So, next year the PSWii60 generation is officially retro isn't it?

[PrimeRib]

To me, the term "retro" is just as much defined by the hardware logistics behind how you set up & play games on a console as it is about the generation of consoles it exists within.

The only console last gen to run native 480p games was Wii, which I'd consider retro gaming at this point because damned if you can find any TV that can upscale as well as older native 480 sets/monitors could. But PS3 and Xbox 360? They were more or less HD (720p) so I think we need another generation or two before those would be considered retro.

 

[NSESN]

Wii is already retro because of the switch imo

 

[inner-G]

I felt that way for a while but with the TurboGrafx CD about to hit 30 years old in North America, the early CD stuff definitely feels retro to me now.

Click to shrink...

Never tried one.

A PS1 doesn't feel as retro to me like a SNES does, though

 

[Inugami]

360 and Wii we're both PowerPC based, PA3 was cell based.

Click to shrink...

The cell processor was powerpc based, the cell wasn't a completely different architecture, it just had added SPUs to handle some simple parallel tasks. That said, there are many types of powerpc architecture, and the Wii even then was using far more ancient ppc750 as it's base.

 

[Clay]

That's just because we're old. Ask any young adult today if a movie from 2005 (when they were a toddler) is retro, they're gonna say yes.

Edit: sorry for the double post.

Click to shrink...

I don't know about that. I started playing games with the N64 and it made sense to call NES-era games retro because they looked drastically different and had clearly different design sensibilities. They were obviously from a different era. That difference isn't nearly as clear for current games and PS3/360 games. Ocarina of Time makes the original Zelda look retro in a way everyone can identify. Many franchises with entries on PS3/360 and PS4/XB1 are largely the same, with the latter's larger environments and better graphics being the most noticeably modernization.

I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "young adult" but I doubt many teenagers would consider movies from the early 2000s retro. Movies from the 90s and especially 80s are clearly from a different era, with fashion and direction that are close to non-existent today. Many 2005 movies could be released today and they would seem dated in the way something like Back to the Future would. This comparison isn't great, movies are generally more timeless than games.

It's more useful and interesting to use "retro" to describe things that have quirks that betray when they were made, not based on whether a kid thinks they came out a long time ago.

 

[Nostremitus]

I don't know about that. I started playing games with the N64 and it made sense to call NES-era games retro because they looked drastically different and had clearly different design sensibilities. They were obviously from a different era. That difference isn't nearly as clear for current games and PS3/360 games. Ocarina of Time makes the original Zelda look retro in a way everyone can identify. Many franchises with entries on PS3/360 and PS4/XB1 are largely the same, with the latter's larger environments and better graphics being the most noticeably modernization.

I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "young adult" but I doubt many teenagers would consider movies from the early 2000s retro. Movies from the 90s and especially 80s are clearly from a different era, with fashion and direction that are close to non-existent today. Many 2005 movies could be released today and they would seem dated in the way something like Back to the Future would. This comparison isn't great, movies are generally more timeless than games.

It's more useful and interesting to use "retro" to describe things that have quirks that betray when they were made, not based on whether a kid thinks they came out a long time ago.

Click to shrink...

The fact is, whether you want to admit it or not, they did come out a long time ago.

 

[hikarutilmitt]

More concisely yes, I'm not of the mindset that "retro" has to perpetually be n64 and earlier as it has persisted. Although the gap between quality is definitely way smaller than NES -> PS2 but that's just inevitable as time goes on.

We also have working emulation for all 3 of those systems (Wii is by far the best) and you can play them on PC relatively easily.

The REAL question though is will we ever have a generation where all 3 consoles names can so perfectly be mashed together.

Click to shrink...

We have a working, functioning 360 emulator that runs most of its games at a reasonable speed?

 

[Clay]

The fact is, whether you want to admit it or not, they did come out a long time ago.

Click to shrink...

I'm not arguing that. I'm saying that as games get older the lines between generations are getting far blurrier, and it makes sense that what people think of as "retro" games will change accordingly. Typically retro describes things clearly from a different era. What would you answer if you were asked for examples of retro fashion? I expect you'd come up with examples more unique than a pair of jeans that happened to be made eight years ago. If you have to ask what year something came out in before determining whether it's retro it's not a useful descriptor.

 

[Dogenzaka]

For me it's the pre-HD era that I consider retro.

 

[demondance]

The word "retro" is pretty loaded. The 2D/3D distinction made the early 90's consoles become "retro" really quickly, while it took a much longer time for people to think of PS1/N64/Saturn and PC games from that era the same way.

This is yet another of these situations where some gamers want to make a term have some kind of rock solid distinction (two console gens back, more than 10 years old, etc.) when the way people actually use words is more complex and emotional than that.

