Board 8 > So at what point did you realize that PS2/GC-era games are retro now?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Final Fantasy X is 20 years old. It's closer on the timeline to Super Mario Bros 1 than games released today.

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I'd say that takes like... 2 full additional generations plus or minus a partial one.

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You could say PS1 was clearly dated not long into PS2 but I'm not sure anyone would have considered it "retro" yet.

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When I realized that people who could vote could have reasonably played FFX on release date as children.

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paperwarior posted...

I'd say that takes like... 2 full additional generations plus or minus a partial one.

NES-era games were already considered retro by the time the early 2000s rolled around. You don't think that people who are 18 years old now don't consider games released before they were alive to be retro/classic? Same things as radio stations playing 2000s-era songs in their 'Classic Music' sections.

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When the prices got jacked up

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When I heard a kid refer to the 3DS as "that old thing"

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I don't really consider the PS2 era retro in the same way as the 80s/90s eras. It's like treating 90s music/movies as retro as early talkies.

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Probably around the time they stopped selling PS2 games in gamestop. Maybe like a good 5 or 6 years ago at least?

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Early 90s movies are retro. Not on the level of talkies obviously, but they're very much old by now.

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KamikazePotato posted...

Early 90s movies are retro. Not on the level of talkies obviously, but they're very much old by now.

That's my point. Technically, anything from the past can be considered "retro" in some way, but I personally don't use the word for stuff that's not even 25 years old.

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What word would you use then? Classic? They're definitely not on the same level of recency as anything released in the last decade or so.

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KamikazePotato posted...

NES-era games were already considered retro by the time the early 2000s rolled around. You don't think that people who are 18 years old now don't consider games released before they were alive to be retro/classic? Same things as radio stations playing 2000s-era songs in their 'Classic Music' sections.

No, I think you misunderstood me. I meant the 2 generations following the generation in question. Not that it'll take until sometime in the PS7 to call those retro. That would be ludicrous. >.>

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Cleopatra was closer to the moon landing than we are to the Gamecube
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Super Mario 64 is closer to Pong than it is to the present.

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KamikazePotato posted... What word would you use then? Classic? They're definitely not on the same level of recency as anything released in the last decade or so.

Honestly, I am not sure. I don't know if there's a word that can be used for something between "Recent" and "Old school". Maybe classic would be the word depending on how I would use it (as in "Classic Playstation games", but I certainly wouldn't call trash or forgettable stuff "classics", like calling Devil May Cry 2 a classic), but I certainly wouldn't call them modern by today's standards.

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"Old" is the less-positive version of "retro" I think.

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When their games starting selling for triple digits on Amazon because you couldn't find them anywhere

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Ive literally seen people on Twitch put Wii/360/PS3 games under Retro. So take that as you will.

(Yes, Im aware its more for viewership)

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Retro to me indicates a certain style/time that people associate with and are nostalgic for. NES/SNES/Genesis/... have this going for it, but I would associate PS2 and GameCube more with the 00's, and I don't think that time is retro yet.

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RyoCaliente posted...

Retro to me indicates a certain style/time that people associate with and are nostalgic for. NES/SNES/Genesis/... have this going for it, but I would associate PS2 and GameCube more with the 00's, and I don't think that time is retro yet.

The 00s are absolutely a style/time that people associate with and nostalgic for.

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I don't think I've ever heard anything from GC era called Retro except Metroid Prime. Stuff like Banjo-Kazooie and Ocarina of Time are the latest I could see for it, but I think this will always mean NES/SNES/Genesis to me

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ninkendo posted...

When the prices got jacked up

Yup, Paper Mario: TTYD is now essentially what Chrono Trigger was in 2001.

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Shonen_Bat posted...

I don't think I've ever heard anything from GC era called Retro except Metroid Prime. Stuff like Banjo-Kazooie and Ocarina of Time are the latest I could see for it, but I think this will always mean NES/SNES/Genesis to me

same. i know it's technically incorrect but to me, "retro" will always mean anything up to the SNES/genesis era.

many streamers on twitch definitely classify PS2/GC/xbox games as "retro," though.

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Whenever I could play them on my phone

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It's hard for me to see the PS2 gen as retro because they still look good upscaled on PC. Everything before that does look pretty retro though.

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ninkendo posted...

When the prices got jacked up

This. Gamecube prices are absolutely insane right now, just like SNES carts started to become ~5 years ago.

Which reminds me, if anyone enjoys "retro" collecting, 360 and PS3 games are cheap as dirt right now and will undoubted start to double/triple in value in the next few years.

paperwarior posted...

I'd say that takes like... 2 full additional generations plus or minus a partial one. Edit: ...after any generation for an approximation of when it could be considered retro. Not from now.

Id say this or about 15 years. In 2010 I would have considered stuff on the SNES and Mega Drive retro, but probably not PS1 stuff yet.

That said, I think the definition is definitely going to get blurrier and blurrier with how easy it is to upscale and remaster games now compared to previously.

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ninkendo posted...

When the prices got jacked up

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about 10 years ago

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ninkendo posted...

When the prices got jacked up

Definitely the right answer

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prices haven't been jacked up yet in Japan (knock on wood) so I guess those games aren't retro yet here

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I hear 'retro' as a descriptor specifically for 2D-era gaming too much to really think of anything beyond that era as retro. Like, to me, the word has taken on a specific connation in gaming - and I have never actually encountered it outside of gaming. Who refers to a movie as retro? I have never seen that before this topic.

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every now and then a post from r/gaming will rise to the top of reddit's front page and i'll click on it, and i'll read the comments about people waxing nostalgic for their favorite old-school games from the PS3/360 era.

i'm easily accepting PS2/GCN as retro, as defined by the "i played a decent number of games from this era" metric
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CasanovaZelos posted...

