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I am also often upset, confused and scared by the passage of time
Downvote for making me think about it
It is not retro. It is "Modern," like how art from the 50s and 60s is called "Modern Art."
Here is an easy chart:
1st Console Gen (Magnavox Odyssey) : Historic
2nd Console Gen (ColecoVision) : Antique
3rd Console Gen (NES) : Vintage
4th Console Gen (SNES) : Retro
5th Console Gen (N64) : Classic
6th Console Gen (XBOX) : Renaissance
7th Console Gen (X360) : Modern
8th Console Gen (XBOX ONE) : Post-Modern
9th Console Gen (XBOX SERIES) : Contemporary
We are not old, we are retro
I'm downright vintage.
Here here! stomps cane
I feel like the “retroness” comes down to more the gameplay than the passage of time. Despite coming out 20 years ago, 360 games have a lot of similarities to modern games. Contrast that to the SNES, which had a much different limitations and approach to game design.
Yes and no. I only play the 360 (because of money, not choice) and the very specific brand of action games they had are not a thing today. The mechanics and presentation are "retro" in the sense that they are from a different era.
There are many that share similarities but the more you play from this era today the more you notice how much things have changed.
Yeah, maybe we need a different word to describe the games and systems that we think of when we say "retro". Because when I think of 'retro' games, I'm thinking of Super Mario Bros and the OG Doom and shit like that, not Halo or whatever. I'm thinking of the time before consoles were mostly just pre-built PCs in a fancy looking box.
Gamestop needs to go back to when their cases looked like this
I miss those styles, so much stuff has a corporate sanitized look and feel these days
I just bought one last year.
It's not retro. It's in that sweet spot where it's irrelevant enough to be dirt cheap.
We'll need to wait another 10-20 years before the kids who grew up with the xbox360 have enough time and disposable income to buy and play all the games they loved in their youth.
This shit hurts me every time. I remember playing xbox360 in high school with my friends. I’m getting old.
We were playing the Nintendo 64 and original Xbox when I was in high school.
On that note, I told a younger colleague yesterday that I rewatched Stargate (the 1994 movie, which is six years younger than Die Hard) recently, and her reply was "Oh, I thought that was a programme, not a movie".
FML, makes me feel old.
360 is AAA slop, I refuse to recognize that thing as retro.
The people born when this machine was released have finished school, learned to drive and potentially even started their own families.
I think using emulation as the benchmark for what makes a console retro can be a useful rule of thumb. By that metric I don't think the 360 is retro yet as emulation isn't quite mainstream or functional for the majority of titles. It's probably getting close though.
It was the Gamecube for me. I was like, "How the hell can a recent game like Metroid Prime be 'retro'?" and then I realized if the game was a person It'd be old enough to drink... and then it got a remaster right after that realization.
Some other games now old enough to drink:
- Metal Gear Solid 3
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- The original Far Cry
- Burnout 3
- Doom 3
Abe Simpson was younger as a character at Xbox 360 release (first appearance 1988) than the Xbox 360 is today.
About as old as NES on the Wii
I’m with you, retro is when they were still counting bits
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.
1930 is chosen and is generally recognized as the cutoff for vintage cars
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
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.
If it can be emulated on a steam deck, it's retro
The switch is retro?
I never had an XBOX or PS2. I went over to my friend’s house and he’d let me take a controller. I’m surprised this is considered retro now and I’m a little sad since I never got to play it.
Now I have Steam games I can’t find time or joy to play and with no one to play them with.
I’m surprised this is considered retro now and I’m a little sad since I never got to play it.
The good news is PS2 emulation is pretty solid. Xbox is less so, but luckily most games in the generation were also available on PS2.
And it never got cool super-computer action like N64 from 2015 Fantastic Four even.....lol.
That's OK, the Xbox 360 was heavily featured in Grandma's Boy, which is a much better deal.
This hurts me. I have vivid memories of playing Halo 3 and Hexic back when I was in middle school.
First time?
Halo (combat evolved) came out when I was a junior in highschool.
Before that, it was GoldenEye and then Perfect Dark.
And I even got to play some Timesplitters at PS2 launch because the rich kid got the multitap and extra controllers.
Heck, we're (significantly) farther away from the CE anniversary launch than it was from the original.
When your fact about CE Anniversary hit for OoT and OoT3D, I felt crippled.
I’m offended because I think it’s a bad console. At least the xbone seems reliable if it was so god damn boring.
this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2025
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