This is something I’ve been contemplating for a while and I just kinda need to get it off my chest.

“The Wooden Age” First Generation: the era of the original Magnavox Odyssey and home Pong Consoles. Most systems had that nice wood grain which gives the era its name, games were simple and most only had Pong and maybe a shooting game.

“The Dark Age” Second Generation: the Atari 2600, the ColecoVision, the Intelevision, and many other began in this generation and was the beginning of Third Party games. This generation also oversaturated the market and nearly killed the industry.

“The Wild West” Third Generation: this generation gave us the Nintendo Entertainment system as the standout and nearly giving Nintendo a monopoly on the industry. Games entered the 8-Bit Era with the possibility of more complex games. There were a some amazing standouts but there was also a lot of unknowns leading to most games being less than good, and we can’t forget the boom in unlicensed games.

“The Golden Age” Fourth Generation: the Generation known best for the rivalry between the Sega Genesis & Super Nintendo. The competition pushed us into the 16-Bit Era and gave us what many would consider 2D Gaming perfection. There were still misses here & there, but all around this is still considered a high point in the Gaming world.

“The 3D Renaissance” Fifth Generation: and thus started the rivalry between Sony and Nintendo with the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64. Bits no longer matters as much and multi-platform games had fewer differences, but the biggest change was that people were now starting to experiment with full 3D as more than just a gimmick and, for better or for worse, just about everyone gave it a try.

“The Silver Age” Sixth Generation: my personal favorite; giving us the Xbox, Gamecube, PS2, and the short lived Dreamcast. This generation saw the departure of Sega but Microsoft throw their hat into the console ring. Just as the 4th Gen perfected 2D Games, I feel the 6th Gen was when we started to perfect 3D games. Games could be weird & experimental, they could accurately recreate movies & shows, and they could allow us to play with people from around the world by popularizing Online Multiplayer on Home Consoles.

“The Gilded Age” Seventh Generation: the Wii, the PS3, and the Xbox 360. I call this one gilded because, while the surface gave us beautiful HD Graphics; the interior was rotting with motion controls, struggling developers, and toxicity not seen since the Genesis vs SNES era. HD was not kind to developers in the early years, causing a huge increase in the required time & money it took to make games. This was also the true boom of online gaming, which opend the door for Indie Developers bit also for Toxic Games and the new Evils such as DLC & Patches. While some used by some to fix & grow games past what was initially promised, orhers would use them to ship unfinished games and charge players for content that should have been in the base game.

“The Bronze Age” Eighth Generation: the PS4, XBOne, Wii U, & Switch. Much like the 4th & 6th before them, this generation learned from their previous generation and now perfected HD game development from the start. We saw Gimmicks link the rise of VR, we saw franchises like Doom return in their gorey glory, but we also saw the spread of Microtransactions from Mobile Games to home consoles and the start of “Live Service Games”. Even with that I feel this generation truly improved in almost every way over the previous with some of the most amazing games and opening the door for so many more.

“Undecided” Ninth Generation: seeing as the generation is only 3 years old and still growing, it’s hard to say what the name will be. Starting in the middle of a Pandemic with resource shortages made for a slow start, theres still no new Nintendo Console in over 6½ years, Xbox has convinced a whole group of people a monthly rental fee is better than owning games and is attempting to form a new gaming monopoly, and Sony continues to have customers data leaked. On the plus side Sonic the Hedgehog seems to be going through a resurgence, Armored Core & Baldur’s Gate have proven to be huge hits, and the Live Service bubble seems to be shrinking. We have yet to see what this generation truly has in store for us, only time will tell.