Does technology or release date matter more for console Generation

[Dastari]

AdamAnt326 asked me an interesting philosophical question. Would the Bentley Compu-Vision count as a Gen 1 machine, because it's a standard AY-3-8500 "Pong-on-a-chip" machine or would it be Gen 2 because it released in 1983? I can see it both ways. What do you think?

[Greg2600]

I think it's more to do with release date to market. The generational thing was more about marketplace than technology.

[celerystalker]

I think it's more to do with release date to market. The generational thing was more about marketplace than technology.

I agree completely with this.

The whole console generation thing is simply a context in which to attempt to merge the history of all video games into a big picture. It's completely irrelevant in any sense other than trying to group it in with perceived competition that could have influenced consoles' sales and/or succcess.

It's like comparing what happened in 12th century China to 12th century Scandinavia. The only reason is to fit it into the big picture of world history, as they didn't particularly directly interact.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

I would say release date. I would honestly call the Compu-Vision 3rd gen though due to its release date.

There's two ways of generational categorization at this time that make sense. The dates are not hard and fast, but there are certain consoles that epitomized each generation.

1st gen - Released 1972-1977. This is the traditional "PONG" era.
2nd gen - Released 1976-1981. Atari 2600 was the main console here. I would include any late '70s console with cartridges, except the RCA Studio II because it's a very primitive piece of shit that still came out in Jan 1977. I would include the Intellivision but not the Colecovision.
3rd gen - Released 1982-1983. The Colecovision, Atari 5200, and Vectrex were the main competitors here.
4th gen - Released 1984-1987. The NES, Master System, and Atari 7800 were the main competitors here.

This system moves the Wiki categories from the 3rd gen on one category up, so for instance the PS4, Xbox One and Wii U would be 9th gen.

An alternative, which maintains the Wiki generations (i.e. the current gen being 8th gen) would be to combine the 3rd and 4th gen mentioned above into the 3rd gen, so that the '82 consoles like the ColecoVision, Atari 5200, and Vectrex would be in the same generation as the NES, Master System, and Atari 7800. In my opinion, it doesn't work as well as the other system, simply because the ColecoVision and NES being in the same generation just doesn't feel right somehow. But it WAS released less than a year before the NES (Famicom)'s Japanese release date, and the SG-1000, based on ColecoVision hardware, was a direct competitor to the Famicom.

As for the Compu-Vision, its 1983 release date puts it into the 3rd generation either way.

[Dastari]

I would say release date. I would honestly call the Compu-Vision 3rd gen though due to its release date.

There's two ways of generational categorization at this time that make sense. The dates are not hard and fast, but there are certain consoles that epitomized each generation.

1st gen - Released 1972-1977. This is the traditional "PONG" era.
2nd gen - Released 1976-1981. Atari 2600 was the main console here. I would include any late '70s console with cartridges, except the RCA Studio II because it's a very primitive piece of shit that still came out in Jan 1977. I would include the Intellivision but not the Colecovision.
3rd gen - Released 1982-1983. The Colecovision, Atari 5200, and Vectrex were the main competitors here.
4th gen - Released 1984-1987. The NES, Master System, and Atari 7800 were the main competitors here.

This system moves the Wiki categories from the 3rd gen on one category up, so for instance the PS4, Xbox One and Wii U would be 9th gen.

An alternative, which maintains the Wiki generations (i.e. the current gen being 8th gen) would be to combine the 3rd and 4th gen mentioned above into the 3rd gen, so that the '82 consoles like the ColecoVision, Atari 5200, and Vectrex would be in the same generation as the NES, Master System, and Atari 7800. In my opinion, it doesn't work as well as the other system, simply because the ColecoVision and NES being in the same generation just doesn't feel right somehow. But it WAS released less than a year before the NES (Famicom)'s Japanese release date, and the SG-1000, based on ColecoVision hardware, was a direct competitor to the Famicom.

As for the Compu-Vision, its 1983 release date puts it into the 3rd generation either way.

I find this interesting because of the difference of opinion of this site and Atariage where I posed the same question. On Atariage the consensus is that technology should be king. Here, the consensus is that release date should be king. Like I said, I can see it both ways, but it interests me that the two sites have come fairly uniformly to the two different results. It probably says something interesting about the two communities, but I'm not sure what that is. :-)