Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/RfC on video game console grouping

When a group of new video game consoles shows up, it is universally accepted to refer to them as "next generation", and to the current or previous group as "last gen". There are terms like "8-bit era" can be clearly defined by hardware. The problem is, as more time passes, the groupings become less distinct; release dates stagger, the hardware differences more abstract and sources may have different or unclear criteria for what constitutes the "next generation". There is no "industry standard" term for each generation of hardware.

As of now, Wikipedia's video game history articles are broken-up by numbered "generations" (such as History of video game consoles (seventh generation)). Some editors believe that this is WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, as these terms are not consistent from source-to-source, if they are used at all. Should we keep numbered generations? Should we switch to years (perhaps decades) as dividing points? Or back to hardware (like 8-bit era)? Is there some more reliable scheme? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 06:29, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

• Note: I have moved the previous conversations to this page ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 06:29, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
• Note: There is a directly-related conversation at Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#History of video game consoles (seventh generation). ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 08:37, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

The amount of mistakes in this "neutral" opening is staggering. Try this.

When a group of new video games consoles shows up, it is universally accepted to refer to them as "next generation", and to the current or previous group as "last gen". The groupings have become more consolidated and uniform over time, with more conforming release dates. The sources almost universally agree as to whether or not most consoles are in one generation or another. There is a very clear accepted standard for this in reliable sources, but not a standard quantified by techno-jargon. As of now, Wikipedia's video game history articles are broken-up by numbered "generations" (such as History of video game consoles (seventh generation)). Some editors believe that this is WP:OR and WP:SYNTH because there are only a couple of reliable sources which attempt to define every single generation in one central location. However, RfCs have indicated that 100% of disinterested editors believe that there are RSs for the term. Should we keep the numbered generations and the thousands of RSs which buttress them, or switch to a more confusing or less citable method?LedRush (talk) 17:21, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

A More NPOV and Factual Intro to Discussion

When a group of new video games consoles shows up, it is universally accepted to refer to them as "next generation", and to the current or previous group as "last gen". The groupings have become more consolidated and uniform over time, with more conforming release dates. The sources almost universally agree as to whether or not most consoles are in one generation or another. There is a very clear accepted standard for this in reliable sources, but not a standard quantified by techno-jargon. As of now, Wikipedia's video game history articles are broken-up by numbered "generations" (such as History of video game consoles (seventh generation)). Some editors believe that this is WP:OR and WP:SYNTH because there are only a couple of reliable sources which attempt to define every single generation in one central location. However, RfCs have indicated that 100% of disinterested editors believe that there are RSs for the term. Should we keep the numbered generations and the thousands of RSs which buttress them, or switch to a more confusing or less citable method?LedRush (talk) 02:59, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

It seems unlikely that anyone would believe this summary is WP:NPOV, but I'm gonna WP:AGF here. I'll put this up here so it doesn't impede the discussion at the bottom. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 06:43, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, it is clearly more factually accurate (and NPOV) than your intro. For example, you state that the generation groupings have become less distinct with more staggered release dates over time. This is simply not true. In early generations, release dates could stagger by a few years, but by the fourth generation, a two year window was more likely. In the most recent generation, it was a one year window. Furthermore, there is some confusion as to a few of the consoles in the early generations (1 and 2), but currently there is almost no disagreement. The sixth and seventh generations are etched in stone and I've never seen a source which contradicts another source on them. Now, admittedly, my intro becomes more POV when I claim that the year groupings are more confusing, even though it is true that they don't have any citations.LedRush (talk) 13:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Nintendo 3DS - Eight Generation

This section was origianally located at Talk:Nintendo 3DS. Moved here for reference during the RfC, and for archival purposes once a decision is reached.▫ JohnnyMrNinja 06:39, 29 January 2011 (UTC) I see a short paragraph of this on the page for the original Nintendo DS. It classes this as a successor. Does this mean the start of the eighth generation of gaming? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.197.138.129 (talk) 16:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

To my understanding, it is definitely a successor to the DS, not just a revision like the DSi. However, these terms like "7th generation" and "8th generation" are derived by fans and are rather unofficial, and thus, unless said directly by Nintendo, is probably a label to be avoided. (for the wikipedia article.) Sergecross73 (talk) 17:00, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

It is the "next generation" for the handheld, but the so called eighth generation should be designated for the console. Handhelds just get lumped in with whatever console they are sold alongside. The handheld didn't start until the second generation; it then skipped the third generation and didn't really take off until the fourth generation. So really if anyone is counting the 3DS should be starting the sixth generation for handhelds. The handheld got a late start, and now they are coming out more quickly than consoles are, so it is hard to say now where it belongs. We are not at the eighth generation for consoles yet, however it remains to be seen whether the 3DS will be sold more alongside the Wii or the Wii's successor. Aether7 (talk) 20:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

It is probabally best to wait for what reliable sources say. If sites such as IGN, GameSpot, 1UP etc start calling this an eighth generation system then it would be a good time for use to use the term. I don't necessarly believe that a console has to start a generation though since it could be possible that sources may call this the first 8th generation system. It's too soon to tell though--76.69.169.96 (talk) 05:25, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

It's going to be entirely dependent on what Nintendo and the media refer to it as. I don't recall the DS ever being classed as a sixth gen system, back at launch. And now it is widely considered the first of the seventh gen systems, so it's not entirely unprecedented. I know previous generations are largely user-defined, but the last two were classified for the most part by both video game companies and related media. So it's a "wait and see" case here. --.:Alex:. 15:44, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I dispute that. Has any of the major console manufacturers ever used this terminology? And I would challenge you to find suitable references to "sixth generation" consoles that weren't written well after the fact. Dancter (talk) 16:38, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

EB Games used it when the PS3 released and they said "Welcome to the 7th generation" and it had pictures of the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360. We just have to wait until E3 to decide. ★Ffgamera★ - My page! · Talk to me!· Contribs 07:31, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

EB Games does not produce consoles, or even software. It is not a particularly reliable source. The PS3 was released well after Wikipedia became popular. I would put money down that this will not be settled at E3. Dancter (talk) 19:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

We cannot truly completely know what the eight generation is gonna be like until maybe another year or so. Although, since Sony is about to make something similar, and microsoft has some plans of the future, it may just be by next year that we can add the subject of 'the eight generation'. On a personal note, I hope it doesn't copy the Wii too much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr. High school student (talk • contribs) 20:37, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

copy the Wii U? in what way? The Wii U's controller is essentially a copy of the way in which the PSP could be used as a PS3 controller. The Wii's Wiimote is essentially a copy of Sony and Sega's respective long standing motion controller designs (dating back to 1999 and 1998 respectively, with the first commercial movement based products being released in 2003 and 2000 respectively). Maybe you're talking about the CPU? nope. 45 nanometer, same as the 360 S and PS3 slim. Do you mean the 1080p part? Yeah, it's nice and all, but the 360 and PS3 could also scale to 1080p, so unless it is natively producing the content at 1080p that isn't really anything new. I mean, even the game discs aren't larger. PS3 already has 50 GB discs (blu-ray) and 360 has a 30 GB HD DVD add-on (although they never made games for it and instead just stuck with regular DVDs). So, what are you worried that Sony will "copy"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.95.21.149 (talk) 03:32, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with this, and just want to point out some oddities regarding the "standalone-ness" of the 3DS. In Template:Dedicated video game handheld consoles, the 3DS is put aside and the DS family is grouped together, which I think is appropriate. In Template:Nintendo hardware, it's separated, but the DS and DSi are separated. The 3DS also appears in Template:Nintendo DS, which is included in this article, and I don't think that's a good idea. Perhaps the former isn't very related to the 3DS, but at least the latter is; I think this ambiguity between templates should be cleaned up. ~FireyFly ^t_c 12:29, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it's been settled. No new Sony system= 7th generation, right? No competition. ★Ffgamera★ - My page! · Talk to me!· Contribs 11:56, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Until Sony announces a surprise product.

I think it's less about if there's competition, and more about the fact that 8th generation is a rather unofficial term, and really hasn't been used by Nintendo or reliable sources, so it doesn't need to be in the article. Sergecross73 msg me 15:49, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

The DS was sold before Wii, but it is more compatible with Wii than GameCube. The 3DS may be sold before the Wii's successor, but it might not be like the DS launch, the 3DS maybe will have backwards compability mode with the DS (and Wii) wireless multiplayer system. I'd bet that 3DS and DS maybe even share the wireless multiplayer system. Interesting. NeoDoubleGames 16:17, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

If it is not a eight generation, it is 7th generation? `a5b (talk) 21:46, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Read around some. As it's already been said numerous times on this page, "generations" is an unofficial term made by fans/wikipedians. It's best to stay away from the term, especially with handhelds it seems. Sergecross73 msg me 12:51, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Well regardless what generation it is, somebody has already readded it and I am not going to deal with this matter.--iGeMiNix/What's up?/My Stuff 00:17, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, the press has clearly labeled the 3DS as a "next generation of handheld" or a "next generation console" after the current consoles or after the nintendo DS/DSi. http://bigthink.com/ideas/26582 http://30ninjas.com/blog/the-nintendo-3ds-the-next-generation-of-handhelds http://www.torontosun.com/blogs/techblog/2011/01/21/16972486.html . Many sites (mostly non-RSs like Nintendo portal, iGog, VGChartz, etc, refer to the 3DS as 8th generation. I would think that the first set of sources is enough to include the eighth generation language that is present (in earlier generation) on almost every video game console article. One could argue that it is a case of WP:Synth, but I think it is merely WP:Calc.LedRush (talk) 13:01, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, there's no real dispute of it being "next-gen", the dispute is whether to refer to it as "8th gen.", as it's an unofficial term. Considering that the "8th gen" wikipedia page has been deleted countless times and currently does not exist is proof enough to show that the term isn't currently warranted at least. Thanks for bringing this back from the archive though, it's probably good to have this visible...Sergecross73 msg me 21:57, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Oops, I forgot to keep this convo. Sorry. Anyway, if it's next-gen, and the next generation will probably be numbered 8... couldn't this be the first system of the eighth generation? Or is there a certain definition of "generation" that I'm missing here? TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 00:02, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, it most likely will be the first of this "8th generation".

What's the benefit of knowing what generation it is anyway?70.44.153.248 (talk) 03:22, 22 January 2011 (UTC)Ethan

Absolutely nothing. Although, it's a term/obsession of many of wikipedia contributors with video game articles for some reason... Sergecross73 msg me 15:47, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

What are considered to be the first consoles by reliable sources were succeeded by more powerful/efficient hardware. If we have sources that agree from the beginning that "A consoles were succeeded by B consoles," or "pong"-style consoles were replaced by microprocessor-based consoles then, for the sake of disambiguation on wiki, to call this leap a "generation." Assuming sources agree on this initial leap, the only thing left to do is to find sources that agree B consoles were succeeded by C consoles—they do not have to say "third generation" explicitly. I'm guessing that's how the "generation" naming convention started here and if that's true then this is the eighth generation. Hoping for a future source explicitly claiming "eighth generation" seems like false optimism and if one is found, is simply the result of the "Wikipedia --> source --> Wikipedia" effect. « ₣M₣ » 05:39, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you're probably right. The reason the "8th gen video game systems" article keeps on being deleted is because of WP:CRYSTAL issues; it doesn't exist yet because none of the systems have been released yet. If that article continues to not exist, it doesn't seem right to use it in this article. I assume once 3DS is released, the 8th gen article will be okay to exist, and this article will be tagged as such. Sergecross73 msg me 15:47, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, the "optimism" situation you speak of, FMF, is the exact reason why I'm against the term: No one outside of wikipedia uses it. Sergecross73 msg me 16:02, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Not adding to the debate, but in my opinion the console "generation" game and the handheld generations should be separate from each other. 3DS should be an indicator to a new generation due to its substantial upgrade in graphical ability, but the new generation should not be confirmed until a competitor releases a competing format.Weeman com (talk) 17:42, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Knowing what generation system it is doesn't make it a better purchase- does it?70.44.153.248 (talk) 02:14, 23 January 2011 (UTC)Ethan

It's not about if it makes it a better purchase. We're debating about what defines a generation, and if the 3DS can be included in the questionably-existent "8th generation". TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 02:23, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's not a matter of "better", it has to do more with timeframe. "7th gen" is Wii/PS3/360 systems, "6th gen" would be Gamecube/PS2/Xbox systems, and so on... Sergecross73 msg me 04:35, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Why does it matter?70.44.153.248 (talk) 12:54, 23 January 2011 (UTC)Ethan

Why does it matter to accurately describe things in an encyclopedia?LedRush (talk) 14:58, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

It matters because people need them to learn in school. It doesn't matter to "accurately describe" the generation of the 3DS.

Here you misunderstand Wikipedia's purpose (and for that matter, the purpose of an encyclopedia). With your logic, this article should be deleted, because you won't learn about 3DSs in school. Many of the current events articles would have to be deleted because you won't learn them in school. The anime/manga articles would all have to deleted. There are many things that you don't learn in school. Wikipedia's goal is to provide info, not to be an aid for students only. TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 17:51, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem with that is the simple fact that the 6th generation consoles (PS2/Xbox) both used similar hardware to the Wii. PS2/Xbox/Wii/PS3/360 CPU 8core .299Ghz/1 core .733 Ghz/1 core .729 Ghz/8 core 3.2 Ghz cell/3 core 3.2 Ghz. I could do this for everything, but I think you get the point. 174.95.21.149 (talk) 03:48, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Any way, let's get this back on track. I want to know:

1. What defines a generation?

2. If the 3DS is considered "next-gen", why is next-gen not the 8th generation?

3. Judging by this debate, there has much controversy on Wikipedia over generations. How did the articles already existing stay? Was it just because there were reliable sources?

4. Should we keep this debate confined to this talk page or should we bring the attention of other editors to this conversation? TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 18:27, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Note: A similar discussion recently started here: WT:VG#Are the 7 generations fiction? If not, where are the sources? « ₣M₣ » 18:59, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

To me

1. A major revamp of system hardware and capabilities that also includes a new media format. DS,DSi and DSiXL all shared the same media format. They didnt have a major revamp they had minor hardware revisions and refinements.

2.It is next gen as the DS was next gen to the Gameboy, as the wii was next gen to the gamecube. Next gen merely represents an anacronym for next generation, and by definition it suceeds the hardware standard of the current gen.

3.All i can imagine how they stayed is that soemone somewhere found an article that referenced a certain generation and by wikipedia rules, reliable sources = law, unfortunately.

4. I think bring this to the attention of editors and see if they deem it for a wikicommons debate or whatever the procedure is. Like how wikipedia has decided to reference the county of derry (in my viewpoint) as londonderry in northern ireland when talking about the county, but when talking about the city within the county it is referenced to as derry..Weeman com (talk) 15:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

My opinion on the generations: I've worked extensively with the Nintendo 3DS article, and through that I've learned that virtually no reliable sources refer to it as "8th gen". The generations are certainly real, "next gen" and "current gen" are used all the time, but virtually no one numbers them that this outside of wikipedia. I think we certainly should keep the articles highlighting the generations, but I think the numbering them is wrong and should be changed. They need to be named something that is more accurrate with what the rest of the world calls them, in my opinion.