I hear 'retro' as a descriptor specifically for 2D-era gaming too much to really think of anything beyond that era as retro. Like, to me, the word has taken on a specific connation in gaming - and I have never actually encountered it outside of gaming. Who refers to a movie as retro? I have never seen that before this topic.

i'm not sure about movies, but people definitely refer to clothing trends and music as retro. saying retro gaming is like 2D gaming is like saying that retro clothing refers to bellbottoms coming back into style in the 90s.

i mean not that i know anything about fashion itself, but i do know how this terminology is supposed to be used
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My rule of thumb for retro for games is 15 years, so they've been retro to me for a while now.

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I really need to consider selling my GameCube games

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I feel like the term 'retro' has a distinct aesthetic requirement. Like, yes, bellbottoms are obviously retro, but there are styles from the same era that would pass as completely ordinary in the modern day and thus would not be called retro.

To me, the moment we get modern design sense in 3D gaming, it's all just part of the same cluster. There is no Gamecube-era aesthetic people will emulate because most modern game design is just an expansion of that era. Meanwhile, we get constant explicit throwbacks to the 2D-era because that era carried a distinct style.

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Underleveled posted...

My rule of thumb for retro for games is 15 years, so they've been retro to me for a while now.

you sure this works? would you consider SNES/genesis to have been retro in 2004?
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CasanovaZelos posted...

There is no Gamecube-era aesthetic people will emulate because most modern game design is just an expansion of that era. Meanwhile, we get constant explicit throwbacks to the 2D-era because that era carried a distinct style.

Counterpoint - For some reason, I felt that A Hat in Time was a deliberate throwback to early-ish 3D platformers, complete with a bit of an unpolished look.

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SeabassDebeste posted...

would you consider SNES/genesis to have been retro in 2004?

Absolutely.

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KamikazePotato posted...

What word would you use then? Classic? They're definitely not on the same level of recency as anything released in the last decade or so.

I never really heard anyone describe the original Star Wars or James Bond movies as retro or classic in the late 90s or whatever. Some stuff stays feeling modern despite its age.
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CasanovaZelos posted...

I feel like the term 'retro' has a distinct aesthetic requirement. Like, yes, bellbottoms are obviously retro, but there are styles from the same era that would pass as completely ordinary in the modern day and thus would not be called retro.

To me, the moment we get modern design sense in 3D gaming, it's all just part of the same cluster. There is no Gamecube-era aesthetic people will emulate because most modern game design is just an expansion of that era. Meanwhile, we get constant explicit throwbacks to the 2D-era because that era carried a distinct style.

this answer articulates a lot about how i feel, so thanks!
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Underleveled posted...

Absolutely.

so that kind of breaks the 15-year, rule, right? in 2004, sonic the hedgehog was 13 years old, link to the past was 12 years old, and chrono trigger was only 9 years old.
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Underleveled posted...

Counterpoint - For some reason, I felt that A Hat in Time was a deliberate throwback to early-ish 3D platformers, complete with a bit of an unpolished look.

I think part of it is the distinction isn't as easy as sorting by console era. Like, I could see Devil May Cry as retro but not Devil May Cry 3. What I consider the 'modern' era of gaming starts in the back half of the Gamecube-era with some series getting there faster than others.

It's just hard for me to view anything as retro if it still serves as the basic structure for current game designs. It takes not just age but also a sort of obsolescence to become 'retro.'

Edit: so 'retro' is more common in music and fashion because things more quickly go in and out of style in those areas

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It still isn't. Over time we've accumulated more and more total gaming history so as the timespan labelled "retro" gets larger, it makes sense that the "not retro yet" timespan gets larger too. And connecting to other mediums more generally, while they're certainly not new or recent or anything I wouldn't think of early 2000s movies as meaningfully "retro." Much less those from 2007/2008 as notable PS2 development was wrapping up.

And as gaming developed further, big leaps and changes got harder to come by. The shift to 3D was such a clear departure that it was pretty easy around the 6th gen or so to just assign everything older than PS1/Saturn to retro and 5th gen 3D games are generally distinct, creaky, and weird enough that it made sense to eventually let them slide in too (plus while they weren't generally as popular we were still getting a decent amount of 2D games with actual effort and budget from notable developers back then). What's the case for 6th gen looking or playing so differently than modern games? They're less detailed but as far as I can see they're generally not meaningfully different outside online features and all those remasters of gen 6 games we've gotten basically prove it whereas for gen 5 they basically have to redo the game from the ground up. Gen 6 games are just older and less technologically advanced. Going back from current games to God of War, Resident Evil 4, and Persona 4 is just fundamentally not like going back around 2001 to playing NES-era Mario, Zelda, Mega Man, and Dragon Warrior.

I think the word you're looking for is just "old."

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They're not because they have yet to clear the most definitive test there is to determine this - win a contest on GameFAQs. The PS2 tried but the N64 sent out its second-string and still beat it down.

you gonna call yourself "retro" and you can't win on a site full of dinosaurs like us? please.

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Snake5555555555 posted...

Probably around the time they stopped selling PS2 games in gamestop. Maybe like a good 5 or 6 years ago at least?

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I often thought that PS3/360 represented the first "true modern" line of consoles and gaming, such that we haven't seen it change all that much since then. PS2 era is a sort of pre-modern that sets up the groundwork for modernity.

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I hate to break it to you all but the PS3, 360, and Wii are also all retro consoles now. The gamers in the younger part of the peak customer base for the industry were not even born when they launched.