Proposals

Home, handhelds and other consoles

• Proposal #1 - This proposal is for a hard 5 year cycle. All consoles are grouped into their respective half-year article regardless of generational characteristics. Only the first article in this proposal is shortened down to 4 years to allow the rest of the articles to start with years ending in "1" or "6" and end with years ending in "5" or "0".
• Proposal #2 - This proposal is for a floating cycle of 5 to 7 years. This would allow us to keep articles grouped together based on generational characteristics and when they actually competed against each other (i.e. NES versus Master System, Genesis vs SNES, etc.) The first year is determined by the first major console released during this period and the last year is determined by when the last "other" console was released. In the event a generation lacked any "other" consoles then the first release year of the last "major" console will determine the end year. (i.e. History of video games (1976–83) starts with the Fairchild Channel F [1976] and ends with Compact Vision TV Boy [1983].)

Home only proposal

• Major home only proposal - Inspired by Axem Titanium this proposal eliminates all consoles except major home consoles during their respective periods. Can work in conjunction with a Major handheld only proposal (see below). The years start when the first major "next gen" console is released and ends with the last major console of that generation. In the case of the Sixth to Seventh generations if all major consoles were released around the same time the end year would be the 1 before the "next gen" starts.

Handheld only proposal

• Handheld proposal - This one can be adapted alongside the current generation naming, Proposal 1 or Proposal 2. This essentially spins the handheld consoles off into their own articles which can address readability and possible size issues with later generational articles (i.e. 7th and 8th generation). These are loosely based on their generational counterparts but are named according to years.
• Major handheld only proposal - Could work in conjunction with Major home only proposal excludes other handheld consoles resolves an overlapping issue in Handheld only proposal.

Colors

• The colors used for the generations / individual proposed pages come from Video game console#Overview of timeline

Home consoles

Major

Add-ons

Dedicated consoles

• This does not include all dedicated consoles, only major ones. For a more complete list see List of dedicated video game consoles.
• Note: The seventh and eighth generation articles do not include any dedicated or microconsoles. These are only included here as examples.

Microconsoles

• This does not include all dedicated consoles, only major ones. For a more complete list see List of microconsoles.
• Note: The seventh and eighth generation articles do not include any dedicated or microconsoles. These are only included here as examples.

• I have placed Atari VCS within the page History of video game consoles (2016–20) under Proposal #2 which would correspond with the Eighth Generation because it was announced and funded during the Eighth Generation and because of its constant delays.

Other

• In this case both alternate proposals will follow a hard limit.

Handheld consoles

Major

Other