What I realistically think will happen: Once the 8th generation article exists, it'll probably be endless added to the article, and if that article has the right to exist, I suppose it wouldn't be wrong to have on the article. As of right now, I think the only thing really keeping the "8th gen" article from existing is the fact that no consoles for it have been releaseds, so it fails WP:CRYSTAL, (and I think possibly some other stuff too.) Sergecross73 msg me 15:44, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Now Sony ánd Nintendo, 2 of the 3 major video game electronics manufacturers have released their plans for a new handheld gaming device, and they're both naming it the "next generation" of gaming, have we now entered the eighth generation? Because everyone agrees both handheld devices are the new generation in video games. --ⒹylanⓈpronck 16:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dylanspronck (talk • contribs)

I know there's a lot going on in this section, but if you took the time to read it, it'd answer the different viewpoints to the questions you just posed...Sergecross73 msg me 15:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Are the 7 generations fiction? If not, where are the sources?

I've been asked to bring this up here. History of video games says there are 7 generations of video games, but provides no cites for this. There are separate articles for the supposed "7 generations", up to History of video game consoles (seventh generation), and *none* of them provide citations either (at least when I looked a couple of weeks ago). Someone wrote in the history of History of video game consoles (seventh generation), when removing the "citation needed", that "There wont be a direct source for this Indirectly, the first recognized consoles had successors and showing this succession is represented as "x generation"". Sorry, that's not good enough, numbering generations by counting is WP:OR. If the 7 generations were widely recognised, finding sources would not be a problem. Therefore, I contend that it is reasonable to leave a "citation needed" next to any numbering of video game generations, until the article provides a cite. Adpete (talk) 09:40, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

well i don't know how to describe it, but the generations are based more on each installment. But i suppose you're right. But i think it's also something easy to source. iv'e seen being called 7-8 generation for a while.Bread Ninja (talk) 10:18, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorting the history by generation is just a Wikipedia editorial decision, it's just for organisational purposes. Video games have had no formal demarcation of ages, and I guess early Wikipedians chose to use a slightly more original generation marking than relying strictly on years. It doesn't matter now though, because these generational markings are now suitably mirrored in the real world. - hahnchen 13:14, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Note: A similar discussion of whether the Nintendo 3DS should be labeled as "Eighth Generation" began here: Talk:Nintendo_3DS#Eight_Generation. « ₣M₣ » 18:58, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, there's never been a formal classification, or even a real term for it. The "Generation" articles and the classification of consoles within each one are all the creations of Wikipedia, and simply because we can't have one huge-ass long article on the history of video games (for various obvious reasons). Although for as long as I can remember, publications have made mention of "generations" and "cycles" of systems. Of course, we run into problems with things such as the Nintendo 3DS. What do we classify it as? Absolutely nothing refers to it as an "eighth generation" machine, but at the same time the 3DS and the speculated PSP successor are considered the next "cycle" of handheld consoles. I don't think there's any problem with "generation" being synonymous with "cycle", as the sources exist. I do think more sources are needed, and that the articles need to be rewritten so that they do not emphasise "# generation". The real issue is where we draw the lines for each one, as this is where we start to really get into WP:OR territory. --Dorsal Axe 22:01, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I've always been of the attitude we should just go by decade divisions as we run into more issues for many of the Sega consoles. They aren't really part of the "generation" cycles that Wikipedia or others use and yet they are forced into one generation or another even though their is no RS that can place them there. Also, as video game systems begin to mimic PC systems more and more it becomes increasily hard to say that they are new "generations" when you can upgrade internal components that would normally be upgraded in PCs, like harddrives.陣内_Jinnai 22:24, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think "generations" were invented by Wikipedia. I think it has its roots as industry jargon, which Wikipedia is often quick to adopt. Statements like "this game will be available on seventh-generation consoles" are often made in interviews or press releases, which I think is where Wikipedians got exposed to it. It's also a natural result of the phrase "next-generation" when talking about new systems -- obviously, if there is a next generation, then there must be a present generation, and from there you do the math. It may be difficult to find formal sources (though hahnchen's link turns up some) because it's not a formal construction of video game historians, but a practical view of the industry, created by the industry. Similarly, with PCs there is generational numbering of CPUs which is used by Intel, but possibly more difficult to determine which other CPUs (e.g. AMD) are part of the same generation. In parlance, we use the word to mean groupings of products that directly compete with each other. I think this is more of a case of WP:JARGON than WP:OR. It is just technical shorthand, not an invention of fact. We could just call it the "Xbox 360/PlayStation 3/Wii generation" rather than seventh-generation, but good luck getting people to agree on the order of the consoles. Ham Pastrami (talk) 04:56, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

One thing I think could help is if we, with sources available (assuming they exist), took the handheld aspects of our generations articles and split them up, since handhelds and consoles are not necessarily "in sync". Is Game Boy a part of the NES generation, or the Super NES generation, for example? - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 05:00, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I would agree to that. It really seems like we're forcing handhelds into the existing generational articles, when it's quite clear that there is absolutely no correlation between console and handheld releases. It's confusing at best. --Dorsal Axe 08:53, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I've worked extensively with the Nintendo 3DS article, and through that I've learned that virtually no reliable sources refer to it as "8th gen". The generations are certainly real, "next gen" and "current gen" are used all the time, but virtually no one numbers them that this outside of wikipedia. I think we certainly should keep the articles highlighting the generations, but I think the numbering them is wrong and should be changed. They need to be named something that is more accurrate with what the rest of the world calls them, in my opinion. Sergecross73 msg me 15:34, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

GameFAQs use generations by numbers but all current consoles are just classed "Currently Active". Salavat (talk) 17:29, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Well "current gen", "next gen" and "last-gen" are terms that are used throughout the industry not only to describe video games (and PC hardware), but everything. They are catch all phrases for stuff that is suppose to in the near-term future, present-day or something previous to the present day. While there is some support for earlier generational divisions, I think that support for straight-jacketing every system into a generational one is WP:OR specifically WP:SYNTH and unlike the Sega sales deal, CALC doesn't apply here because its not clear to the average reader where these generational divides are (FE:PS2 being still listed in some places as a "current gen" console). Furthermore it is also an WP:NPOV issue since we are seperating video console games and handheld games by generation, but not PCs even though, as mentioned, there are markers than can, and have by the industry, been used in similar manners for describing games for PCs.陣内_Jinnai 17:56, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

How can it be original research when RSs directly state the generations? The only potential for OR would be in describing the eighth generation. However, when reliable resources agree on what the seventh generation is, and they agree that the 3DS is next generation, I think WP:Calc would allow us to call the 3DS Eighth generation. However, I am in no hurry to include the info, and I assume that this issue will work itself out in the long run.LedRush (talk) 18:14, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

No. Calc cannot work here and it is OR because not all the sources agree X is generation Y for everything. I game several such examples. Furthermore, as I said, there are Reliabe sources that list PS2 along with the PS3 in the same gernation. When you ignore those that is WP:NPOV violation.陣内_Jinnai 19:21, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Also you can't easily seperate video game consoles from handheld timeline. chronology of consoles till 2005 - includes handhelds.陣内_Jinnai 19:26, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

[EC] I'm sure I've just missed it, but could you point out where there is a disagreement about which consoles are in the seventh generation?LedRush (talk) 19:27, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

And what is the Time link supposed to be telling us?LedRush (talk) 19:29, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Next Generation Portable

Sony calls its next portable console this way: "Next Generation Portable". If console generations are an illusion, the newest console made by Sony is "next" to what? The current generation (Xbox 360, PS3, DS, PSP) or the previous generation (DC, PS2, GC, Xbox)? Or it is next to an unexistent generation? Also, if Nintendo 3DS and Sony's Next Generation Portable are the seventh generation, why Sony calls his portable "PSP successor" and Nintendo do the same for his hardware? I'm puzzled, i demand clarification to the wikipedians that erased the article about the "eight generation consoles". --87.8.242.31 (talk) 16:45, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Generally, portable consoles are not the ones that "spawn" the generation, it's the fixed home consoles that do that. --MASEM (t) 16:50, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

So are you saying that the Game Boy belongs to the third generation (and not to the fourth as listed by Wikipedia) and the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable should be listed in the sixth generation (and not in the seventh as listed by Wikipedia)? If you are thinking that, let's put the Nintendo 3DS and the Sony's "Next Generation Portable" in the seventh generation page! --87.8.242.31 (talk) 16:58, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Sources that dispute current listings

That handhelds and consoles are considered by more mainstream sources, those outside the industry, as one in the same for linkage.

As for the 7th, generation one, I have found some sources, but they are all unreliable or questionable. I know there are some out there, but a RS search doesn't allow for listing chrologically.

However, I have found sources that do question the labeling:

1. Video game seminar presentation for teachers for U. of Maryland
2. Journal of economics - it requires payment, but the google scholar excert lists "... 32-bit and 64-bit systems 3DO, Atari Jaguar, Atari Jaguar CD, Nintendo 64, Sony PlayStation, and Sega Saturn are included in Generation 4. Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, Sega Dreamcast, and Sony PlayStation 2 are Generation 5 systems that use 128-bit processors. ..."

That's just what i could find with a bit of searching. Yes, more sources do support the generations as they exist, but its clear that not everyone agress with how they are defnined. When you get outside the industry and have more scholarly/acedemic sources, they do not agree with the industries generational labeling, and in general those sources would be considered "higher quality" sources than the others so they can't just be ignored.陣内_Jinnai 20:10, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Am I missing something, or does the seminar PPT identify the generations (6th and 7th) exactly the same way Wikipedia does?LedRush (talk) 20:33, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

You are wrong. It does not list the Dreamcast.陣内_Jinnai 20:50, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

 Done - for the moment

• academic paper U. Minnesota - lists 2nd gen as first (Oddessy).
• IEEE business journal - lists different gereration model than we currently use (search Table I).
• Journal of Encomics see first table.
• paper originally published by Gamespot - it doesn't list "generations" as others do, but it does talk about "groupings" which also different from Wikipedia's, including the first such grouping as 1977.
• research paper submitted to DRUID Summer Conference 2007 - it too breaks down video games systems by their bits (16/32/64/etc).陣内_Jinnai 21:52, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict)Even beyond all this, even if there are clear generations, it doesn't seem right to refer to them numbered like this if they're never referred to as such outside of wikipedia. Lets look at other things like this. With TV's there's black and white, SD, HD, 3D, etc. But you don't see wikipedia refer to them "Third generation of TV's" for HD TVs. Or with cars. Even if company started a line of cars in 2005, the article would be "X Car 2011", not "X Car 6th generation". Just because it can be numbered/counted doesn't mean it should be called that. Sergecross73 msg me 21:15, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Jinnai. I am not wrong. The PPT omits one of the consoles (one that died an early death). It doesn't place it somewhere else and it doesn't claim to be a full listing. You seem to have some evidence for your contention regarding the different categorization of the generations: you just need to be more careful with what you are using as your evidence.LedRush (talk) 21:23, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Only one of the sources you've listed appears to not have the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th generations in conformity with the way wikipedia has it, and that one seems to conflate generations 1 and 2 (meaning, the substance of 3-7 is the same, but the numbering is different.LedRush (talk) 21:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

No, what you're doing is WP:OR. You are "assuming" the sources dropped the Dreamcast. That is a clear violation of WP:NOR and WP:V. While you may be right that they did drop it for convience, we cannot asuume that. That is what verifiability means.陣内_Jinnai 21:43, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Alright I'm done for the moment looking up sources. I think I've showen that there is a lot of disagreement about what is the "first generation" of video games - even Gamespot doesn't agree with Wikipedia - and in addition academic sources base generations on the CPU's bitrate, not industry labels.陣内_Jinnai 21:52, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, I disagree with you. You are assuming that the author left the DreamCast off of the list because it wasn't a part of either the 6th or 7th generations. That assumption is original research. The source says nothing about the DreamCast, so we can assume no opinion whatsover and attribute it to that source. I wouldn't use that source to say that the DreamCast is a 6th generation system, and I wouldn't use that source to verify any position on the DreamCast at all. You however, seem to be using the source to indicate that because the other doesn't mention the DreamCast at all, it is proof that the DreamCast wasn't a part of the sixth generation. Why don't you also assume that because the author didn't mention the 4th generation, that that author doesn't think the 4th generation existed (I know that the comparison is not 100% correct, but it's darn close).LedRush (talk) 21:57, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of why anyone assumes it was left off, the point, I think, is that it doesn't match up with wikipedia...Sergecross73 msg me 23:56, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Did you see the slide? It was a comparison of the Ninendo, Sony and Microsoft consoles of the 6th and 7th generations. It matches with Wikipedia perfectly. It doesn't state that it is listing all consoles of the 6th and/or 7th generations. Therefore, reading anything into the "absense" of the DreamCast, (including that the slide is inconsistent with wikipedia) is original research. The only thing that the slides can confirm (or be used to cite) is that the GameCube, PS2 and Xbox are 6th generation and that the Wii, PS3 and 360 are seventh. Anything else is original research.LedRush (talk) 00:02, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I don't assume that because it cannot verified that they left it off. Wikipedia is not about truth, but verification. I cannot assume they left it off for whatever reason. All I can say is - according to that source - there are 3 6 gen consoles - PS2, Xbox and GC; the dremacast - again according to that source - is not a 6th gen console from what I can verify.陣内_Jinnai 00:04, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

You can easily justify that the Dreamcast was a 6th generation console. There are plenty of sources available. You may want to link generation to History of video games so readers can see which definition we're using. People used to refer to the Early Middle Ages as the Dark Ages, when the really refer to the same thing. It doesn't really matter - it's only there for organisation. Wikipedia may have invented the system, but it has proliferated, and you can be sure that someone out there is going to reliably confirm that the 3DS/PSP2 signals a new generation in handhelds. We can wait for that. - hahnchen 00:15, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Jinnai: You (not me) are making an assumption about the list. The source does not state that they are listing all of the 6th generation consoles. You cannot use it as a source to state that it has left anything off of anything (unless you are talking about the consoles it actually discusses). You cannot say that according to that source there are 3 6th generation consoles because the source doesn't say that. (You might as well argue that the source says that there are no generations of consoles except 6th and 7th - the 4th generation isn't listed so the author must be saying that it doesn't exist!) You can say that according to that source, the GameCube, Xbox and PS2 are 6th generation consoles. Nothing more, nothing less. The fact is, that information kills your argument as it directly confirms that Wikipedia has correctly categorized 6 consoles. The fact that it remains silent on most other consoles means nothing. You are doing your underlying argument a disservice by making this illogical claim about this source.LedRush (talk) 00:29, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It does not say it lists them all no, but nore does it say its a partial listing. When you put something down you have to prove it with reliable sources. If they don't say anything you cannot assume they mean its partial or not. You can only go with what they give you. Go read policy. If that was the only source that gave generations for 6th gen consoles, we couldn't assume there were more. That said, its only one source.

