 Hey everyone, today we have to have a conversation because I've been in this debate like the last 24 hours on Twitter with multiple people about something that I find to be quite fascinating. It's led to this bigger conversation point that I think we need to clarify. I didn't realize this needed to be clarified. I thought this was fairly obvious because I've been in this video game stuff for 30 plus years and it's always been the same way. It got sparked because we're doing a giveaway, right? We're giving away a Nintendo Switch OLED, a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox Series X and you can enter to win one of these platforms down in the description or the pinned comment using our Glean.io link. A lot of times when I mention the giveaway though, I will use a certain phrase that seems to bother some people. That phrase being, hey, the winner gets to choose a current generation console of choice Switch OLED, PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X and they get really bothered because I mentioned that this, this is a Switch OLED by the way, this is the OLED model, is a current generation device. They don't want to call it a current generation device even though this is Nintendo's current generation device. It might not be Sony's current generation device or Xbox's current generation device or the Nintendo device never could be their current generation devices. Only Nintendo can have their own current generation device and the arguments against it have always been something similar like, oh well, you know, the Sega Dreamcast was the last device that Sega released so by your definition, Sega Dreamcast is a current generation device except it's not because it's been discontinued. Sure, maybe they've released a classic version at some point and yeah, I know the Sega Genesis, right, is back in production, the Mega Drives back in production for Brazil started production in 2016 but that still doesn't change the fact that it went out of production first. Bringing it back is just reprinting retro systems. That's not the same thing as releasing a brand new device but this gets into a bigger debate because I'm not here to tell you if Switch is a ninth generation system or not. I don't even think that can be determined. Even Wikipedia seems confused because they listed as an eighth generation device but then when you check ninth generation devices it has a section about Nintendo Switch and it mentions that it's not really sure if this should be called ninth generation or not and there's a reason why they're not sure because it mentions, oh, it's technologically considered part of the eighth generation however still might be a ninth generation device and I can't tell you what generation this device belongs in because bottom line is generations are defined by time. Now look, I think we've all known for a long time that the word generation is a reference to a period of time and that period of time changes depending on what you're talking about rather than are you a nineties kid that's a generation of kid a generation of a childhood doesn't mean you were born in the nineties you could have been born in the late eighties but maybe you're still a nineties kid because of when you were born are you a baby boomer you were born in a certain generation a certain period in time now that's always been a reference to you know literal age groups but that's been the reference of all time as an example when we talk about phones I don't I don't have my phone with me when we talk about phones the iPhone 13 is currently Apple's current generation of device it's probably only gonna have have a one-year generation but still it is their current generation of devices this right here is the focus right um one by one and this is actually their second generation focus right they have a third generation version of this that I do not own my whole audio system actually runs through the third generation of the two by two which is a two microphone version of this and that would be their latest generation device that is their current generation device by focus right for a two microphone setup it's literally just based on what's the latest thing to come out and then a period of time now notice I said that is a current generation focus right device but I didn't necessarily say that it is the same as some other company's device that maybe is newer maybe someone came out with a brand new audio interface device like this this year that doesn't make this last generation by the way well this one in particular is last generation but the one I'm actually using down here doesn't make it last generation it just means they haven't released a new device yet see when we look at console generations and this has just been the general course of history dating back to the 70s I think it was 1972 or something when the first generation began it was always measured by when things came out not how powerful those things are and I think this is confusing people because some people think a measurement of a console generation is about how powerful something is what if I were to tell you that all of these generations handhelds are part of them as well Gameboy is part of console generations it's a handheld console is Gameboy as powerful as the Nintendo entertainment system as powerful as the Super Nintendo which generation does Gameboy even go in it we it spans three console generations and you know had you know different iterations of Gameboy pocket and the Gameboy color oh my gosh what generation does it belong in I don't know because it's such a unique situation because it spans so many generations because of how long it was out but handheld consoles have always actually been part of the generation DS as an example is part of the seventh generation of consoles 3DS is part of the eighth generation of consoles because consoles doesn't just mean home console it also means handheld now when you go on Wikipedia it mostly will just reference home consoles they kind of set it set handheld console generations as its own thing and maybe that's a fairer way to do that I suppose but consider this when we look up you know definition of console generation just a quick little Google search the first thing that pops up is a quora which far from definitive but uh it says how our video game generation consoles define who defines them all right so Mike Prinkie says video game console