Shortest/ longest console generation.

Hey guys, I'm writing an article and I want to know, what was the shortest console generation? What was the longest console generation?. Thanks!

This is the longest generation, SNES/Genesis/TG16 would be my guess for the shortest.

Arcade games are really the longest generation, starting in 1971 and peaking during the crash of 83 before really dying out in the mid 90s. But as far as console generations go then this would be the longest.

This is definitely the longest generation, though there was a seven year gap between the NES and SNES.

Measuring generations is pretty damn hard actually. You'll need to count months and also consider the fact that different companies release consoles in different years and those consoles are part of the same generation.

SNES to 64 is 6 years.

64 to GameCube is 5 years. PS1 to PS2 is 6 years. Tricky stuff.

Gameboy Advance: 2001 - Nintendo DS: 2004

Sega Master System: 1986 - Sega Genesis: 1989

Of course, for both of those that's just from the perspective of a single company, if you look at pretty much any generation from when the first console that was a part of it launched to when the first console of the next gen launched, they're all pretty long and it's much harder to determine.

Arcades the longest, maybe SNES and friends the shortest, even though software support for SNES went well beyond the 64's launch date.

I'm just going by Wikipedia here, but the 3rd generation went from 1983 - 2003 (20 years) as the NES was only officially discontinued in 2003.

My guess is that people are only considering the life span of initial launch to the launch of new consoles.

Wow, that's seriously crazy.