Okay, lets' just get past that source as it seems to be distracting from the borader picture - this isn't like the early middle ages/dark ages. There is evidence from other sources that the generational model used by Wikipedia violates WP:NPOV because it emphasizes the industry's rating (and even that is somewhat in dispute as to the first gen as the Gamespot article does not list anything as a solid group before 1977) vs. academic/scholarly review. That is more serious because if they are to be used we cannot use WP:CALC because the application does not "correctly reflect the sources." since there would be 2 different versions of generation in many cases.陣内_Jinnai 00:34, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that, if the terms really DID originate from WP, then, despite its propagation, it's against policy to use them, per WP:CIRCULAR. So the question is, is there any sources that use the generation number pre-WP's use of it? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 01:20, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Someone will have to dig through and see when generation was first used.NM - doing it myself.陣内_Jinnai 01:46, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

first major change - original version was a standard timeline 1970s, 1980s.... this change here was the first major change.

change - naming by consoles.

terminology used today - "golden age"

Generation first used added by User:Tedius Zanarukando

of context - ip address removes the 256-bit part making it just "Seventh generation"

more technical name is changed to "sixth generation" - May 26, 2005 by User:K1Bond007 with the reason as a "fix"

I can go on, but appears that unless sources predate April 8, 2005 then the generation scheme on wikipedia (along with possibly some of "age" terminology are WP:CIRCULAR.陣内_Jinnai 02:20, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Just because Wikipedia employed a naming scheme before publication in RS does not mean that a subsequently published RS took the naming scheme from Wikipedia. You would have to demonstrate that the RS specifically took the naming scheme exclusively from Wikipedia and not from other original sources. Have we asked User:Tedius Zanarukando where he got the idea from? I guess I'll do that now. Ham Pastrami (talk) 04:02, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for contacting him. I also contacted K1Bond007 to see if changes were based on any RSes.陣内_Jinnai 04:16, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The fact that we to search at all, to me, shows that it's not the best term. If it was really the best term, it'd be all over Gamespot, IGN, or any other easily accessible video game websites. Or other mediums for that matter, I've come across all sorts of articles for 3DS like in USA Today or Forbes Magazine. None of their articles are titled "Let the 8th gen commence" or anything silly like that. Sergecross73 msg me 03:55, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Jinnai, I am not assuming anything at all from the source: I am merely using what it states and nothing more. You cannot make assumptions based on what it doesn't say. The source directly supports the Wikipedia use of the terms regarding generations. Anything that disputes this is logically inconsistent.

Regarding the circular argument: not one of the source I've seen cites Wikipedia, nor are any of them mirrors of the Wikipedia articles on the matter. It is an extreme misreading of policy to require a reliable source from before the first time that Wikipedia used the terms. If a reliable source uses the term, it is therefore verifiable and we can cite it. WP:Circular is intended for cites to Wikipedia directly or for sites that merely mirror what wikipedia says. If a reliable source is silent on why it says than a particular console is from a particular generation of gaming, we cannot assume it came to that conclusion because of when the article was published: again that is original research (not to mention completely illogical and silly).LedRush (talk) 04:48, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Circular is also intended for sites that take their sources from the sources that cite Wikipedia. If it didn't we would allow RSes quoting a RS blog or post that cites wikipedia as one of its primary sources.陣内_Jinnai 04:52, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

But that situation is not what is happening here. We have tons of RSs which just state what they believe the generations to be without reference to either wikipedia or to a source which cites wikipedia.LedRush (talk) 13:14, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I brought this up at WT:V.陣内_Jinnai 15:46, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

This is such a trivial issue, it really doesn't matter where Tedius_Zanarukando got the generations from. You may as well ask User:67.181.110.229 where he got this edit from. All you're doing is organising how the history articles are split, there are significant amounts of reliable sources which now conform to this view, it is not contentious. Why are we making work for ourselves? - hahnchen 21:45, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Because it's confusing to outsiders, both people unfamiliar to wikipedia and video games. Generations are used all the time, but their numbering is not. Wikipedia is supposed to be accessible and readable to anyone (literate of course.) These titles don't go along with the outside world. Sergecross73 msg me 23:23, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

They do go with the outside world as sources suggest. The Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition is a populist book aimed at casuals and gift buyers, it uses this nomenclature. - hahnchen 00:11, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Even if CIRCULAR is fine (which it appears no one has any real issue about it at WP:V, there is still the WP:NPOV issue and WP:CALC issue. There's also, even among the industry, unclear definitions for the first few generations.陣内_Jinnai 00:46, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand how the current terminology could be confusing to anyone...could someone explain how accurate language is confusing when all it is is numbering something 1-7? Also, there are no NPOV issues or CALC issues to my knowledge. Could someone explain why the current Wikipedia system has issues in these regards?LedRush (talk) 04:26, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

It's because you refuse to acknowledge that I've shown sources that call into question how the generations are mesaured. Those sources dispute the listings used by Wikipedia. Futhermore, there is disagreement among industry sources as to what the first few generations are and therefore the current version violates WP:NPOV and WP:CALC. Note that it isn't just 1 source that disagrees with the scheme; its several. You basically want to favor the industry's labeling of generations over academic ones and also certain industry ones over others; that's POV. Also because its unclear where generations begin, CALC cannot be used as it requires clear understanding of how you get from point a to b by every editor (assuming good faith on their part). I'm saying its not clear and therefore CALC cannot be used as evidence does not support it.陣内_Jinnai 04:36, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

There is no CALC violation because there is no calculation occurring. All we are doing is citing RSs. That's it. There is no NPOV issue because there is virtually no conflicting point of view. The vast majority of sources confirm Wikipedia's numbering system, including the some of the ones you've listed above. Even if you scrounge up a few dissenting articles, those would not undo the numerous other sources. If one source out of 10 says that the Odyssey II is first generation instead of second, we can add that in those articles (being sure not to give undue weight to the minority position). If one source out of 10 conflates the first two generations into one, we can do the same. But you are manufacturing problems where there are none, and you have no substantive arguments to back it up.LedRush (talk) 05:38, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Care to share some of these "vast majority of reliable sources". I think you're exagerating a little to prove a point. And I'm not talking about any old article that mentions the word "generation", I mean ones that specifically say things like "N64 is part of the 5th generation". Sergecross73 msg me 15:35, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes. I've proven there are sources that contradict it. I've seen nothing but stonewalling the other way. A cursory glance at the article doesn't seem to support it either as a "majority of the sources" aren't being used to support the entire generation format. A lot of them there's latterly nothing that clearly indicates that this is "X generation" and definatly not a "majority" by any stretch of the imagination.陣内_Jinnai 20:17, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

You're getting stonewalled because you're making a mountain out of a non-issue. The other sources don't contradict it, because the generational listing is used for sakes of organisation. They mean the same thing. You cite an economics journal above as a contradiction, but it merely counts the PS2 as generation 5 instead of generation 6 (as per Wikipedia). This doesn't matter, it doesn't matter how they count it, because regardless those generations are the same thing - dark ages/early middle ages. We're using the Gregorian calendar, and they're using the Islamic calendar. If you want to make it clear what generations Wikipedia refers to, then link the word generation to the suitable history article. The whole academic vs industry NPOV is a non-argument, given that there are plenty of academic and popular sources confirming the Wikipedia standpoint. - hahnchen 21:11, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

That you believe its not as issue is your opinion. You're entireled to that. That doesn't mean you can tell me or others to think its not a big issue. It does organize things in a way that groups them as a POV; ie this is how everyone should look at the generational grouping of video games and anything to the contrary is wrong. Now, for some of the later generations, there might be enough support out there to justify that view; however that is not the case for all of it and we are not allowed to make editoral descisions when there is not a clear consensus.

Finally, its easy to throw search results up and "say" they support your claim, especially generic google results which contain lots of unrelaible sources, but its another to dig through them and prove it. A lot of those sources - includng the scholarly ones - you "claim" support the arguments don't'. I know because I spent the past 2 days going through every publicly avaliable scholarly source, article-by-article, i could find with multiple scholarly searches and when you get back far enough in video-game history those sources don't match up. Therefore its a big WP:NPOV and possibly

Just to give one example, I can tell you the biggest one there is a huge divide disagreement is the first generation. A lot of RSes - both scholarly and industry view the first generation as the 1977 one we list as "second generation".陣内_Jinnai 03:56, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

While some articles conflate the first two generations into one, there is otherwise wide agreement on the generations. Your own examples proved this (which is another reason your arguments don't generate the responses you want). You make outrageous claims about certain sources (ones that explicitly back the current generations' description you argue does the opposite) and you through irrelevant wikipedia policy arguments whenever you can (it's a circular...wait, everyone at the verifiability board disagrees....it's an unacceptable Calc...wait, we're not doing calc....it's POV!). Gamefaqs lists a comprehensive generation sorting page which conforms to our. If you search out the individual consoles, you'll see that they are listed the way we do. We have verifiably information presented in a NPOV and there is almost no controversy here except for the one that you are manufacturing. If you want to add some notes to the first and second generation articles about how some scholars believe that those two generations are really one (and add a one sentence note to each subsequent generation saying that some scholars see the third generation as the second, etc.), go ahead. No one is stopping you. Otherwise, this entire conversation is pointless.LedRush (talk) 13:35, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You'd be more effective if you stopped with the huge "walls of text" and started giving some links to all of these "vast majority of reliable sources" you have refered to...Sergecross73 msg me 18:14, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

A suggestion: replace generations with years

I think when I read through this discussion, it's clear that the industry does consider the progression of hardware as "generations" but any counting of generations appears to come down from inference from Wikipedia, and thus are circular references.

Given that we really shouldn't be counting the generations ourselves, we should take another approach to make the history of vg consoles still accessible. To that end I propose that we simply replace "nth generation) with a date range, with any consoles introduced within that year range to be considered part of it (eg our 6th gen article would be actually be "1999-2004", our 7th gene "2005-current", etc.) - we wouldn't worry when the console was actually phased out in this scheme, so, like, for example, the 6th gen article currently claims from 1999-2011, but clearly if you consider release year, that's much shorter.

This would also allow us to "fix" the idea that we're basing these divisions on the "home console" generation. That is, our current history article is "2005-present", and that the next history one isn't established until the next major console arrives, despite the 3DS and PSP2/NGP being released this year. (Alternatively, there's always the ability to separate out the portable market from the fixed console market).

Effectively, this means we only have to retitle these articles and scrub out "nth generation" in the text. We don't have to source our year breakout as that's now only a easy means to organize a large amount of content instead of trying to justify the use of the "nth generation" name. --MASEM (t) 17:04, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The circular argument is untrue and has been defeated http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:V#WP:CIRCULAR_and_when_things_enter_the_part_of_the_cultural_language . I want to think about your proposal a bit, as it does seem to have advantages and drawbacks.LedRush (talk) 17:08, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm all for this scheme. It would make the standard for inclusion much easier and in my opinion, treat it more historically in regard to home and portable consoles. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 18:04, 27 January 2011 (UTC))

I fully support some sort of organization by years. I think it may lead to endless arguments over organizing it within years, but if it can be eventually hashed out, I think it would be better. Sergecross73 msg me 18:11, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

This would make so much more sense, and save a lot arguing in the long-term. Personally, I'm less concerned with any possibility of WP:CIRCULAR violations, and more worried about where we draw the lines for each "generation". That being said, the only real problems in that respect is for the earliest and most recent consoles. If we can resolve those satisfactorily, then this may not be necessary at all. Otherwise, I'd say this is a better option. --Dorsal Axe 18:22, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the above. Years are much more concrete and far less subjective than the issues that have begun cropping up in this discussion. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 18:58, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

In regards to Sergecross's comment above and others, while I can agree that there could be editwars on the year division, this can be a case were we can look at an overall grouping of the reliable sources and see how they discuss and compare units. For example, the 360 is universally compared to the PS3 and the Wii, even though at its release, the PS2 and the GC were the other available consoles. Or the Dreamcast vs PS1, etc. We go for the groupings that make the most sense from sources, and just make sure that there's really no overlap in years across the "history" articles. --MASEM (t) 19:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

"and just make sure that there's really no overlap in years across the 'history' articles" is the doubtful part. Look at what we have now in the navbox: First overlaps Second by 2 years (1976 and 1977), Second overlaps Third by 2 years, Third overlaps Fourth by 6 years, Fourth overlaps Fifth by 4 years, Fifth overlaps Sixth by 5 years, and Sixth overlaps Seventh by 7 years. If an "Eighth"-generation console is released in 2011, Sixth would overlap Eighth by 1 year. Anomie⚔ 20:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Comment I don't really see how this changes anything from the current method. We are still keeping all of the generations grouped in the same way as before, just with a different name. But why should that be if there are no generations? We would still have the same issue of whether the Atari 2600 should be in the same "year grouping" as the Odyssey. I don't see this as adding any more clarity, and actually could feel less precise and more confusing to a lot of people. Questions like: why was X console get grouped in with y date range and not with z date range?" That type of question is answered in the title of the current grouping. Furthermore, I see this as more of an OP issue than the current groupings. We at least have sources that name certain consoles as belonging to a certain generation, and these sources are almost completely consistent except for in the first two generations. But we will have highly conflicting sources on how to group by years. Do we weight each different year grouping? Or do we create our own year groupings based on research into what RSs say about generations? If that's the case, we are moving away from the principles of WP in an effort to solve a problem that doesn't exist.LedRush (talk) 19:17, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

In almost all other cases of "history" or timeline sections in other articles on WP (including some of our genre ones), the history is segmented by year markers. Some of these are predetermined in sources (eg palaeontology eras) others are best described based on best to group things. Our way of classifying by "generations" (which, as I've commented, overlap) is very very awkward, and again, it itself is possibly original research that has since possibly been validated by adaption in the culture. At least with a year boundary, consoles are or are not part of a specific article - classification is relatively easy. I am aware that the bounds we set for each article could be arbitrary and arguable (someone desperately wanting to classify a powerful console in with lesser consoles releases a few years earlier) but again, if sources generally compared X and Y and Z consoles in the same breath, and never compared X and Q, then our year splits should be based on grouping X, Y, and Z, and keeping Q in a different article. --MASEM (t) 19:37, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

What Masem said. The plus side to year boundaries is that it creates clear boundaries. Any content about previous generations that occurs after the boundary has a defined place to go. So even though overlap will occur, I believe it will make more sense. Take the numerous Sega Genesis releases or the Atari Flash Backs for example. Though these are most relevant to one generation (which has not been nailed down as far as time frame and what consoles it encompasses), it will have a clear place in a purely chronological time frame. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 19:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC))

It's just like what "Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs" said too: "Generations" are subjective and open for interpretation, years are very concrete. You can argue about what to name the generation the Dreamcast is in. You can't argue whether or not Dreamcast was out in 2000. That kind of thing. Sergecross73 msg me 19:57, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm fine with that. It sidesteps the big issue of naming. There will always be issues regarding what goes where, even with generation model. I do think we need to point out somewhere that video games are classified by generations, although there are disputes, for some, about what goes in what generation. It can probably go at the top of the page in a its own section.陣内_Jinnai 20:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

This is a manufactured issue, we really ought to stop with the hand wringing Wikipedia navel gazing. It's just a lot of work to reorganise articles for very little benefit. The generational structure used in Wikipedia has already been adopted in academic and industry sources - this is an indication of how successful the structure is. The way consoles are grouped into generations, is how we intuitively compare systems, it allows for overlaps between the years, while still keeping competing consoles together. It doesn't matter how original the generational numbering is, but that it has been confirmed by significant numbers of reliable sources. And it's no more an NPOV violation than the spelling of aluminium. - hahnchen 20:14, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