 

[Nostremitus]

I'm not arguing that. I'm saying that as games get older the lines between generations are getting far blurrier, and it makes sense that what people think of as "retro" games will change accordingly. Typically retro describes things clearly from a different era. What would you answer if you were asked for examples of retro fashion? I expect you'd come up with examples more unique than a pair of jeans that happened to be made eight years ago. If you have to ask what year something came out in before determining whether it's retro it's not a useful descriptor.

Click to shrink...

Games from that generation are obviously different than this gen, and especially next gen.

 

[Deleted member 2620]

using the word "retro" to designate things that are imitative of styles of old: pretty straightforward, subjective but often agreeable, very clear what someone in 2019 means when they say "pico-8 is retro"

using the word "retro" to avoid saying "old": an endless amount of arguing to be had over where a line in the sand goes, but very little utility to be had as the history of video gaming grows year by year

 

[dom]

WTF at those poll options. I see OP doesn't know what retro means. News flash, it doesn't just mean old or two generations ago. It has to do with style compared to the present. The style of that gen isn't that much different with current stuff. Therefore, it's not retro.

 

[Inugami]

WTF at those poll options. I see OP doesn't know what retro means. News flash, it doesn't just mean old or two generations ago. It has to do with style compared to the present. The style of that gen isn't that much different with current stuff. Therefore, it's not retro.

Click to shrink...

There is a poll option for you, it's the third one. You've hit "arbitrary" to a tee.

If you honestly think there is no difference in graphic or gameplay style from ps360 especially in the first year or two, I'm not sure how to help you.

 

[Reinhard]

I wont consider 360/PS3 retro, but Wii definitely so since it was still stuck at 480p and had games very different than today (focused on motion controls). Xbox 360 and PS3 games feel like the same games we still play today but much smaller levels due to memory restrictions.

 

[deltabreak]

I feel like you should start counting from when the PS4 came out. I had one only 5 years ago.

 

[Sandfox]

They are retro, but people won't agree and it's probably an age thing.

 

[Deleted member 14735]

Sorry but SNES/Genesis is the cutoff for retro, nothing released past that can ever be considered retro, them's the rules

 

[Baladium]

no

Click to shrink...

Yea

Click to shrink...

Maybe, depending on your arbitrary definition of retro

Click to shrink...

 

[MaverickHunterAsh]

I grew up with the NES, SNES, and Genesis, so to me those are what I would consider "retro" (along with the PS1, Saturn, and N64 to a lesser extent). This is totally a subjective thing, though, as this thread proves. I can absolutely see why kids who grew up with the Wii/Xbox 360/PS3 see those consoles as retro, and I can't say they're wrong. It's all about your perspective and when you grew up.

 

[Bomblord]

We have a working, functioning 360 emulator that runs most of its games at a reasonable speed?

Click to shrink...

Working and running a majority of the library on common hardware playably are very different things

 

[I am a Bird]

No, it will just be considered old.

 

[Paertan]

I have a hard time considering Playstation 1 as retro. Slow down!

 

[hikarutilmitt]

Working and running a majority of the library on common hardware playably are very different things

Click to shrink...

If we're talking about, say, Xenia, I don't consider that to be a working emulator in the sense that it is a replacement for anything at all. Stuff like RPCS3 is much further along in playability on most of the library and can take the place of a PS3 in a lot of ways.

 

[HyperDimension]

No. Retro has more to do with the % of time, rather than a fixed number of years.

If something was around in the first half of the industry's history so far, then that's retro. The industry has been around for 48 years since 1971. The first half would be up to 1995. Which means up to the PS1 era. That's up to where almost everyone agrees with being retro.

Anything after the PS1 era is debatable, since that's when you enter the second half of the industry's history.

In other words, there is no double-standards as the OP is trying to imply. Back in 2000, the industry was just 29 years old. Which means the half-way point was 1986 back then, i.e. NES era. That's why the NES era was retro back in 2000.

Similarly, back in the NES era, the Atari 2600 was considered retro, since that was the half-way point in the industry's history. So you can see a common pattern here. Whatever era it was, "retro" usually meant anything that came in the first half of the industry's history.

 

[daTRUballin]

It certainly doesn't feel like it at all lol. The 360, PS3, and Wii still almost feel new to me haha.

But then I'm one of those people having trouble calling PS2, Xbox, and GameCube as "retro" too. I have no issue with the term when it comes to PS1/N64 or earlier, but for some reason, 6th gen and up is weird for me. I guess it's probably whatever you played as a kid that feels retro. Technically, I was in elementary school during the 6th gen, but I never owned any of those systems back then.

 

[Deleted member 50761]

Retro to me is NES SNES Gameboy and Sega Mega Drive.

 

[Thatguy]

This is still literally last gen, so hard to think of as retro. I have cross gen PS3 games on my PS4 hard drive right now. Wii maybe you could argue this since there was a WiiU in there. Wii feels like a Gamecube with motion controls at this point, and Gamecube is retro.

 

[Jeeves]

It's not going to feel as retro as the amount of time makes it look like. The graphics of today are still comparable to the upper end of PS360 to a casual observer, and the controllers are basically the same too.