How old does a game or console have to be to be called "Retro"?

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How old does a game or console have to be to be called "Retro"?

The Playstation 2, Gamecube, and Xbox are now 15yrs old and all there games were from 2 generations ago.

Could they now be called Retro?

 
Hipsters would call PS3 retro, because that's how they roll.

I think PS2 era stuff is on the brink of being retro, but I don't think it's there yet. As soon as it gets tougher to find, it will be.

 
PS3 is pretty retro. I remember playing LAIR and Haze on it back in the day.

They don't make classic retro games like those anymore.

 
I've always thought of "retro" as an era... not simply as how old something is. Kinda like the point when the medium drastically transitions from infancy into something with more relevance. 

The easiest analogy would be to think it of like your teenage years. You go from being a fairly naive, irresponsible, careless individual to a more conscious, cognitive person. It's the time when you do the most growing, both physically and mentally, but at the same time, you're not fully "complete" in terms of that growth. 

With that said, retro will always mean NES/Master Drive to SNES/Genesis days (or maybe the PS1/N64, though I've never really decided on that) whether you ask me today or in 10 years.

For the record, I don't really think we've developed eras for anything beyond retro, though I think we're getting close to the point where the PS2/GC/XB probably deserves an era name. 

 
I think very early ps3 games can be seen as retro. But for me retro games are 2d or very early 3D games. But it is all about taste. Another way to know if a game is retro if it has slowtime ;) 

 
"Retro" IMO applies to home consoles that run on cartridges. They should call disc based systems something else.

 
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slowdive21 said:
"Retro" IMO applies to home consoles that run on cartridges. They should call disc based systems something else.
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There's plenty of games I'd consider retro that were strictly CD based. Think about the Sega CD and TurboGrafx CD. They had games like Sonic CD, Popful Mail, Lunar, Lords of Thunder, Ys Book 1 & 2, Rondo of Blood, etc.

 
I'm guessing people will think of retro in terms of their own age and experience with said items based on feelings of nostalgia. I personally tend to believe that people loop the terms "retro" or "old school" in with what they remember as drastically different point in their lives. Kids that were born during the PS1 maybe early PS2 era are having kids now, for example, and probably associate retro to that stuff because they remember playing it and it was a time before they had kids, a job, etc.

Retro in my personal opinion was anything before I was born...so Atari, Colecovision, etc. But I guess I should recognize NES as retro also at this point and admit I'm getting old. 

 
Vinny said:
I've always thought of "retro" as an era... not simply as how old something is. Kinda like the point when the medium drastically transitions from infancy into something with more relevance.

The easiest analogy would be to think it of like your teenage years. You go from being a fairly naive, irresponsible, careless individual to a more conscious, cognitive person. It's the time when you do the most growing, both physically and mentally, but at the same time, you're not fully "complete" in terms of that growth.

With that said, retro will always mean NES/Master Drive to SNES/Genesis days (or maybe the PS1/N64, though I've never really decided on that) whether you ask me today or in 10 years.

For the record, I don't really think we've developed eras for anything beyond retro, though I think we're getting close to the point where the PS2/GC/XB probably deserves an era name.
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This.

Its like comic books. They are categorized by an era.

Golden age, silver age, bronze age, modern. The medium of comics will die off before they run out of names that are metals to name a era.

A reseller I know basically calls his games and the trend with them "today's comics" I just find it hard to think any game is going to be anything like action comics #1 but with games selling near 20-30k now and a history only going as far back as the 70s when comics go to the 30's anything is possible and it looks to be going that route.

 
I think of sprites as retro. Full polygon backgrounds & character models togeather are not retro to me. When virtual reality or whatever becomes the norm than I'll think of current games & such as retro too.
 
Has video game technology peaked that even the games we play can be considered "retro" in a few years time? I mean it really is better graphics with the same layout as a Dual Shock 2 controller.

 
Rodimus said:
There's plenty of games I'd consider retro that were strictly CD based. Think about the Sega CD and TurboGrafx CD. They had games like Sonic CD, Popful Mail, Lunar, Lords of Thunder, Ys Book 1 & 2, Rondo of Blood, etc.
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I miss my Turbo Duo.

 
Rodimus said:
There's plenty of games I'd consider retro that were strictly CD based. Think about the Sega CD and TurboGrafx CD. They had games like Sonic CD, Popful Mail, Lunar, Lords of Thunder, Ys Book 1 & 2, Rondo of Blood, etc.
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The Turbo CD came out a few months after the Genesis and before the SNES. What's considered "retro" just depends on the person. What's nostalgic to me isn't necessarily nostalgic to someone else. For me what I consider retro is the NES because that's what's nostalgic to me.

Plenty of kids today consider the PS2 retro and in a few years it will be the Xbox 360/PS3/Wii.

Retro: relating to, reviving, or being the styles and especially the fashions of the past : fashionably nostalgic or old-fashioned

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retro

 
Lots of ways to measure.... games under 32 bit, 64 bit....disc vs cartridge.  

To me, it is an out of date system that regains popularity after falling out of favor.  

Easiest measuring stick would be prices.  The way I can tell is how aggressively non-gamers chase certain systems at yard sales.

PS2, PS3, XBOX and 360 are not aggressively pursued at yard sales.  Yet.  I have to be there at open for pretty much any other system, so I consider them retro.

 
It's a very subjective term. It will mean different things to different people.