And the minor disputes over what constitutes a generation can be included in the current articles right now. "The second generation... ...considered the first by some sources..." - hahnchen 20:16, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You'd have to do that for everyone one and I seriously doubt the claim that the majority of sources think the Wikipedia 1st gen is indeed the first gen.陣内_Jinnai 20:21, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You don't need a majority, in the same way aluminium doesn't need a majority. What matters is that we are internally consistent. The only real debate is in the very early generations, try comparing a search for "Playstation 3" "seventh generation" and "Playstation 3" "sixth generation", it's fairly obvious, even without spending 2 days going over each source individually. Do you really think we would drop the generational marking even if we moved the articles to years? - hahnchen 20:30, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Hahnchen is absolutely right. I't much easier to add a little section on differing views of generations for the consoles about which there are multiple opinions than this proposal which is confusing and moves us away from core WP principles.LedRush (talk) 20:34, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Then would we have to find the real first generation? it's not like it's numbered. just numbered in order of chronology. but i really don't mind it being called 19XX-19XX generation.Bread Ninja (talk) 20:31, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem with the years is that they will basically just be a rename of the current articles, except they will be confusing (as the years overlap) and harder to source. If they aren't the same, they are even harder to source and make sense of. We are creating a lot of problems in order to solve nothing.LedRush (talk) 20:36, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Not if we base it on original release date and end it (except for the last one) based on the last initial release date. With few exceptions for older systems, that info isn't hard to find.陣内_Jinnai 20:38, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Just so I understand, the idea is merely to rename the generations to year ranges with no change to the groupings at all?LedRush (talk) 20:41, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

At this time. That isn't to say in the future there won't be, but I think Masem's version of analysis would be best. However, that's no different that someone arguing because X Y and Z sources say this that the Dreamcast should be listed in another generation.陣内_Jinnai 20:47, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

If we're only renaming, I don't see the benefit. Are we going to justify the groupings through the generational model of naming or through new sources? Do we have sources that talk about these groupings? The benefit of the other model is that we could get different sources that named x console as part of y generation, and then we could make an article on y generation. Now, without new sources to talk about the year groupings, this will change something that conforms to WP policy to one that doesn't because of OR and SYNTH issues.LedRush (talk) 21:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Because saying that the Dreamcast was in the sixth generation and so were x y and z is a declaration of content, and per the above we have problems finding good sources saying explicitly that it is in gen "6". Saying that it was released in 1998 is an easy fact to prove- and clumping it with other systems released near the same time is an organizational decision, not a content one, and therefore fits in our purview as "editors". It also cleans up the overlap- the 6th generation won't end until the PS2 stops being sold, probably well into the 8th gen, but the 1998-2001 clump includes the same systems based on when they were released and so has an easy stopping point without needed sources to say that they were in the same "generation". --PresN 21:16, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

But you are missing the point. We currently have RSs saying that a certain console is in a certain generation, and then we just group all those together. In the new suggestion, we would have many sources to say which year a console was released, but we'd have a harder time actually grouping those years together (as currently proposed). So this proposal doesn't solve any problems and creates new ones.LedRush (talk) 21:27, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem that we have that is persistent is this: for every game console, do we have a source that says "It is a nth generation unit"? Based on the reason for this entire discussion, I'm pretty sure the answer is no. Even if you allow for some "simple" assumptions that a console released between two other consoles each that have been IDd to a specific generation implies that the first console is also of that generation, there's too many edge cases (see, for example, the 3DS/NGP issues) to be a useful factor. On the other hand, a year of release is an absolute, and the only points to be begged are what bounds we used at the ends of each history article to be appropriately complete, though right now, how the history articles are currently broken up provide an excellent roadmap.

Note that I don't propose scrubbing any mention of the term "generation" from articles. If sources have said "consoles released in YYYY to YYYY are nth generation", we can include statements to that effect. But by using a hard verified point in time (console release) to segment the history, we avoid the situation we are in now. --MASEM (t) 21:48, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Another point is that with the 3DS in particular, we've seen articles where they state that it is not an eighth generation console due to its lack of power and functions. But what happens if another source calls it a part of the eighth generation? Which reference do we use? What if IGN and GameSpot had editors of equal standing that disagreed on the matter - which would we choose? Both? Neither? - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 21:54, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

First of all, we do have a reference for each system, including a quite comprehensive one at gamefaqs which conforms nicely to our current structure. The second problem is that the years-division plan doesn't solve any problems. For example, Hippie asked what happens if source say that the 3DS isn't 8th gen. Well, the same issue would arise with our grouping (i.e,, does the 3DS go in the 2005-2011 article or the 2011-20?? article? We wouldn't have any reliable sources for one grouping or the other until we start looking at what generation most articles name it. Once that happens, it will have a source as to what generation it is in. So the yearly grouping as now proposed is still dependent on the generation-naming, but it just changes the name. As stated above, this is more confusing than it needs to be, and it makes our groupings farther removed from actual sources.LedRush (talk) 22:05, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

In placing the 3DS in an article, we NEVER have to make a judgment or assumption. In using generations, it is impossible for any situation that would include two conflicting sources on what generation a system exists in without us doing our own original research of which source should be taken with more credibility. The way we would determine these articles is to either make a guideline of where consoles should be placed - ie, if they should be played in the article that covers the majority of years that it is most active, or if it should be in the article that covers its year of origin, or if the year articles would not have all information on a console, but rather, merely covering the notable events of that span of time. I do not see why the set up has to be that a console's information must be exclusive to one of these articles. This is operating under the assumption that the current set-up is what we should stick with.

And I must question how sources do not support grouping by year. We are making no declarations with the article titling - we are merely covering a span of time in the video game industry. Doing the articles based on a five year span generally covers most consoles in their life time. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 22:21, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

First of all, it is not OR to weigh sources You address differing views within the article. Secondly, if you put the 3DS into a year grouping, you MUST make a judgment or assumption...otherwise you wouldn't know which year grouping it goes in to. However, if you put it into generation grouping, you just wait and see what the sources say. And doing 5 year cycles would be even worse than the current suggestion as it would be entirely OR which doesn't mesh with the currently, popularly accepted divisions. I don't see how moving to a model with no RSs and with no support for the different groupings other than the current generation model is better than just using the current generation model. It defies all logic.LedRush (talk) 22:35, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Remember, the other part of my suggestion is to split off portable gaming from fixed console gaming. A lot of the issues we're having is because those two hardware systems work on different cycles. And since very few people compare feature of a specific portable unit to a fixed console unit, that's not a problem to break apart. --MASEM (t) 22:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

That, IMO, is a much better idea than this "keep generations but name them after release years instead to increase the likelihood of confusing readers" plan it has been bundled with. Anomie⚔ 23:48, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

That can, and probably should, be done in addition to the renaming. They aren't mutually exclusive. In addition, outside data pages GameFAQs is not a RS so that listing you use from gamefaqs is not valid RS.陣内_Jinnai 00:39, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The reason GameFAQs isn't fully reliable is because it's user-contributed. But the console list had no input from GameFAQs users at all. If we trust the staff's ability to research and verify the data contributions, I don't see why we can't trust something that was created by the staff without any user input. Reach Out to the Truth 16:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

@Bread Ninja: the first "history" article can be given as "(-19xx)", implying anything before a certain year, so that would capture any of the early primative video game consoles like all the various Pong units, etc. --MASEM (t) 22:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I support it as long as the years don't overlap. IE the third generation would be 1983-1987, fourth generation would be 1987-1994, fifth generation would be 1994-1998, sixth 1998-2005 etc. Keep in mind I have no idea why Jaguar and 3D0 are not listed as fourth generation consoles, as I believed them to be just that.--SexyKick 23:57, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Definitely no over lap, even your examples have a bit: eg it should be 1983-1987; 1988-1994; 1995-1998, etc. Hard edges, no fuzziness. --16:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Ledrush, again and again you talk about all these reliable sources that use the numbered generations, without actually giving any. The only site you mention is gamefaqs, which is not a reliable source for wikipedia. Can you provide some reliable sources that number the generations like wikipedia does?

Beyond that, it seems like things are leaning towards re-doing things with years. I don't think arguments like "the payoff isn't worth it" are valid. It's one thing to be against the principle, but if it's just "too much work" , you don't have to participate in it. Sergecross73 msg me 15:31, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

OTOH, no one has addressed the major problem with years: If we rename History of video game consoles (fourth generation) to "History of video game consoles (1987–1992)", how do we communicate to readers (and newbie editors) that it really covers 1987–1998 or so and that information on consoles released during 1987–1992 should be there rather than split across that article, 1993–1997, and 1998−2004? Anomie⚔ 17:11, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The year range is specifically aimed at the year of hardware release, and that should be identified in the lead. for example, the current 4th gen lead reads: In the history of computer and video games, the fourth generation (more commonly referred to as the 16 bit era) began on October 30, 1987 with the Japanese release of Nippon Electric Company's (NEC) PC Engine (known as the TurboGrafx-16 in North America).. That can be changed to read The years 1987 through 1992 in the history of computer and video games is often called the 16 bit era; gaming consoles released during this period are considered the fourth generation of consoles. It was heralded by the Japanese release of NEC's PC Engine on October 30, 1987. (or something like that). --MASEM (t) 17:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I thought gamefaqs data pages were considered reliable information. Aren't their lists of consoles grouped by generations considered data pages?? Should we take that specific issue to another talk page?--BeastSystem (talk) 18:06, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem with Masem's suggestion is that there is no RS for grouping the years 1987-1992 together. However, we do have sources that say the Genesis, TG-16 and SNES were in the fourth generation. Why even make the change to years if we're not going to change the substance of the article? Especially when the change makes the article harder to source and justify.LedRush (talk) 18:11, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Splitting by years, while arbitrary, avoids any issues of trying to assign a specific console to a specific generation when no sources give that information. Now if we have sources that identify common groupings, we can use that to decide the right year splits, and then still call that the fourth generation or whatever. --MASEM (t) 19:32, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

But is the 16-bit era really 1987 through 1992? Or is it more like 1987 through 1995 or so, since the early 32-bit consoles didn't meet with much success? Or even 1997 or 2000, as Nintendo continued releasing first-party SNES games in the US and Japan until those years? Anomie⚔ 18:33, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

My text was just an example of how to alert users what content goes in that article. It's not a perfect statement by far. --MASEM (t) 19:32, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

A suggestion: change our mistaken thinking

It seems that no one disagrees that we can and should group the consoles the way we have them grouped; it's just that some people have taken a dislike to the specific "nth generation" naming because some sources number the generations differently.

But where do our specific generation numbers come from? History of video games. Consoles are treated in that article in groups, termed "generations" which seems to be quite standard, and these generations are numbered in chronological order. That's it. The various "History of video game consoles (nth generation)" articles are basically WP:SUMMARY splits from that article, so they inherit their naming from that article. When you look at it like that, arguing over whether the specific number can be sourced is as silly as the arguments not too long ago over whether we can have an article titled "List of X" without reliable sources to source the specific name "List of X" (which IIRC ended with the major troublemaker banned).

So, my proposal:

• Recognize that the numbering of generations is just a trivial editorial decision required by the act of compiling and organizing the facts into a coherent article History of video games (see WP:NOTOR#Compiling facts and information).
• Recognize that naming the articles "History of video game consoles (nth generation)" plainly follows from the previous point and WP:SUMMARY, although perhaps a trivial rename (e.g. to "nth generation of video game consoles") would be wanted per Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Subsidiary articles.
• There is an issue that the generations of handhelds don't really match up with the generations of consoles. Easy fix: Cover them in "nth generation of handheld game consoles" rather than trying to shoehorn them in where they don't belong, or merge them back into History of video games if there isn't enough to split out.

Anomie⚔ 18:34, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Just Ignore all rules and keep it as it is because it makes sense. That is what happens when one guideline collides with another. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 18:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

• • I wholely disagree with this. It's not some "trivial editorial decision" as it tries to make one think in a particular mindset, ie This IS the nth generation.陣内_Jinnai 19:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
    • well aslong as it officially exist.Bread Ninja (talk) 19:18, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

    Do you also oppose all the various parenthesized disambiguators used all over the place per WP:DAB? It's basically the same thing. Anomie⚔ 23:11, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

  • The problem with "generations" has been brewing for a long time, and we need to address it. It is leading to editing difficulties. If the idea of generations were better established literature (even if it is a fact that they borrowed our designations for it), this wouldn't be an issue, but it is a problem without a lot of reliable sources. --MASEM (t) 19:29, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

    Well, the problem is trivial at best. And the "solution" to the problem articulated above is to actually make a system with even fewer RSs (thereby doing nothing to address the problem). It doesn't make sense to me.LedRush (talk) 19:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

    I must have missed it, what are these editing difficulties besides people whinging about not having a source for the specific numbers and WP:CRYSTAL when the next round of consoles is just starting to be released? For the former, I suggest telling them to stop, and the latter I suggest putting the content in History of video games until there is enough to split. Anomie⚔ 23:05, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with labelling specific generations. People (such as myself) who actually work in the games industry never, ever talk about "4th generation consoles" (or whatever value of 'n' you decide to pick). We do, however talk about "NEXT generation consoles" and "LAST generation consoles". Throughout the period when Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 had not yet been released, we would routinely talk about our "Next gen project" or "the way things will change in next-gen consoles"...and compare "Next-gen" capabilities to "Last-gen" features. But nobody ever attached a number to them. Right now, the Wii, Xbox-360 and PS-3 are "Last generation" - and nobody really talks about "Next-Gen" since there are as yet no strong indications that there actually will BE a next-gen. I've been working in games and simulation for decades and I have absolutely no clue what you might mean by a "sixth generation" console...and neither do any of the handful of co-workers who happened to be in earshot when I exclaimed my horror. We might, maybe, talk about "the 8 bit era" and "the 32 bit revolution" - but only in the most vague terms. I don't think any of us would attempt to pin a particular console to a particular "generation" nomenclature like that. It's arbitrary and quite misleading. This belongs firmly in the WP:NOR category. IMHO, if the articles are getting too long, we should split things up by decade - 1970's, 1980's and so on. Anything else is a bizarre and unnatural distinction that can only cause grief as people argue whether a particular box belongs to a particular generation or not. SteveBaker (talk) 19:41, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. If this sort of labeling was the best to use, you'd see it plastered all over Gamespot, IGN, and any other reliable video game websites, industry-related people would refer to it constantly, etc. Sergecross73 msg me 19:54, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Well I don't think anyone would disagree on a per name basis, however...8-bit era, 16-bit era, but then where do we go from there? 32-bit era included a 64 bit system, and the 128-bit era included a 32-bit system (Xbox,) and what bit is the current generation anyway?--BeastSystem (talk) 20:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the PlayStation and Xbox were first considered "128-bit" when both consoles were in development in the early 90s, but that terminology was quickly dropped when hardware and software focused more on graphical techniques and methods than the number of bits a certain command can have.

