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this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2025
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In my opinion, retro games/consoles are a lot like vintage cars. It doesn't matter how much time has passed because it's not about their age, it's about the era they came from.
In the case of vintage cars, it's any car manufactured prior to 1930. In the case of retro game consoles I'd say it's anything prior to 1994.
Edit: typo. 1995 should have been 1994. The launch year of the PS1 and the founding year of the ESRB.
That's a surprisingly narrow definition.
So do you look at something like a Studebaker Commander Coupe and go "well obviously that's modern"?
No, definitely not modern, possibly a classic, though that term has some additional qualifications, so I'm not sure.
But 1930 is chosen and is generally recognized as the cutoff for vintage cars by most collectors clubs and organizations, because that year marked a major industry wide shift, for consumers, manufacturers, and regulation, and while there have been relatively minor shifts in the industry, not much has really changed since.
Similarly, 1994 (made a typo above) marked a similar transition, the PS1 was released that year, marking a shift to 3D graphics, the ESRB was established in the US, and consumer adoption reached a point where you could finally say video gaming was here to stay. And just like with the automotive industry in 1930, things in gaming shifted from a period of rapid experimentation, innovation, and regulation to a period of slow, gradual improvement along the lines established by the fifth generation of consoles in 1994.
By who? I'm a big car guy and have never heard someone say a car has to be near 100 years old to be vintage. Most laws here in the states say 30. This is the only real source I could find that agrees with you but then it goes on to disagree with itself so idk.
Personally, I'd say "vintage" is 1950s and into the 1960s. I would say the C1 Corvette is "vintage", but the C2 is "classic".
https://veterancarclubofwesternaustralia.wildapricot.org/
https://wikicars.org/en/Vintage_car
http://www.vmc.org.au/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vintage_car
A cursory google search also turned up a few other clubs with that definition in the site preview blurb (some even from outside Australia) but the sites have expired or invalid https certs, so I'd rather not link to them.
Though it does seem the majority use a broader definition.