I've always considered myself to be a fairly enthusiastic "retro" gamer. But then, I was playing games from the early 80s during the mid to late 90s. I was old-school before it was really a thing. That was what "retro" meant back in the late-SNES, mid-PS1 days. Older cartridge games were still expensive back then, so I would often turn to PC gaming for better deals. Picking up older PC titles during those days was easy and cheap. I played a lot of classic Sierra adventure games back then.

At this point, my personal collection encompasses more than 30 years of video game history. I've got games from the late 70s through today. So what I consider "retro" covers a really wide spectrum. I basically qualify "retro" as anything ten years prior to the present date.

 
To me, the term retro could apply when the consoles are two generations removed. Retro --> Last Gen --> Current Gen. Though the Atari age, 8-bit and 16-bit ages register as true retro eras in my mind. 32-bit and N64 era kinda as well. Guess it's kinda relative to your age as well, maybe? Anyways, my two cents.

 
The crazy thing is, we're beginning to get into the area of dated nostalgia. This medium as we have come to know it is only about 35-40 years old. As far as mediums go that is incredibly young. We are only just now reaching the point where the current generation is growing up in a world where interactive entertainment is considered ubiquitous. There are still some on these boards who remember a world without video games. Others have grown up watching this medium grow and change. (drastically)

I have young nephews who were born after their parents got a PS3. They are going to grow up in a world where high-definition 1080p gaming has just always been a thing. Where touch-pad interactive devices were culturally accepted and desirable before they even came into being. I know this makes me seem old, but I boggle at the kind of perspective they will be growing up with. I'm also intimidated with the wealth of knowledge that it will be my role to impart to them. I'm looking forward to trotting out some of my classic hardware and explaining to them how video games "used to be."

 
Richard Kain said:
The crazy thing is, we're beginning to get into the area of dated nostalgia. This medium as we have come to know it is only about 35-40 years old. As far as mediums go that is incredibly young. We are only just now reaching the point where the current generation is growing up in a world where interactive entertainment is considered ubiquitous. There are still some on these boards who remember a world without video games. Others have grown up watching this medium grow and change. (drastically)

I have young nephews who were born after their parents got a PS3. They are going to grow up in a world where high-definition 1080p gaming has just always been a thing. Where touch-pad interactive devices were culturally accepted and desirable before they even came into being. I know this makes me seem old, but I boggle at the kind of perspective they will be growing up with. I'm also intimidated with the wealth of knowledge that it will be my role to impart to them. I'm looking forward to trotting out some of my classic hardware and explaining to them how video games "used to be."
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That's why you gotta break them in on the classics, the NES and SNES!

 
Jiryn said:
That's why you gotta break them in on the classics, the NES and SNES!
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I have a veritable video game museum at my house. They're going to be learning about the Atari 2600, the Intellivision, and all sorts of obscure video game stuff. The NES and SNES will have their day, no doubt. But there will be much, much more.

 
Id call it anything 2 generations or more back. Like ill consider ps2, gamecube, Gameboy advance, etc Retro.

However, when I personally think of retro, I go with NES, Genesis, SNES, etc because that's what I grew up with.

 
When I think retro, I think NES and Gameboy.  Maybe SNES and Genesis.  I certainly wouldn't go any further than PS1.

 
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Retro will depend on the person and their age. Retro to me would be PS2 and older as I'm only 29 and didn't really start gaming hardcore until the PS2 era. So nostalgia and other things come into factor as it seems like a long time ago for me.

 
If it's normal to find the console at a thrift store it's probably retro. In any case, I think PS2 will be considered retro in a couple of years. I wonder how those games will stand the test of time, since 8/16-bit always looks good but that's not the case with 3-D.

 
2017 games today will be RETRO in the coming 2070 cuz at that point, people don't use PC's or controllers or things like that. In my perspective, VR will be applied in all expectations of gaming. 

 
leelee_gayah said:
2017 games today will be RETRO in the coming 2070 cuz at that point, people don't use PC's or controllers or things like that. In my perspective, VR will be applied in all expectations of gaming.
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I honestly don't think VR will ever fully catch on.. it feels to much like a gimmick.. like 3D TV.

There is no resistence, and moving about is cumbersome.

 
VR has a place, but I'm not convinced that it's the future of gaming. They've tried it many times before and this current iteration is cool, but it's still not quite there yet. The biggest problem I see is motion sickness from prolonged play.

As a training and engineering tool, VR is great and I don't see it going anywhere.
 
KillerRamen said:
VR has a place, but I'm not convinced that it's the future of gaming. They've tried it many times before and this current iteration is cool, but it's still not quite there yet. The biggest problem I see is motion sickness from prolonged play.

As a training and engineering tool, VR is great and I don't see it going anywhere.
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Cheers to that, KillerRamen! :-({|= :beer: for your motion sickness, I think it's part of being immersive and such. Can you imagine that gaming became so real? :D I never thought that the day games became virtual reality.

 
Jiryn said:
I honestly don't think VR will ever fully catch on.. it feels to much like a gimmick.. like 3D TV.

There is no resistence, and moving about is cumbersome.
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You may be right that VR will never take off, but I think we are seeing a very nascent technology. If people had looked at Pong and thought that was all video games could be, we would all be a lot poorer for it. Give VR a few decades and I'm sure what we have now will seem primitive in comparison.

Here is an interesting press release from Varjo where it mentions that Chief Scientist Michael Abrash at Oculus predicts the effective resolution of the Oculus will increase from 1.2 MP to 16 MP in five years. Neat read!

http://www.varjo.com/press/19062017/

 
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Usually I consider Genesis/SNES the retro cutoff but nowadays  I feel like PS1/Dreamcast is starting to show it's age

 
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