Moreover, where does the Atari Jaguar fit in? Many contend that that wasn't even 64-bit (many say it was only a pair of 32-bit processors IIRC). –MuZemike 21:07, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Sources use the generations far more than they use year-groupings.LedRush (talk) 21:09, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

But none, or next-to-none, use terms like "6th gen". Sergecross73 msg me 21:47, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Google disagrees with you http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=%22sixth+generation%22+console&aq=f&aqi=g1g-v3g-o1&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&fp=6bedc48458f579e8

Actually, seeing as someone against the generations naming convention has already provided several examples of people using the term on this very thread, your assertion borders on the absurd.LedRush (talk) 22:06, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

See, that's my point. "Generations" are quite commonly defined, but we need to have some sort of disambiguation when writing an encyclopedia because we're concerned with more than just "last" and "next". Chronological numbering works. Arbitrary year groupings have more issues. Anomie⚔ 23:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

While I agree with the points being raised, I have to say the Steve Baker's example is not entirely accurate. The industry has used terminology like (for example) "third generation" in the past. NEC presented it's console as a third generation console ("At the show, NEC will introduce what it terms a third-generation video game system, featuring a 16-bit graphics processor, compared to Nintendo's eight-bit....."). Coleco also presented their ColecoVision system as a "third generation" console as well. The press also used the term "third generation" to describe NEC's and Sega's consoles on their release ("Sega and NEC are hauling out a third generation of games and accessories" The 5200 was presented as Second Generation at one time. The idea of the usage of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. "generations" to describe a console is not something that originated here as some are claiming, and is not something the industry or the press has never used. It predates Wikipedia in both the industry and the press as shown. Like I said though, I don't disagree with the fact an overhaul of how Wikipedia categorizes console generations/dates/bitness/(insert your measurement here)/etc. are presented. The problem is there's inherent faults in all of them. Dates alone don't accurately convey who a console is meant to compete against (i.e. the generation). Likewise generation alone doesn't accurately convey things like actual technology under the hood. Bitness is an inaccurate marketing term to start organizing around as well, because it's about what's under the hood in it's entirety. As examples, the Intellivision uses a 16-bit cpu, but clearly not in the same class as the Genesis and SNES, and the Jaguar is a multi-processor 16, 32, and 64 bit system. This isn't a quandry that's existed in a bubble or solely at Wikipedia either. We've debated an official method for academia, museums, etc. to use at the IGDA's IGDA Game Preservation SIG (which is comprised of people in the industry, museums, academics, etc.) I just don't see a one size fits all solution here other than some sort of minorly synthesized solution based on consensus of the project, that clearly explains how the consensus was reached, which is actually allowed in some cases and has been done here before. A similar process was done for the MoS section on using kB vs. KiB, where some wanted to enforce across the board here the more recent adoption by some professional organizations of IEC over SI because they were of course reliable third party sources. Others produced other sources to show it wasn't accepted across the industry or in standard use, and after a lengthy process (much longer than this one) the current synthesized guideline was reached via consensus. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 21:46, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I think most recognize that we are trying to figure out how to break the topic "History of gaming consoles", into manageable chunks per WP:SIZE, but because of a lack of consistency within the sources, we have reliable and obvious way to segment that. (Compared, again, to palaeontology eras, where experts have come to agreed what date range is equivalent to what era, etc.) If the "generation" idea was well founded, including sources that identified multiple generations, at the same time (eg explaining how its split) then it would be a better solution. But its not, and we're being challenged on that call. Any other split will be arbitrary but as long as we have a clear rule for the split (eg year of release, a reliably source bit of info for each console), we're not engaging in the OR that the "generations" approach does. It only remains to find the best method of grouping that makes the most sense. --MASEM (t) 22:11, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Why not simply break it into release years equivalent to the current "generations". 19XX-19XX, ending it just before the release of the next major player? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 22:22, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Because we have a lot of RSs for generations and not for year groupings.LedRush (talk) 22:50, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

You don't need RS for breaking a large article into reasonable segments. Years aren't a label, they are just organization. The years themselves aren't OR, and you needn't claim anything special about those years, just tell what happened. "nth generation" is a label. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 23:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Wait, so don't need a reliable source to group items by the certain year spreads but you do to have the same exact grouping under a different name? I don't think that is correct Wikipedia policy (but I could be mistaken). A year itself wouldn't be a label, but a decade or five year grouping probably would be. And year breaks by type of console (what we and RSs call a generation) definitely are a label. How is saying 1987-1993 better than Fourth Generation? The latter is backed up by a RS and the former isn't? LedRush (talk) 23:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

My initial suggest was to split on years by generation such that the only major editing that has to be done is page name changes and some stuff in the lead. It removes "generations" without any additional work, which is a benefit all around. We can still mention generations and claim that these years are referred to as such. --MASEM (t) 23:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Which solves only the problem of people whinging about specific generation numbers, and causes new problems. "We need to do something! This is something! Let's do this!" about sums it up, IMO. Anomie⚔ 23:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

There is a problem : There is no established single or even agglomerate authority on the division of consoles into "generations"; there are hints and traces of it, and I would suspect that if some enterprising expect came along and wrote a book to fix what the generations are, it would be widely adapted, and we could use that nomenclature without a problem. Right now there isn't and picking out what the wider agreement is is likely follow a half-eaten trail of bread crumbs, and essential screams OR (even granting that WP may have influenced the wider journalism sources to adapt the same structure thus validating the model). Using the term "generation" begs for arguments when the maker of console X introduces console X+1 claiming it to be "next gen" when technically X+1 is the same tech in X rebundled in a different package, because "next gen" is a peacock word for the industry. Right now we are using a peacock work as fact, possibly correct, but very much against all of WP's general principles. The simple switch to year ranges doesn't change any other approach but neutralizes our use of a POV/OR term that yet cannot be justified. --MASEM (t) 23:44, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Also in many cases the consoles in the old generation didn't instantly disappear the moment the first "next generation" console was released. Anomie⚔ 23:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Which is why establishing the inclusion point as "year of release" ignores any long tails (PS2 anyone?) into other generations that a console may have. --MASEM (t) 23:44, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Except that choosing which years to put in each grouping is exactly as original, so nothing is being gained. But meanwhile we give a misleading indication of what each article contains. Anomie⚔ 23:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Generations have been an intuitive way of splitting the history and has been employed by the industry before as Marty mentions. I was at a talk given by David Braben on the cusp of the current generation, describing them as 4th generation consoles. But things have moved on, and I think its partly to do with Wikipedia. I've shown with the searches above, with "playstation 3" "seventh generation" and "playstation 3" "sixth generation" that the world has moved towards the Wikipedia model. I think what we have, is the best way forward. - hahnchen 22:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess that's my point (Masem and Hahnchen), that since there's no universally authoritative way of approaching this matter because there's been many methods employed across the board over the years, that at some point (just like with the IEC/SI issue) Wikipedia and the video game project have to go with what's right for itself. If this is simply about breaking it down in to smaller chunks, as a few have mentioned, then that has more to do with a guideline/article organization issue than a content issue. In the latter you're talking about to base content about references and such, in the first you're talking about more of an internal organizational issue which, like guidelines, are done via consensus. I don't think Wikipedia should be the grounds for trying to solve this categorization issue and give credence to one method (dates, generations, bits, whatever) over another. Rather a method that satisfy's the needs of the project needs to be formed via consensus - a method that most likely takes all these in to consideration. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 23:33, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Is what you are saying "None of the solutions work, so just make a consensus to pick one"? I agree. Just stick with the Generation numbering, because while sources do conflict, they do exist, and it makes sense. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 00:16, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

No, I clearly stated that none of the methods appear to be a verifiable (through references) standard. That none have any more weight than the other, because all have been used at some point. That the project needs to treat this as an organizational/guideline issue instead of a content one in light of this. I did not say "just pick one", and in fact don't feel a certain method should be given weight over another - that's not Wikipedia's job. Rather this being more of an article organizational issue (which is Guideline territory) the project needs to look at what method or *combination of methods* best suits the project's needs on the matter. As in it should be coming from that perspective instead of arguing about which method is or is not more standard as the bulk of this page has shown. As I clearly stated, I don't feel one distinct method fits all and it's certainly something that's been discussed at more professional levels as well and still not solved. We shouldn't be trying to solve it here either, just coming up with what best meets this project's needs. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 00:32, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Anomie and Blake. This is getting ridiculous. We should separate the handhelds, and stick with what we have.--SexyKick 01:20, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

So you want to basically violate the 5 pillars because this discussion is getting ridiculus? Why should video game history be treated SO special that it can igore the 3 of the 5 pillars: NPOV, V & NOR?陣内_Jinnai 03:42, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

No, you want to violate the pillars on OR and V, while using generations is easily V, doesn't require OR, and of course, none of these issues are NPOV issues. So you hate the term "generations" so much you would trade that imperfect term for the same articles but with few/no RSs to give it V, and only OR to support it.LedRush (talk) 06:06, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

There are few reliable sources that give enough support to use generations. Years, yes. --MASEM (t) 06:12, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

There are no sources listed on this topic for groupings of years. Perhaps they exist, but there currently are none listed. In my own search, I've found some references, but they all conflict (sometimes because they count the grouping from when the first console started to when the last ended, so there is overlap and different definitions). However, there are many sources for the generations (see the many above) and there is wide agreement about which console fits into which generation. The fact that when sources actually do cite year ranges that they use the generation model to do so contradicts the supposed need to move from the generation model (sourced) to a years grouping model (unsourced).LedRush (talk) 17:02, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

There is no OR in deciding how best to group consoles by years; we only need to find the right splits that best sorts the sources to the most comprehensive package. --MASEM (t) 17:28, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

If the sources for "generation numbers" conflict - then they aren't really "reliable sources"...certainly you can't pick one and call it authoritative. It often happens in this kind of situation where the generation numbers start off fairly clear for the first one or two generations - then as the manufacturers catch wind that nobody will want a "second generation" console when everyone is claiming that theirs are "third generation" - they'll have no moral compunction whatever in just saying that theirs is "fourth generation". It just advertising hype. Hence generation numbers higher than about 3 don't mean a damned thing. You certainly can't say "The Xbox is a 6th gen console and the Xbox 360 is 7th gen" - there is no reasonable way to back that up. A similar thing happened with the "bit width" thing. It was originally true that older consoles used 8 bit processors (the 6502, Z80, etc) - and that when 16 bit processors came along, everything suddenly got a lot better. But the line between 16 and 32 got blurry because we couldn't be sure whether they were talking about CPU register widths or bus widths. Something like the 68000 CPU could be purchased with either an 8 or a 16 bit external bus and was 32 bit inside! WTF? Now, we're all over the map with 64 bit, 128 bit and christ-knows-what numbers of bits. It's become meaningless. Getting solid, unambiguous ENCYCLOPEADIC descriptions of what constitutes each generation or each bit-width is impossible. You may find one source that claims to have a coherent story - but you can absolutely guarantee you'll find a couple of others that look to be just as reliable saying exactly the opposite. Just as Wikiproject Automobiles had to swear off using the term "Supercar" because there is no One True Definition - but a dozen or more contradictory ones - we should merely allude to those names in articles - but do our formal divisions by something where there is essentially no disagreement. First year of mainstream sales is a really unambiguous thing. It's exceptionally well documented for even the most obscure hardware - and we can get unimpeachable references that actually agree with each other.

In the end, all we need to tell this story adequately is an ordering criterion and a way to split the article in to manageable bites. Years - or perhaps decades - do that perfectly. Both generations and bit-widths muddy the waters, confuse the readership and result in us telling the story of video game consoles out of sequence and in a confusing muddle. It's also a sure-fire way to get the fanboys of one or other machine at each other's throats arguing that one machine or other does or doesn't belong in some category or other. Using dates fixes that once and forever.

SteveBaker (talk) 04:30, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Fortunately, the sources don't conflict that much. And of course, any grouping of years violates the WP policy, while using RSs doesn't, so, it's got that going for it.LedRush (talk) 06:06, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there are sources for which year each console started selling. But are there any more sources for grouping 1987–1993 together than there are for calling the grouping of consoles released about that time as a generation? Anomie⚔ 14:39, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

And there's been no effort made to show that "sources don't conflict"; however, there has been evidence to the contrary. There have only been a few selected cases where console has been listed as X generation and most of them are listed in another generation by other RS.陣内_Jinnai 17:05, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, the sources largely agree. When you tried to prove otherwise, you used sources that explicitly support the current listings, as well as some that has only insignificant differences in the first and second generations. By trying to prove that the current system doesn't work, you proved the opposite. Thank you. The appropriate thing to do here, in line with WP policy, would be to cite the differences in categorization within the article itself.LedRush (talk) 17:34, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting some weird grouping like 1987 to 1993 - that would be to attempt to bracket a "generation" and therefore just as bad as defining generational numbers. I advocate splitting this overly large article by decades. 1970's, 1980's and so on. There are plenty of precedents for doing that within Wikipedia. Consider, for example Timeline of computing - which is split by decades for precisely the same reason this article should - because the "generational" nomenclature for computers fell apart at the third generation, just as it did for video game consoles. You can see this phenomenon of "generation" numbers working well for a couple of generations and then falling apart all over the place - it seems to be endemic in human nature. The article on the Mini car, for example, shows that enthusiasts talk about the Mk I, Mk II and Mk III Mini with full agreement - and then Mk IV through maybe Mk VI or VIII (depending on who you talk to) are less and less well agreed upon. SteveBaker (talk) 17:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Splitting consoles by decades would solve the lack of verifiability and RSs for other types of year groupings, but it would be horribly confusing and unhelpful to our readers. You couldn't have many of the intra-generational comparisons that make an article like this useful. It would unnaturally break up the telling of the story of gaming. You're going to split up the SNES and the Genesis (perhaps the most important console competition). You're going to split up the DreamCast from the rest of the generation. On the plus side, you can compare the Genesis and Intellivision, or the DreamCast and the SNES...oh wait, that makes no sense at all.LedRush (talk) 17:34, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Let me summarize the big problem:

• "History of video game consoles" is too large for one article. We need to split it.
• There is no industry-wide established method of how console history is envisioned.
• Thus, we are free (per necessity of being a summary source) to figure out a method to divide it up into sizable and comprehensive chunks.
• Of the methods we have:
  • "Generations" is the closest to the most established term but it is not a reliable means particularly given the meaning of "generation" as a point of sale, and the fact that there's no single reliable expert source that breaks apart generations in a useful manner - we have to piece-part it together. (And again, I stress, it may be WP's current approach for why generation is becoming useful, but it is certainly not there now)
  • Using years, split into fixed periods (like decades, every 5 years, etc.) removes any potential bias, but also can lead to difficulty in summarizing (eg if the press constantly compared two consoles but our year split puts one in one article, and the second in another, that's bad)
  • Using years, split into non-fixed periods to group related consoles can introduce potential bias, but its also the best way to group consoles that are discussed together in the existing literature. It also mimicks the developing idea of "generations" from the literature.
• There are probably other ways of splitting, but of these three, the one that is appropriate within WP's policy and does not introduce original research is the division by variable year periods to match the concept of generations. --MASEM (t) 20:01, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
  • There is no difference between dividing consoles into groups and calling these groups "generations" and dividing consoles into the exact same groups and calling the groups after the years of release, except that former doesn't pretend to be anything other than a grouping for convenience of encyclopedia writing (and could easily be footnoted to make that blindingly obvious) while the latter gives a false sense of some strict rule behind the division that will only confuse newbies and could easily enough cause trouble for us in the future. But it's obvious that I'm not going to change your mind here, and you're repeating the same tired arguments, so I'll just leave it at that. Good day. Anomie⚔ 23:10, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Well, there is another difference. We have a lot of RSs for the "generations" grouping and none that I know of for the "years grouping by generation". But your point is correct.LedRush (talk) 23:41, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

