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Originally Posted by lpetrich
no sign of a ninth one coming up.
Console makers have come and gone, with only Nintendo staying in business from the beginning to the present.
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What might be next for the ninth generation? When might it appear? From how long previous generations have lasted, it should be due around 2019. I've seen speculation about a Playstation 5 and an Xbox Two, but that's about it.
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Nintendo is launching a new console in literally less than a month.
I guess it's somewhat subjective whether it counts as a new generation or not.
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Originally Posted by Corona688
Internet support! We only remember the ones which had that, the Xbox and PS2.
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Gen 7 had wireless internet, wireless controllers, high-definition, and 64-bit processors. (Not always all of them.) Wireless in a console is meh, but wireless in a portable meant being able to pokemon duel the guy behind you in the bus.
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Wireless is a good feature for a console, but it has significant downsides. You're still better off using a wired connection if you can.
Latency is still lower on wireless connections than wired connections (playing matches online in games that require significant reflexes is still much better wired).
For similar reasons (higher latency), wireless controllers tend to be inferior to wired controllers for certain types of games (fighting games most prominently). Wireless controllers also cause problems for tournaments, because too many wireless controllers running in a small space can have interference. But the tradeoffs are such that companies prefer to go all wireless... Wired controls will only be important to highly competitive players.
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Since then, improvements have been "faster and bigger". Games are downloadable now (which not everyone considers an advance). Nobody knows what the next big thing is.
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Nintendo is trying for a second time to make the "tablet as controller" the new thing. Except this time they've upgraded to "tablet as both controller AND console, and you can play it on the go."
Hopefully they've finally gotten their internet experience up to scratch. While I won't be happy to pay a subscription fee, it probably does indicate that the online experience will be better than before (Nintendo has always had it be free in the past).
I do appreciate that Nintendo concentrates more on gameplay experience and innovation (which Sony and MS frequently copy) than on cutting edge graphics. The downside is that they tend to have smaller game libraries as many 3rd-party studios prefer to emphasize graphics.