Asian culture.
The idea of a console generation appeared with the advent of the 16-bit consoles. It made sense back then: NES and SMS were 8-bit consoles released in the mid-1980s, the Genesis and SNES were 16-bit consoles released around 1990, then the PSX, Saturn, and N64 were 32/64 bit 3D focused consoles released in the mid 90's. It made a great deal of sense to define these as distinct generations.
Then the Internet came along to muddy the waters by defining all videogame consoles ever as part of some sort of generation, even handhelds got put into the mix. Two generations were retroactively created; one from the 50's to the 70s to define pre-console, and another from the early 70s to mid 80s to lump together all consoles prior to the NES; fine, but sloppy, and purely for convenience than for anything truly meaningful. No one had an Atari 2600 and thought "Wow, the second generation" and then bought a 5200 and said "Wow, Atari's next 2nd generation console."
The Dreamcast is where things get shaky, and the only reason there is even lines is because of the out-of-left-field popularity of motion controls on Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3 which gave those consoles a distinct characteristic to the PS2/Xbox/Cube/Dreamcast, but then why is DS or PSP fit into here when it never had motion controls? What about Xbox and PS3 launching without motion controls? Step back: when the Dreamcast hit, sure it was Sega's next console, but what really linked it to GameCube and PS2? What unifying theme was there to those three?
It really breaks down to the fact that they were more powerful than what came before; but that doesn't necessarily unify them into the same generation anymore than the Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6S - it just happens that Apple and Samsung have their own new phones releasing releasing within a few months of each other. While on an individual basis, these might have been new generations of phones, there isn't necessarily a distinctive feature that can link these two phones as belonging to the same generation.
In the end, sure, say the PS4 is part of Sony's 4th generation; but saying it is a part of the same generation as the 3DS, Ouya, Vita, Wii U, and Xbone is just fitting things together that don't really have a common defining distinctive feature. The idea of arguing whether the PS Neo is the successor to the PS4 and if the NX is the successor to the Wii U are much easier discussions, and the answers are easily: PS Neo is an updated PS4, and NX is Nintendo's successor to the Wii U.
I don't want to get into too much of a rant here, but in this day and age the idea of console generations, as a grouping of related consoles in a certain time period, makes as much sense as identifying India, Japan, Eastern Russia, and Turky as an identifiable distinct Asian culture.
The idea of a console generation appeared with the advent of the 16-bit consoles. It made sense back then: NES and SMS were 8-bit consoles released in the mid-1980s, the Genesis and SNES were 16-bit consoles released around 1990, then the PSX, Saturn, and N64 were 32/64 bit 3D focused consoles released in the mid 90's. It made a great deal of sense to define these as distinct generations.
Then the Internet came along to muddy the waters by defining all videogame consoles ever as part of some sort of generation, even handhelds got put into the mix. Two generations were retroactively created; one from the 50's to the 70s to define pre-console, and another from the early 70s to mid 80s to lump together all consoles prior to the NES; fine, but sloppy, and purely for convenience than for anything truly meaningful. No one had an Atari 2600 and thought "Wow, the second generation" and then bought a 5200 and said "Wow, Atari's next 2nd generation console."
The Dreamcast is where things get shaky, and the only reason there is even lines is because of the out-of-left-field popularity of motion controls on Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3 which gave those consoles a distinct characteristic to the PS2/Xbox/Cube/Dreamcast, but then why is DS or PSP fit into here when it never had motion controls? What about Xbox and PS3 launching without motion controls? Step back: when the Dreamcast hit, sure it was Sega's next console, but what really linked it to GameCube and PS2? What unifying theme was there to those three?
It really breaks down to the fact that they were more powerful than what came before; but that doesn't necessarily unify them into the same generation anymore than the Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6S - it just happens that Apple and Samsung have their own new phones releasing releasing within a few months of each other. While on an individual basis, these might have been new generations of phones, there isn't necessarily a distinctive feature that can link these two phones as belonging to the same generation.
In the end, sure, say the PS4 is part of Sony's 4th generation; but saying it is a part of the same generation as the 3DS, Ouya, Vita, Wii U, and Xbone is just fitting things together that don't really have a common defining distinctive feature. The idea of arguing whether the PS Neo is the successor to the PS4 and if the NX is the successor to the Wii U are much easier discussions, and the answers are easily: PS Neo is an updated PS4, and NX is Nintendo's successor to the Wii U.