There are a couple of problems with Masem's summary. First, the history of video games is already divided into 7 articles about each generation...if we need to shorten the main article, we can. It's no problem because we have the generation articles. Second, the standard most used by people to discuss the groupings of game consoles is generations. We have tons of sources for this, even if we only have several that compile a comprehensive list of all generations. Third, renaming the generations as years per your summary is unsupported by RSs, and therefore, is less acceptable than the current and well sourced system of generations. Furthermore, it is more confusing.LedRush (talk) 23:41, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

No one has shown a single expert reliable source that lists out each generation and the features of them. All this stuff with generations is an amalgamation of several sources. In time, that may be true, and future works on video games will address how generations are delineated, maybe even based on our groupings here. But that is not the case today. --MASEM (t) 23:44, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

It is not even remotely necessary that we have one source that lays out all of the generations and the consoles within them. We have numerous RSs which state which console belongs in which generation. Some of them, like one or two that Jinnai found, are quite extensive. Others are extensive concerning only a specific generation. But it doesn't matter. If we have a source that says the NES was third generation, we put the NES in the third generation. If we have a source which talks about the fourth generation competition between the Genesis and the SNES, we put it in the fourth generation. We are clearly following WP rules, and this isn't exactly rocket science. Of course, no one has shown any sources about year groupings that match the generations, nonetheless any source which has ALL of the year groupings. It's strange that people would attack the generation-grouping for lacking RSs (despite the fact that we have tons of them) yet support a year-grouping that doesn't have nearly as many RSs (or perhaps any).LedRush (talk) 02:41, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

No, we need a single source to outline the generations. Say we have RS 1 by author 1 that puts the NES in 3rd gen, and RS 2 by author 2 putting the SNES in 4th gen. There is no indication or assurance that author 1 and 2 are talking the same set of generations, because there is no single expert source to set those out. That's the problem here, we have no trail or basis for what generations are set out to be that has been universally adapted and discussed. --MASEM (t) 03:06, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

We are allowed to use common sense on Wikipedia. If everyone buts the 8-bit consoles and calls them third generations, even if they do it separately, we know that they are talking about. Your contention that " we have no trail or basis for what generations are set out to be" is flat out wrong. We do have an indication. When all the sources put the NES and SMS in the third generation, and separate ones put the Genesis and SNES in the fourth, we know exactly what they are talking about. .And if you think they are talking about different definitions of generations, that would be original research. You merely take the RSs at face value. And every single critique you make regarding a generation is true of the year groupings. Except of course, THERE ARE NO RSs YET DISCUSSED FOR THE YEAR GROUPINGS. Perhaps they exist, but no one has given any evidence of them.LedRush (talk) 06:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

If it was common sense, this discussion wouldn't be happening; instead, people are questioning how the generations are defined (again, some right now arguing that 3DS and NGP/PSP2 are 8th gen which would not follow the present scheme). That means we need to find sources to justify that, and there are no comprehensive sources that do this, yet. We can't pick and choose selected sources to build that because that may mean we're ignoring contrary but equally valid sources that may set out different generations.

And the fact that sources don't the year ranges actually isn't a problem. The way these articles are set up, they are presenting stating "Console X is part of the Nth console generation", which is a statement that several are questioning for various consoles because of the poor definition of "generation". On the other hand, if we break out by year ranges, these articles are now saying "Console X was released between Y1 and Y2", which is a pure statement of fact and cannot be denied. So we can easily pick whatever year ranges we think best, and it so happens that our current splits are actually fair for this. --MASEM (t) 07:05, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

There is not a poor definition of generation. Merely saying it doesn't make it so. And WE aren't picking and choosing sources. If we have several sources that say that the Odyssey2 is second generations, but only a couple that say it's first, we put it in the second generation and note that some sources like "x" and "y" believe it fits better into the first generation. That's how every article on WP works. Why we need to reinvent the wheel here is astounding to me. Furthermore, there are no RSs for the year groupings. You don't need a RS to state when a console came out, but you would if you are going to create a new article revolving around a category of games which were released in some year range that was chosen specifically to group consoles together in a certain way. If our current categories work for this, and we currently have sources that defend them, why are we having this conversation? The only issue I see is around the 3DS and NGS. For me, simple CALC would allow you to make an eighth generation claim on them. However, as I stated before, this is a problem that will disappear very shortly when RSs start to specifically name the eighth generation. I've said it before and I'll say it again, merely changing the names of current articles from generation-groupings to the exact same year-groupings does nothing except cause confusion and create vastly fewer (or perhaps remove altogether) any RSs which defend the categories.LedRush (talk) 15:36, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there is a problem combining multiple sources like this: we have no idea if all journalists are using the same "scale" to measure generations. Unless a source calls out what it considers the previous generations to be, a source that only says "X is a 3rd gen console" gives us no idea what that compares to (as "generation" is a comparative term). We have no single expert source like there is for how paleontologists categorize all of prehistorical eras, or even more recently how historians catalog human eras like the Dark Ages or the Industrial Age. Instead we have a hodgepodge that WP may be influencing towards convergence towards an accepted ordering, but it's not present now. --MASEM (t) 16:17, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem of discussing important competitive "stories" between rival consoles that cross a decade boundary can be handled. We don't have to be absolutely rigorous in what we discuss in each 'decade-article'. Let's take the abstract case where console "A" released in 1989 and was in intense competition with console "B" that released in 1990. We can briefly mention in the "Consoles of the 1980's" article that console A was released and later went into intense competition with console B - and link to the "Consoles of the 1990's" article. In the 1990's article, we say that console "B" released and tell the complete story of the intense competition with console "A". After all, we know when the competition started - it must have been in the 1990's because console B didn't exist in the 1980's. We don't have to have a knife-edge cut-off if the story demands that we don't. We simply have to make a choice as to which article to drop the full story into - and which to place a summary and a link. We can do this - Wikipedians do it all the time. It's not even controversial because everyone is happy so long as the story is told. Even if you disagree with me about the efficacy of this approach, the "generational" model of article-splitting suffers from the exact same problem because the most advanced "Second generation console" was competing against the first of the "Third generation console"s. If we can't agree where to put the story about consoles either side of a decade boundary - then we stand no chance of agreeing on where to put the story of a rivalry that crossed generational boundaries...or "bit-width" boundaries either. SteveBaker (talk) 05:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't disagree that that's possible, I'd only stipulate that decade segmentation still is too broad and would go with 5 year segments at largest. But that creates the problem that all the articles that we have have to be sorted and adjusted to fix that scheme. Certainly possible, but the most effort of all the choices. --MASEM (t) 05:25, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The issue is that we're creating a buttload of problems and solving none.LedRush (talk) 06:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

It would be the most effort, but it would also be the most neutral. Computer games are already sorted by this and there is FAR more evidence to support dividing them by CPU generation as software has been a well established field of study for years and yet we don't and no one seems to think its difficult to follow. Therefore the only real argument against doing this I see is the amount of effort it would take, which doesn't hold much weight.陣内_Jinnai 19:14, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

(I'm using "decade" as an arbitary guess at where the split would come. If a particular "decade" article were to be too long - then splitting it into 5 year or even 1 year chunks would be fine by me.) SteveBaker (talk) 23:01, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, this discussion has certainly become lengthy. My opinion on the subject concurs with SteveBaker. Despite repeated claims to the contrary, it has been shown reasonably well that there's no wide real-world consensus for generational boundaries. I too have worked in the industry previously and agree with previous comments that the term 'next generation' is used just as frequently as a sales or marketing buzzword than as a quantifiable thing. We wouldn't take a sales pitch about a car 'revolutionising the industry' and declare a real revolution had occured. In any contentious issue where multiple sources reflect differing views it's obvious that there's going to be a set of sources that could be seen to reflect a 'majority', but if Wikipedia explicitly rejects straw polls and vote counts and prefers to focus on consensus then I don't see why the same can't be applied to sourcing as well - that is, if there is disagreement of what constitutes a generational boundary (which there clearly is) then it should not ever be reported as fact, which an article title tends to imply.

Further, the term 'generation' is unclear and arguably misapplied here. Modern consoles even within the same supposed generation are vastly different from each other technologically, and really one need look no further than a hardware comparison of the Wii and the PS3 to prove that. Hardware releases are becoming more and more staggered to the point that some sources are even resorting to referring to some releases in half-generations (eg. 6.5th generation). Aside from the competitive intentions of the manufacturer, there's very little qualifying what a generation is supposed to be, and when you consider that almost every commercial product operates in some sort of competitive arrangement with other products, and yet no other article I could find on Wikipedia makes reference to generations (4th generation TV? 6th generation car? 25th generation toaster?). As a result, I think it's quite reasonable to suggest that, particularly considering the contentious nature of the generational concept in this context, there's no reason to support it at all. Despite some editors' comments, I do believe there is a problem here with using generations authoritatively as we do, and I do believe it needs fixing.

Which leads to the question of how to resolve the issue. Before giving my answer I'll qualify that as far as I'm concerned, the amount of work required to fix the problem is completely irrelevant to whether or not a solution is appropriate or not. We're here to write a quality encyclopaedia, not to find the quickest, easiest, laziest way to get half-right information out to the masses. In light of this, I think the best solution is to break the generations down to appropriate divisions of even year blocks. For the 1970's perhaps it's appropriate to use a full decade, whereas for modern consoles it's probably more appropriate to use 5 year blocks. Any apparent loss of 'competitive comparison' can very easily be made up in the summaries (e.g. 'ConsoleX was released in 2000 and was intended to compete with the ConsoleY and ConsoleZ') and in the main articles themselves. Stating competitive intent directly resolves all of the 'sales pitch' problems inherent with using generations for such comparisons and makes it very clear to the reader what actually happened. It seems odd to classify the PS3 and the Xbox 360 together in the same generation when they were released 18 12 months apart - for anyone familiar with technology, 12 months is an eternity and yet the two consoles existing in the same generation implies that they're on comparable levels when they're really on competitive levels instead.

There's no reason not to mention generations in the various articles, but their contentious nature should be explicitly mentioned as well, and as such shouldn't have their authority elevated by being in the article title. On a similar note, I think it should be obvious that traditional consoles and handheld consoles should be separated - they have completely different hardware, completely different release cycles and very little in common with each other aside from occasional cross-released software. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 01:45, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Can someone please show me where there is "no real-world consensus for generational boundaries" please? Jinnai made an attempt to prove this, but his examples actually fit in very well with the current generational boundaries. Examples have proven that the vast majority of all citations call the NES a third generation machine, the SNES a fourth generation one, and the N64 a fifth generation. I mean, if showing you search results with hundreds and thousands of examples doesn't convince you, perhaps you need to check your motives. If we find enough citations that dispute the generation model (a significant minority), appropriate policy would be to include that significant minority viewpoint in the article (without giving it undue weight). Unfortunately, we haven't come close to that yet.

And this isn't an issue as to how much work it will take to have an appropriate system. It's about having verifiable information that is understandable and useful to a reader. You may think that the 360 and PS3 are so vastly different they shouldn't be in the same generation, but that opinion is not shared by any reliable sources (to my knowledge) and the entire world compares the two consoles as contemporary competitors. It baffles me as to why people want to make wikipedia harder to understand, more difficult to search, and less helpful to the reader, while at the same time removing the verifiability pillar which is supposed to underpin all of our efforts here.LedRush (talk) 13:41, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

As I've said before, there is no one expert reliable source that outlines, in one single work, the majority of the definitions for what each generation is. Until such a source is shown or comes into existence, any combination of multiple sources to create the distinction between generations is very much synthesis and original research of multiple disparate articles and will always beg to be questioned. We can be absolute when we use years of release to divvy the history up, and use common sense in the grouping to keep what are known as competitive consoles together in the same article. --MASEM (t) 14:10, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Very well put, TechnoSymbiosis. I agree on all accounts. (I think...there was quite a bit there!) Sergecross73 msg me 14:50, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

It's very hard to prove a negative. Finding a reliable source that says that X is not Y is very hard. However, when I do a Google search on terms like "Nth generation console" (substitute your own value of 'N') - the overwhelming majority of search results are Wikipedia and it's mirrors and blog posts that refer to Wikipedia and it's mirrors.

Objectively though - the results are a mess. I don't want to descend into "fanboyism" (and I'm a game developer - trust me, there is no fanboyism in our community!) - but let's pick a recent example of generational misclassification: The Wii:

We have placed the Wii into the "7th generation" - but it's technologically a much weaker system than the original Xbox - which is placed in the "6th generation". The Wii's CPU is 729MHz, Xbox is 733Mhz, Wii's GPU is 243MHz, Xbox is 233Mhz. The Wii has no DVD or hard drive, the Xbox has both. The Wii can't generate HD video - Xbox can. Just about the only specification where the Wii exceeds the Xbox is memory capacity...which it needs precisely because it has no hard drive and a slow CD drive, which makes streaming content from disk without pausing the gameplay somewhat impractical. The most telling difference for a developer (like me!) is that the Wii's GPU is archaic - it doesn't even support shaders for chrissakes!! So, on what possible grounds could an objective observer place the Wii into the 7th generation? If it's because of those innovative controllers then shouldn't it be in the 8th generation, ahead of Xbox 360 and PS3 (neither of which had that feature at launch). The ONLY reason for putting what is (essentially) a speeded-up GameCube into the "7th generation" is because it was launched in the same timeframe as the Xbox-360 and PS-3. Technologically, it's on a par with Xbox and PS-2.

Don't get me wrong...the Wii has been a market leader over both Xbox-360 and PS-3 because it's cheap, it's tiny, and the creation of the "casual gaming" market made it "approachable" by a vastly wider demographic. It's a miraculous thing...and (IMHO) it will be remembered as a turning point in the history of computer games long after the Xbox-360 and PS3 are forgotten relics. But technologically, it's firmly back with the Xbox and PS-2. The vast majority of cross-platform "7th generation" games run on PC, Xbox-360 and PS-3 - but are never ported to the Wii because it just can't do the job.

So - what makes the Wii "7th generation" ? Objectively...nothing...it's placed into the 7th generation solely because of the date on which it was launched...no other reasons are plausible. If you have some more valid definition of what makes a console "7th generation" that's distinct from date of launch/manufacture/sales then I'd love to hear it!

When I worked at Midway games - around the time that the Xbox-360 and PS-3 were releasing machines to developers, we talked about those as "Next-gen" consoles. We didn't talk about the Wii as "Next-gen" - and we didn't consider writing "next-gen" games to run on it. When you can't come up with a solid definition of what makes a particular generation distinct from the previous one, the "generational" model is broken.

From our perspective, we should be telling a story - and that is essentially a chronological process. No discussion of the release of the 360 and PS3 would be complete without talking about the Wii - but that's purely a matter of the date on which each system was announced and subsequently released.

We shouldn't use generational nomenclature - it's not encyclopaedic. The argument that a lot of other sites use the term doesn't hold water...a lot of car sites talk about "super-cars" - but we don't use that term here for the exact same reason - there is no objective definition of it. We hear about movie "stars" and "super-stars" - we don't use those terms either. SteveBaker (talk) 15:03, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Steve, your experience here can be helpful, but it doesn't really matter whether or not you called the Wii a "nex-gen" console or not, because all reliable sources called it one. When Jinnai tried to show discrepencies in the generation terms, the academic papers called the Wii seventh generation. Books call it seventh generation. Yes, many of the google results are from Wikipedia, so look at googleboooks or googlescholar. I'm not even asking you to do the searches yourself, simply click on the hyper-links in this very thread. It is extremely disingenuous to claim that we can't figure out what generation the Wii is when people have already linked some sources which do this in this thread. Ultimately, you may not like that everyone else claims that the Wii is seventh generation. You can think it's wrong. You can think it's stupid. But it doesn't matter. The reliable sources says it's seventh generation, so on Wikipedia that's what we write. If you want to cite other RSs which state why it doesn't belong, first find them. Then, add them to the current article.