generations are defined by the dominant game console in their marketplace anytime there's a significant shift in the marketplace leader to a new hardware model that signals a console generation as such this can be extremely arbitrary for a little while processing word size was the best indicator of a generation shift so this is where you start oh how big is the processing stuff power right with clear divides between the 8 bit 16 bit and 32 bit errors but that has become increasingly less relevant as time has gone on and we've more or less hit the point of diminishing returns at 64 bit machines what's more a new hardware model has always reigned in a new console generation in the interim in 1976 and 1983 for instance Atari released the Atari 5200 which was meant to replace the 2600 but the 5200 never caught on well the 2600 continued to sell quite reliably as such the 5200 is considered a second generation console along with its predecessor interestingly the second generation has quite a large field of what are now virtually unknown consoles as a consequence of how difficult it was to displace the 2600 the console generations are as follows and then obviously we get to present day which goes all the way up to the eighth generation this is basically first generation started with the magnum axe odyssey second generation started with the tarry 2600 third with the nintendo entertainment system fourth with the uh super nintendo and genesis fifth with the playstation 1 and 64 say the Saturn sixth with the dreamcast playstation 2 gamecube and xbox seventh with the ps3 360 and we eighth with the ps4 xbox 1 and we you and then from there you know we obviously know about playstation 5 xbox series x and switch now again this isn't trying to argue the switch is a ninth generation system but at least based on this post back in 2017 well it said generations are marked by a movement to popularizing a new device how about wikipedia everyone loves wikipedia right wikipedia supposedly is this greatest amount of data in the world it says in the video game industry this is home console video game generations this they're just reading directly off wikipedia it says in the video game industry the market of home console video game console is frequently been segmented into generations grouping consoles that are considered to have shared in a competitive market space since the first home console in 1972 there have been nine defined home console generations a new console generation is typically has occurred approximately every five years in keeping with Moore's law for technology though more recent generations have had extended periods due to the use of console revisions rather than completely new designs not not all home consoles are defined as part of these generations only those considered to be significant competitive consoles are classed into generations and the systems such as micro consoles are often omitted from the generations that's where that's where you get into like the nest classic i mean the nest classic the the the genesis mini like those are just those aren't really considered part of console generations what do we learn here what do we learn well if we as a seventh generation device because it marked a market shift towards nintendo again right like it took the market back from sony and said hey we are now the market leader and if the defining factor the defining factor according to wikipedia is that it's just about considered to have shared in a competitive market so it's a grouping of consoles that are considered to have shared in a competitive market space what determines what consoles are competing in a competitive market space the time at which the consoles exist if you look at all of these systems that are considered part of these generations they all happen to have released you know within those generations within that set period of time so i don't even know how this became a debate in the first place since when has generations been anything other than a measure of time during the seventh generation of systems nintendo decided to go in a vastly different direction compared to its competitors it had been going with this power game this whole time and remember power even according to wikipedia has never been actually what measures deep console generations what measured is obviously a market shift and obviously systems existing around the same time and competing in that same marketplace market shifts again are periods of time not necessarily power so what happened is nintendo went away from competing on the power end and decided we're going to try to instead make gaming more accessible and do it in a different way so they released a system that technically was more powerful than the game cube not by much but technically uh and then gave you a new way to experience video games a way that wasn't previously happening in the video game industry no nintendo is not the first motion control system the first motion control platform to ever exist but it popularized the idea of motion controls that are still around to this day by the way especially if you get into the vr space so they gave us a new way to play that wasn't possible before and was obviously a seventh generation system you could try to argue it's not if you want to use the power argument but not even wikipedia is using the power argument and they even considered we as part of that generation moving beyond all that obviously because nintendo realized hey look we don't need to play the power game to be popular they released the we you which we you was sort of a weird a weird time for nintendo they were trying to argue that it was this super powerful platform and really it was pretty much just on par with a playstation 3 and xbox 360 in terms of actual power but it did offer that unique gameplay perspective of the game pad which might have been the initial idea allow ideology behind the the switch potentially more like a not realized version of what switch eventually was uh but again um that was considered nintendo's eighth generation system and even wikipedia includes it as a eighth generation system the first of the eighth generation obviously followed up quickly by playstation 4 and xbox one a year later uh and then obviously at switch which by the way is also more powerful than oe you and does give you a new way to play in that you could take home console games on the go and play them on