The Age Old Question.

[Souppp]

What console generation would you all consider to be the cut-off to be considered retro?

For me, I would consider it to be GEN 4.

It's right before we started to get actual 3D games, which to me feels like the start of a new era. That's not to say that Gen 5 and onward should be considered new, however, I just think there should be a different classification other than retro... maybe modern (?).

 

[Rez09]

For me, I consider the cutoff the SNES era and back, but I fully understand people arguing for the PS1 and 2 eras — time has an odd way of stopping in my head and I often forget just how old that stuff is now. I mean, the PS3 is older than my oldest daughter who just graduated high school.

 

[thetwaz]

I have heard it said that there is a kind of view that when people say 'retro' they kind of mean 80s vaporwave type aesthetics like Atari and NES type games. I'm not sure that's wholly true though. So much changed in 10 years, and even in 5 years after that.

I've also heard the pre-3D thing, but then so many people now consider PSX games as retro. Also it gets really complicated when you bring PC games into it, as they were doing 3D a lot more commonly. Even the SNES had Star Fox/Star Wing and some other games that did pseudo 3D like Mario Kart.

Personally - I think the term retro is really unhelpful as by its nature, it changes. I think it's more helpful for discussions to talk about 'pre-Gen (x) gaming' or 'pre-3D acceleration, pre-Windows, Pre-XP gaming' or whatever specific subset you mean. People tie themselves into knots over these definitions otherwise, and I've seen a lot of discussions degenerate into whether something is or isn't retro when clearly the poster just has different terms of engagement to the OP.