To make it easier, this academic paper explains what is in a generation and why he's grouped them as such. https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://strategy.sauder.ubc.ca/nakamura/iar515p/gallagher_innovation.pdf

This academic presentation says the Wii is seventh generation. [1]

LedRush (talk) 15:46, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Definition of generation

Ok, now LedRush has pointed out this paper [2] which does exactly what we needed, and unless I'm mistaken I've not seen this before. Google scholar pegs about 68 citings of it [3] so it's certainly not obscure.

This gives enough credence to continue to use the term "generation" as we are now (at least, IMO). I do note that the generations are based on the fixed console platforms and no mentions of portables. To that end, I will continue to suggest that the portable game system market be split out from the fixed console and, barring a similar breakdown like this paper, we can do those by 5-year decade increments as the number of systems are generally far fewer, and/or like recently becomes about mobile phone-based gaming in addition to dedicated game units. --MASEM (t) 16:15, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

We'd still need sources that list the 6th and 7th generation to mark any newer consoles because as mentioned several times here "next-gen" is a marketing term and we don't make policy on marketing terms else we'd be linking a lot more genres to our video games because marketers love to say there game is X genre when its not to boost sales. The same is true with next-gen.

This would also still require some reorganization. The first gen is not what we have listed as first gen.陣内_Jinnai 16:27, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

The first link above has the sixth generation in it, and the second has the sixth and seventh. Regarding the Odyssey2, we should find out which generation most RSs put it in and keep it there. Then, we should note the minority viewpoint, assuming it is a significant one. LedRush (talk) 16:42, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Your second link is some random source, so it's not really reliable compared to the peer-reviewed published paper that I'm starting from. That said, if we can find other peer-reviewed papers that cite the first paper but state the seventh generation, we're closer. --MASEM (t) 16:45, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

The second source is from the University of Maryland's Graphics and Visual Informatics Laboratory (GVIL). RSs need to be reliable in relation to the topic on hand. Surely an academic presentation published on the university website is verifiable and reliable enough for this proposition.LedRush (talk) 16:51, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

This book preview shows a defition of the seventh generation (and I would guess that the book goes over all generations). The book also clearly talks about the PSP as a seventh generation and less clearly about the GBA and DS as sixth and seventh generation handhelds, respectively. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=epBIhmdsfxMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA184&dq=wii+seventh+generation&ots=9IbZE7z3EL&sig=AL7od0tw-uzu0EsBXc9cMqo3S_o#v=onepage&q=wii%20seventh%20generation&f=false LedRush (talk) 17:03, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec)We have no idea if it has been peer-reviewed or not - that would be the equivalent of self-publishing.

Looking around more, I think we can establish from sources that the first 6 generations are based on the CPU word length (with the 6th gen being 128-bit), that's a definable metric from at least a couple papers. The problem with the seventh gen is that the CPU word length goes out the window with threaded processing, so what I'm trying to fin

(Note that once we figure this out, this needs to go into an article and referenced back in the generation articles. Also, I am still thinking this screams the breakout of the handhelds into their own series since none of these articles include mention of them.) --MASEM (t) 17:04, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

The article right above your post includes handhelds. And it defines the seventh generation.LedRush (talk) 17:22, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

That one can't be used because its 6th gen doesn't correspond to the 1st link in this subsection Masem posted. You can't just "assume" they took off the Dreamcast because it was an older system. Also there is the problem Masem pointed out that since the criteria for generations changed suddenly we would need to find a way that sources agree defines each new generation.陣内_Jinnai 22:28, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Please don't start this again. I am not making any assumptions at all regarding why the DreamCast isn't on the list. We don't need every single source for a generation to be a 100% complete source for every generation and, quite honestly, any suggestion that we do is absurd. Regardless, it seems that Masem doesn't want to use that source, even though I believe it to clearly meet reliability standards, and so I've provided a different source for the seventh generation immediately above his post (you mistakenly thought I was referring to the powerpoint you found). For ease, this is the source http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=epBIhmdsfxMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA184&dq=wii+seventh+generation&ots=9IbZE7z3EL&sig=AL7od0tw-uzu0EsBXc9cMqo3S_o#v=onepage&q=wii%20seventh%20generation&f=false LedRush (talk) 23:25, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

It's absurd because there are no objective criteria for saying that some machine is or is not 6th generation. If there were then we'd be able to look at the specs for the Dreamcast and say "Yes, it's definitely gen 5" (or whatever it turns out to be). There are, no doubt, lots of references for "X is an Nth generation console" - but I don't see any that say "An Nth generation console is <list of specifications>". That's entirely analogous to the situation that WikiProject:Automobiles had with "supercar" and wound up with that term being expunged as a formal description of cars in Wikipedia. Everyone uses the term - a few people enumerate cars that clearly "are" supercars - and fanboys are left to argue endlessly about the others. We found a few places with half-hearted definitions - but they didn't work. In the end, it does us no good to have a pile of RS's a mile high that define the generations by "enumeration" - but that doesn't add one single fact about the machine in question. We wind up with "List of machines that people put in lists of machines" - which we can perfectly source - but has zero value. Knowing that an Xbox is 6th generation doesn't tell you a single thing about the console...nothing. What use is a classification system that doesn't classify?!

If you can find reliable sources that say what properties a console has to have to be considered "Nth generation" - then I'm right behind you...but you can't. For a while, we could reliably say that such-and-such was "8 bit" and such and such "16 bit" - and that was a pretty reasonable objective criteria...but from about "generation 3" onwards, there is no such clean distinction - and indeed, as I showed above, it's often totally nonsensical (classifying the Wii as one generation beyond Xbox, when in reality it is significantly LESS capable). Just as you can find sources to say that such-and-such was N'th generation - I can find reliable sources that say what year it was made in. The difference is that there is no debate about the year numbers - and there is considerable debate about the "generation" thing. SteveBaker (talk) 00:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

What debate exists about the generation term (outside of Wikipedia)? Could you please show me the sources that talk about a debate? Another difference is that the years are either not citable (if they keep the generation structure) or not helpful (if they choose the random year structure).

Regardles, the cite I gave above talks about what makes a generation a generation (hint, it's not CPU size.)LedRush (talk) 00:27, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Forgive me for being dense - but I don't see where it says that. The nearest thing I see is "The transition from the sixth to seventh generation era video game is characterized by the development and universal adaptation to the handheld unit." - which confuses FAR more than it helps! What makes a Wii seventh generation is that there are handheld games out there?!? That can't be what you mean. SteveBaker (talk) 01:57, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't really matter whether or not you like the definition (in fact, we don't need a definition at all...the definition is clearly understood by what it defines), but the discussion of the meaning of the generations to which I referred was in the first citation I gave (and, in fact, Jinnai first displayed above). The discussion/definition is descriptive, not prescriptive. The paper makes several mentions of different technologies and standards for each generation, and mentions changing dominant designs and competitors in different generations. Furthermore, the source says (on the first full paragraph on the second column of page 70) that rivalry, manufacturers, introduction date, and graphics processing power (which he notes in the past has always had 100% increase) are also factors. Again, I don't believe we need a specific definition which we then impose on the world (seeing as that is original research which would be specifically disallowed by wikipedia policy), but academic papers have clearly tackled the issues of different generations, and other sources cite them. This is a non-issue and we need to move on to discussing how to improve the content of the articles, and not the names of them.LedRush (talk) 03:19, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually that is a poor description. I don't understand what that really means since handhelds had been adopted long before the Wii. If that's the basis I'd question the validity of the research that went behind that source, reliable or not.陣内_Jinnai 03:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps my lack of proper indentation made you miss my last post.LedRush (talk) 03:37, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I saw it. It does matter because you're promoting synthesis. Masems source + that source do not equal generation 1-7 because there are discrepencies. and lack of continuality with regard to bits. If they were all 256-bit systems that might be different.陣内_Jinnai 03:44, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

It's bogus anyway - there is no way a "7th gen" Wii has 100% more graphics power than a "6th gen" Xbox - and claiming that the transition point that separates GameCube/PS2/Xbox from Wii/PS3/Xbox360 is the arrival of handhelds...whaaay whaat? THIS is supposed to be our "reliable source"?!? It's pure, premium bullshit! Just because something is written and published doesn't make it true...and this certainly isn't. This is just another example of fuzzy thinking and vague hand-wavey definitions of these "generations" of console. The real, true reason these consoles are grouped the way they are is that they were all announced at about the same time and released within a year or so of each other. It's a chronological grouping, pure and simple. SteveBaker (talk) 04:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Steve, the source has many descriptions of what demarcates the generations and never claims that all must be met. Also, are you mixing up the sources...where does the academic paper to which I last referred make that claim about handhelds? Also, as I stated above, you don't have to like the definition. You seem to mistaking the purpose of Wikipedia...we deal in verifiable claims from reliable sources, not truth (as you see it).

Jinnai, there is no SYNTH going on. If a RS says that a console was in a specific generation, we write it down. If there is disagreement, we find out which is the majority view and which is the minority view and weigh them appropriately. This is quite simple. LedRush (talk) 04:34, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I have asked whether these are synth/original research issues or not on http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#History_of_video_game_consoles_.28seventh_generation.29 LedRush (talk) 05:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Your academic paper source originally interested me as a possible solution to this issue, but on reading through it in detail I agree with SteveBaker that the claims and assertions made in it are very poorly defined. I was hoping we could use this as a high quality reliable source but I'm not so sure we can. Are there any other academic papers or industry-accepted documents on the subject that we can use to support your academic source? I do believe that if we can find a high quality reliable source here then we can reasonably move the boundary issues to a section note in the various articles, but as it is I'm somewhat inclined to regard the current one as a regular RS instead of a HQ one.

I think Steve's reference to the supercar issue above is valid. What we have are sources saying 'X is Nth generation' but nothing in reverse clearly stating 'Nth generation is defined as X/Y/Z'. We have one source that tries to define a few elements but admits that they're not even necessary for a console to be considered Nth generation. It's just too spurious in my opinion to appear prominently in the article title of an encyclopaedia. I still think dividing things into year groups isn't nearly as terrible as you suggest; it's very easy for us to make clear (and in few words) how the consoles relate to each other competitively without resorting to this ill-defined 'generation' concept, and fundamentally that's the only useful information that the generations give us. As I said above, it's clear that generations are an idea that has sources and should be mentioned in the articles, but they're not definitive enough to be used as a statement of fact in the article title. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 00:46, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Again, the fact that the generations are being argued about at this length is further proof that it's not the best way to organize things. Even if we ever do get to an agreement, it's going to be impossible to ever explain it to anyone else at this rate. Sergecross73 msg me 02:44, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

It is OR/Synth to take the defitinion of a Generation from one source and apply it to another to say that x console can't be part of y generation because of that definition. And the current grouping is quite intuitive and easy to understand. Just because the arguments around the editors who don't like it is convuluted and difficult to grasp doesn't make the article itself difficult. And seeing this is how almost everyone naturally views the products, I don't see the problem here being ease of understanding.LedRush (talk) 02:52, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

If we had a solid definition of what constituted an N'th generation console - then perhaps what you say might be true - but we don't, so your concern is irrelevant. If there were some solid definitions (like, hypothetically: "A console is considered to be 7th Generation if it has a GPU clock speed over 400MHz" or perhaps "A console is considered to be 7th gen if it can run GTA IV") then the reliable sources would be applying those definitions - so we'd have no problem finding and using such sources and no WP:OR or WP:SYNTH would be involved. There would be no debate about whether a particular console is in some particular generation or not.

(It doesn't matter here - but IMHO, you can push the "No Synth" argument to crazy extremes - like that we can't claim that John F. Kennedy was "a human being" because we can't find a reliable source that says exactly that...and deducing it from his parentage, appearance and general behavior would be WP:SYNTH. IMHO, applying a definition such as the one I hypothesised above by looking up the capabilities of each console in reliable sources and comparing them to those criteria - is about as far from WP:SYNTH as is my JFK example.)

The difficulty here is that we are trying to write an article about "7th Generation video game consoles" - and right there in the very first sentence of the lede, we need to be able to say "A 7th Generation Video Game Console is..." - and insert our definition. But we can't. We're writing an article about something we can't even find a simple definition of. We're left with "A 7th Generation video game console is a Wii, an Xbox-360 or a PS-3." ...which really makes the reader say "Eh? Why?"...and we don't have an answer because there isn't one. So we stick with this "generational" nomenclature, we'll end up with ledes that read like the lede of Supercar. Urgh!

Wikipedia has this situation all the time. I've been using the "Supercar" example - but there are plenty of others. We had to delete ALL of the articles that purported to list Megafauna (roughly: "Large animals") because there is no good definition of what the word means. Hence there were exactly these kinds of issues - should a Lion be added to List of African Megafauna or not? What about a rabbit? A mouse? Everyone "knows" a megafauna when they see one - but it simply isn't an encyclopeadic term - so it had to go. Same deal here.

SteveBaker (talk) 03:35, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, we do have a definition, and you have thrown it out because when you apply it to cases outside the source, you think that it would not match what everyone agrees is the seventh generation. That is OR.LedRush (talk) 05:13, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Please give us that sourced definition that is agreed upon by many sources for the seventh generation, then - and not one defined by the consoles within it, but instead the properties of those consoles or some other metric. From what I've seen, this is an impossibility because while sources certainly agree to a point of what goes into a generation, they don't agree as to what defines it.

This is why if we simply replace the generation terms in the titles with the year range for console release, and then establish, in the opening lead, that "Consoles released between Y and Z are commonly considered the Xth generation" with various sources, we have removed every problem with potential OR and the like, we still keep the idea of generations (and thus can use redirects to these pages), and there's almost no work to correct everything else. --MASEM (t) 14:28, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Cent listing

This discussion has been listed on WP:CENT, though it is not clear that this is an appropriate topic for CENT. See WP:CENTNOT. The listing has been phrased that this is an OR question, yet it appears to be more a discussion by a WikiProject on how best to organise and title information within the WikiProject's topic. This is very content specific, and not something that those who have little knowledge or experience of the topic can accurately help with. You are all aware of the existing guidelines and policies, and have appropriately referenced them in your discussion. The decision you reach will not have significant impact on other topics, as it is very topic specific. It appears to me that you are aware of the problem, know that it needs sorting, and are taking appropriate steps to put the matter right.

If you would like independent views on the situation I suggest you put together some proposals for solution, and then request assistance to look over your proposals. It would help if you made your proposals quite clear and quite short. Most editors will not have the time or motivation to read through the 3,500 words on this page - to put that into perspective, it would take an average reader between 15 and 20 minutes to read through it all and would even then have only got 50% of the information, and that's without looking at the links or articles themselves.

My independent suggestion for a way forward would be to start with History of video games. The article is currently split into main sections titled by decade, and these main sections link to summary articles such as 1980s in video gaming. These decade articles appear under utilised, and little more than disambiguation pages directing readers to the nth generation articles. The decade articles could be developed further to give a more appropriate overview.