your local home system and all of that stuff so the thing is it also did a unique market play the same way we did so what generation is a part of well i don't know because it was around for three years of the eighth generation that supposedly has ended in the ninth generation has begun or the ninth generation has begun and switch is still a current generation platform for nintendo and it ends up existing longer in the ninth generation than it did in the eighth generation then what the switch then become a night generation system and this is what gets so confusing with switches because we don't actually know how much longer it has to go if it's replaced next year switch was an eighth generation system but if it's not replaced till 2025 then switch actually spent more time competing with playstation 5 than it did with playstation 4 ergo timing wise it's ninth generation and this is why it's so confusing and why i don't think we should have a exact placement of switch at this point but i i find this all interesting because i know why people argue that power is a defining factor they don't want to accept that there's a different way to handle generations they don't want to accept that nintendo's way of doing things is okay every person that i have debated with online over the last 24 hours that has attempted to argue that not only switch not a current generation platform we is in a seventh generation platform either trying to argue it's actually a sixth generation and that we you is a seventh generation and just kind of push nintendo back and back and back basically you know i'm saying we is just a modified game cube put it this way every single one of those people have a hard time accepting that nintendo is doing something different and doesn't care about getting all the multi-platform third-party games because that's what it comes down to all the arguments stem from switch can't be a current generation device it's not getting ports of playstation 5 i mean we're getting mlb the show we're getting mba2k every year we're getting um golem later this year we're getting you know skywalker the star warside it doesn't matter though because you're getting cloud games i mean the cloud games exist on all the other platforms do they just have the ability to play them local as well but that's besides the point what i'm trying to say here is that they can't accept that nintendo is doing something different because it's not doing it in the way they want them to they want switch to be a steam deck they want they want nintendo's platforms to be arguably fighting with the exact same technology as everybody else and if it's not it's last gen which here's a particular funny point the switch is factually using technology from 2015 right that is quite some time ago i'm not gonna debate that but the playstation 4 was using technology from 2012 in 2013 when it came out the switch is using newer technology than the playstation 4 it's more advanced technology than the playstation 4 now the playstation 4 is more powerful because switch is a handheld look at the sides of a ps4 and compare it to a switch even the slim like it's night and day of course it's more powerful it's just like comparing this laptop to my giant editing pc that i'm recording this on like that editing pc is massive in comparison to my laptop of course it's going to be more powerful than this yeah this laptop can't even can't even compete in the same ballpark but will we dare will we dare argue that just because the device is less powerful using completely different technology that maybe is more modern although in this case that technology in my desktop is more modern um would we be arguing that they don't belong together i look i don't know how this happened i don't know what's happened with our minds that we have taken what's always been a measurement of time and turned it into some e-peen measurement of power just because nintendo isn't doing what you want them to do they've sold 100 million units now two of their last home console generations two two out of three from we we you and switch two of them have crossed 100 million units and if you want to throw the handheld systems in as well well that would mean three of nintendo's last five systems they've released have sold over 100 million units ds 150 million switch 100 plus 103 plus we don't know where it's going yet we 101 million and then you have the 3ds in there around 75 i'm just at a loss for words this is this feels like such a why do we have to have this conversation in 2022 why can't we just accept that different companies do things in their own way not everyone needs to be competing for the top five i mean if you want to get you want to get super technical playstation 5 and xbox series x are already last generation in comparison to gaming PCs already last generation well you wouldn't dare call it last generation would you no because gaming PCs are its own thing existing its own space yeah and switches using mobile technology maybe it exists in its own space as well maybe fine remove nintendo from console generations see if anyone cares because all nintendo has done for the last i don't know since 2006 so what does that make it 16 years is show that power isn't exactly the big selling point that everyone thinks it is it is important and it can be a deciding factor for many but creating fun unique systems that nobody's done before and given to you in a convenient way has been nintendo's ml for quite some time and it works and maybe it's that it works that really bothers everybody maybe it's that nintendo calls us a home console because you can dock it and use it with your tv maybe that's a bothers people if they just call this a 3ds successor would anyone be complaining would anyone say how weak this thing is when it you know came after the nintendo 3ds a 240p system would anyone complain no probably not it's being complained about because it's being put in the same sentence as playstation and xbox imagine a world where i'm doing a free giveaway willing to spend 500 plus dollars on a giveaway and all it leads to is complaints and arguments because i mentioned that this is a current generation device it's okay buddy i still believe in you all right folks i'm nithy and you're able to dance from nintendo prime thank you so much for tuning in let me know what you think about this down in the comments below and i'll catch you in the next one