The structuring, titling and definition of the nth generation articles has been questioned, though this appears largely due to lack of appropriate citing. There are sources for the early generations, "second generation" and "fourth generation", etc, though by the time of the "sixth generation" it appears that sources are thin and not clear, and perhaps more care in definition is needed.

My suggestions:

• Clean up and source the main History of video games article
• Develop the decade articles.
• Source the use of terms such as "second generation" and "early 8 bit era" (the sources are there!).
• Rename the nth generation articles to such as Second generation video game consoles or Early 8 bit era video game consoles, where there are sources to clearly support such titles
• Adjust and source the article leads to indicate the way that manufacturers and reliable sources talk about the consoles. It may well be the case that some consoles may be called fourth generation by one source and sixth generation by another. That is something that the articles should be indicating, and as topic specialists you guys need to be working out the best way of handling that, and if it means that a bunch of consoles which were released in the 2000s are sometimes called fourth and sometimes sixth generation, then perhaps it would be better to deal with those consoles in an article called 2000s in video game consoles, and mention that sources and manufacturers call them different generations.

I hope that this helps. SilkTork *^YES! 10:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, to summarize the situation neutrally:

• The subject of the history of video game consoles cannot be easily summarized in a single article, and thus we're looking to how to break it up into appropriately digestible chunks.
• There are three possible solutions for this:
  1. Break up by this idea of console "generation" (the status quo). This is the larger problem that I'll comment on below.
  2. Break up by year ranges roughly equivalent to the ranges presently used for "generation", using the console's release date to denote membership in a given year range. Again, see below
  3. Break up by fixed year segments, again based on console release date.
• That's the simple problem and one that is really containd to the VG project. The larger problem where other WP policies come into play is this idea of "generations", where some believe sources define them well, others believe is it original research (one that possibly has lead to larger use of the term generation in outside sources due to WP's reputation). If one takes the point that "generation" is a loaded word, then one can see why the status quo is an issue, and why the second solution at least removes that with minimal work, but then some argue that our selection of year ranges could be seen as OR (hence the neutral third solution) If one doesn't see any problems with the "generations", then the status quo seems fine.
• We're trying to figure out to exactly what extent we can use the idea of "generations" with what the sources get. We're clear that we have to use a lot of sources to come up with a larger definition of the space, so a question of SYNTH comes into play as well. --MASEM (t) 14:35, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Great summary, Masem. My only points would be that some editors believe that we already have a good definition of "generation" while some don't think so and that some editors don't believe we need a definition for the term, while others do.LedRush (talk) 14:42, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

console vs. portable

I realize that people are going to yell at me for brining this up, but realistically consoles and handhelds operate on very different generation time lines. I realize that people are going to bring up interoperability between handhelds and consoles, and all I have to say to that is that yes, they are designed to work together, but as an afterthought. The gameboy worked with the SNES, the N64, and the Gamecube as well. The gameboy colour worked with the N64 and Gamecube (not sure about the SNES) and the GBA worked with the Gamecube. The PSP came out in 2004, which was before the PS2 Slim and before the original PS2 reached certain parts of the world, but was interoperable with the PS3. Other than those two lines listed (PSP and Gameboy) to my knowledge handheld devices don't establish any connection with the consoles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.95.21.149 (talk) 03:58, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I believe that this has been brought up before. TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 14:18, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Valid points. They are yet more flaws to the "generation" line of grouping here on wikipedia. Sergecross73 msg me 14:37, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Reopening this in light of Wii U and PS Vita

Now that E3 is done and Nintendo and Sony have announced new hardware, I think we need to reconsider this discussion.

I will note people are in a rush to try to play the Wii U in the 8th gen based on the statements being said of it as a "next gen" console, and, ergo, 7 + 1 = 8.

However, in considering the hardware capabilities - the general metric that clearly defined the 2nd through 6th generation - of the Wii U and the Vita in relation to existing consoles, these systems really do not push any hardware boundaries; none of the technology is exactly new to computers or video games - though how they are organizes may change the approach to software titles much like motion sensing did in the 7th generation. There's a feeling that if the Wii is a 7th gen console, the Wii U is simply a half-step towards the next generation, which really won't start until (at the earliest) when MS and Sony release their next major home consoles.

For this reason - that pretty much all console history since ~ 2005 with the 360, PS3, and Wii, makes it very difficult to define hard edges for the concept of generation - that I believe we need to retitle our generation articles with year ranges of console introduction, and avoid using the generation term unless it clearly applies (again, 2nd through 6th gen, sure). This avoids all the issues of rushing out to create new generation articles when someone in the press throws around the term "next generation". It is a simple solution, doesn't ignore when generations have been established, and doesn't require any significant work in the existing articles beyond renaming, some link and lead editing, and so forth. --MASEM (t) 15:31, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

This states that Wii U is 8th generation. ViperEmpire (talk) 00:52, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

(Note: There's no reflist template on this page, so I edited your comment to make the link easier to access. Sorry, in case you're unhappy with that. TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 01:57, 15 June 2011 (UTC))

Not a reliable source. Even then, its not an industry-wide sentiment which is what is needed to assure that we are actually in the 8th generation. --MASEM (t) 02:10, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

"these systems really do not push any hardware boundaries" - Isn't it a little early to say that? We don't know everything about the new consoles yet. Even then the hardware boundaries are being pushed, just in a different direction. I'd say a console that has a touchscreen, camera and remote play via bluetooth in the controller is pushing hardware. Just assuming that there are no new rendering tech, no new CPU/GPU doesn't mean that it's not a hardware leap. When have you actively seen a handheld with a full touchscreen on the back of it? In past generations it was about power, now it's about innovation, but it's still pushing hardware to new limits. --Teancum (talk) 17:11, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm not saying that its necessarily wrong. As I've noted elsewhere, I'm sure I've seen some analysts suggest that the addition of Kinect and Move have created a half-generation based on motion gaming. More importantly is the grouping. PS2/GC/Xbox 1; PS3/Wii/360 are all natural groupings easily observed in the press. But without any other data points besides the Wii U, we don't know how they're grouping it and likely won't know until its out in people's hands. --MASEM (t) 17:30, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

""these systems really do not push any hardware boundaries" - Isn't it a little early to say that?" Your argument is not even wrong. The lack of tech specs for something being released does not automatically make it a next gen system, ESPECIALLY when rumours have it being only slightly more powerful than the 7th gen systems (that were released 7 years earlier) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.34.28.208 (talk) 23:18, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Consensus now?

I want to get something straight. The AfD for the 8th gen article failed to get it deleted. Then, an attempt to change the article title was unsuccessful. In the talk page, a user provided a good amount of reliable sources about existence of the 8th generation. So I want to finish off this matter by asking, "Is there a consensus on here for the existence of the 8th generation of video games?" TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 13:40, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to challenge it further, but I do note that I made small changes to the lead of the eighth gen article to make it clear that some say we are certainly into it, but that we're not fully there. It will exist if it hasn't, and there's no denying that Wii U + 8th Gen are being used, not consistently but are being used, in parts of the industry. --MASEM (t) 13:44, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

So essentially, we need to wait a little longer? Alright then. TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 14:17, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

No, I said I'm done challenging it with the addition of the language I put at the eighth gen article. Others may still challenge it though. --MASEM (t) 14:49, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I still strongly object to the idea of referring to consoles by generations at all. No reasonable definition has been provided for what constitutes a member of each generation. Naming articles that way just because some random industry pundit says so is entirely non-encylopeadic. SteveBaker (talk) 15:29, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Can't we setup a poll and vote? --User 30860135 (talk) 23:43, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

No. Too many people don't know enough about this. It wouldn't be a good idea to have people totally ignorant about the whole situation voting on this matter. TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 00:46, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree on SteveBaker's opinion on things, and Stick Man's above rationale above me. Sergecross73 msg me 14:16, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

A generation of video game consoles is defined when a video game console evolves technologically from its predecessors. For example, the PlayStation 3 evolved form its predecessor, the PlayStation 2, in graphical and horsepower terms. The Nintendo Wii evolved form its predecessor, the Nintendo GameCube, not only in graphical and horsepower terms (although this evolution was not as heavy as its competitors), but also it introduced motion controls to gaming devices. A generation can also be defined by each console's release dates, but if a console does not introduce anything new to gaming world, it does not belong to the same generation as its competitors. Arkhandar (talk) 16:36, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Please, read some of the discussion on this page, and you'll see that it's not as cut and dry as you think...Sergecross73 msg me 18:50, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is. You clearly are finding problems where there aren't any.: I'm calling for an WP:IAR. The way things are going, we're never going to reach a consensus. Just open your eyes. This generation is already accepted by everyone except the majority of Wikipedia's editors. --Arkhandar (talk) 20:00, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

You don't seem to realize that the real controversy is not about listing consoles as part of the 8th generation, but the whole concept of generations. We're not arguing here on whether or not the 8th generation exists. We're arguing about whether we should really group consoles by "generation", the definition of which is vague at best. TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 21:27, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Then, what do you suggest my good friend? The established generations are good as they are. People have gotten used to the term already. Almost everybody has, except the majority of Wikipedia's editors. And that's just nonsense. What's the point of debating the possible deletion of an established term. I see no reason to do so. Everything in the electronics industry has generations. Why would the video game industry be any different? --Arkhandar (talk) 21:52, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Since in every area in the electronics industry has "generations " to divide and organize its products, why would the video games industry be any different? Something really needs to be done. If common people and the media already use the term "generation" to divide and organize video game consoles, why would Wikipedia be any different? We are talking about Wikipedia for God's sake. This site is supposed to be based on facts not on wannabe editors (no offence intended). This is an encyclopedia. --Arkhandar (talk) 23:07, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Then by all means, join in the discussion. Read through this page. Refute people's points instead of just "everyone says so". What goes on Wikipedia depends on consensus based on reasonable arguments, not just what the majority thinks. You'll find that the meaning of a "generation" is not the same for everyone.

I usually prefer to stay out of this, so don't go looking at me for an explanation. TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 23:13, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

If you are so sure of what you are saying just answer one simple question. Was it reasonable arguments that created culture, or just what everyone else thinks? --Arkhandar (talk) 23:29, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

We're not talking about culture. We're talking about facts. The facts are foggy for the whole generation thing, so people on here want another way of grouping consoles. To be honest, I don't care about how this turns out, but that's the situation. TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 23:42, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Definitely reasonable arguments. I mean, I certainly have picked a side on the argument, but I can at least acknowledge that there are valid arguments for each side... Sergecross73 msg me 23:44, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

If we already have an established form of grouping consoles, agreed with most of the media and common people, why change it? That's the only thing I can't seem to really understand in the whole article. Anda yes, I've read it. --Arkhandar (talk) 00:23, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Really? Because if you'd read it, you'd know there's a number of reasons for and against each side...Sergecross73 msg me 00:34, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

What frustrates me is how stubbornly you refuse to even grasp the situation at hand. You claim that editors are worrying about problems that don't exist, while you conveniently overlook the arguments already made and push forward your own point of view. I'm not telling you to stop believing in generations. I'm not telling you to don't believe in the 8th generation. I'm asking you to try to figure out what the situation is. TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 00:42, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

If it was already confirmed that the term "generation" exists and is commonly used by the media to divide video game consoles, what we can do is to review all the generations and see what's wrong with each. But then again... Wouldn't that be considered original research? *I think this suggestion has already been made somewhere, though I'm not sure.--Arkhandar (talk) 10:59, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

The latest commercial of Nintendo in United Kingdom says "the next generation is here": Youtube video. If Nintendo says that in a commercial video, I don't think it is an original research. --87.9.243.157 (talk) 17:02, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

"Next generation" does not necessarily equal the 8th generation, ESPECIALLY if you consider the original Wii to be a 6.5 gen console. As is stands, the Wii U is expected to be slightly more powerful than the Xbox 360 that was released 7 years earlier and is expected to be at the same price point as the 360 is currently at. That sounds like a 7th gen console (7.5 if you REALLY want to push it) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.34.28.208 (talk) 23:21, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Possible solution to the problem

I've been thinking about this and it has come to my mind that the only way to solve this problem is to have a reliable source grouping video game consoles. That way, the possible video game console grouping wouldn't be considered neither original research nor WP:CRYSTAL, or any other Wikipedia rule infringement. So for that some or one of us ("Wikipedia editors") could contact news sites (that are generally accepted as reliable sources) like IGN, Kotaku, Engadget or any other RS to ask them to make a video game console retrospective where they could divide the consoles in generations or in any other grouping system that they think is the most appropriate. That way we could use one or more references to support the grouping and finally solve this "war" between editors. Tell what you think.--Arkhandar (talk) 16:57, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

The problem isn't what you seem to think it is. The difficulty is not with determining which 'generation' each console is dropped into by some reviewer in a gamer magazine. The difficulty is that these 'generations' are entirely arbitrary - there is absolutely no way to pick up an unknown console, examine it, look at its' specifications and say "Oh! This is a fourth generation console." - the only way to know is to find some magazine article that says that it's fourth generation. Sure you can find references to say that the XYZ-2000 was 4th gen - but that doesn't give the term the rigor that is needed for an encyclopedia article.

In the beginning, these generations actually meant something. Whether the machine had an 8 bit or a 16 bit CPU, for example. But in the last four (at least) "generations", there has been no such guiding principle - it's just code for "what year the console came out". Since that is a properly encyclopedic measure - we might more reasonably simply bunch the machines into years and be done with it.

This is epitomized by the latest one or two Nintendo machines - neither of which is technologically more capable than an early-model XBox. How the Wii (which is essentially just an overclocked GameCube) can be of the same "generation" as the Xbox-360 or the PS-3 is beyond me...unless it's purely determined by which year it was released (which in truth, it most certainly is).

This argument is entirely analogous to the one that Wikiproject Automobiles went through with the term "Supercar". This is a term which is used throughout the realms of journalism to describe high-end cars. There is no solid definition - and massive debate amongst fans of one vehicle or another as to whether a particular car should or should not be called a "Supercar". Nobody can look at the latest Ferrari and say "This is a supercar". Instead, you have to sit around and wait for a car magazine to say "This is a supercar"...and hope that no other magazine writes "This is a good car - but it ain't no supercar". Big edit wars ensued. In the end, it was decided (wisely, IMHO) to ban editors from saying "The XYZ-GT is a Supercar" and removing Category:Supercars because the term is ridiculously unencyclopedic. Instead, the most we'd allow is "MotorBlah magazine called the XYZ-GT a 'Supercar'." -- Same exact problem here. The generational nomenclature is unencyclopedic...we can certainly say that some magazine or other says that the next Wii is ninth generation - but creating 'List of ninth generation consoles' is just ridiculous.

SteveBaker (talk) 17:27, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

This discussion has been inactive for almost 2 months, and everyone keeps remarking the pages as 8th generation. Should we just keep changing them back for now? --User 30860135 (talk) 22:35, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Elaborating on what Stever Baker said, the same issue will be popping up with the Wii U, no doubt: http://www.destructoid.com/pachter-wii-u-is-not-a-next-generation-console-213473.phtml Sergecross73 msg me 16:44, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

So should we keep changing them back for now? I know, but what are we waiting on? --User 30860135 (talk) 20:14, 24 November 2011 (UTC)