To me, GameCube and PS2 are retro. Wii is getting there, and god, I feel old. Had to convince myself to put down “GameCube” instead of “N64”.

Two generations, so the 360, Wii, and PS3 are currently the cutting edge of retro.

I am reminded of the huge arguments on RGVC on Usenet when people started discussing NES games in the mid-90s. Since they were two generations old at that point (PS1 and Saturn having just launched), they were grudgingly allowed. I think that remains a good barometer.

My own personal line in the sand is what Wikipedia calls “the sixth generation”: Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo Gamecube, Sony PS2, Microsoft Xbox. They’re “retro” to me. Starting from the seventh generation, there was a noticeable bump in the ability for systems to churn out relatively-realistic graphics, with the PS3 and Xbox 360 leading the way, and the Wii embracing its delightfully-modern cartoony style.

I would consider anything pre-PS3/Xbox360 as retro. Anything after is old but I’d still consider them modern games. Aside from graphics and scale not much has changed since the PS3 era.

Personally, for me PS2 era and older is retro for sure. There is a clear distinction where many PS3 games share similar feeling with modern games, while my PS2 ones feel from a past time. We also still had things like memory cards, altrough obviously not all consoles in that generation do. Still, I would put generations on one line, as most console games where ports of the same game across consoles of the same generation, so then that’s the last generation with these kinda old ways of storing. PS2’s gen is also the last generation console games where completely different from PC, and in my childhood gaming up to then wasn’t mainstream but a nerd hobby, causing it to have a very different community. With the generation of the PS3, all of that changed to modern standards.

PS3 and DS I’m a bit in dubio about. Whenever I feel bored with modern games, PS3 and my (3)DS are on the list of “old” consoles I grab back to (together with PS2, PS1, and recently GBC/GBA which I’d consider retro for sure). On the other hand, at least half the games released on it are games I still play on my PC as “modern games”. DS is extra hard, as I barely distinct between 3DS as DS in my mind, unless it’s using the GBA port for stuff. After all, I play them on the same console and the transition was quite smooth between the DS models making it not feel like a huge gab, unlike the PS2 to PS3. But at the same time, early DS is much older than late 3DS, which I would consider too new for sure.

Anything after that, modern for sure.

(One of) the biggest tech sites in my country uses “at least two generations old” as definition, making PS3 the last retro generation currently. I like it because it fits my usage, but as said I’m a bit in dubio about actually calling the PS3 retro. It doesn’t feel old fashioned enough. I mean, that would technically make Skyrim retro. But that’s definitly one of those games that are in my “modern gaming” list on PC and Switch…

I can at least personally attest that PS3 is currently the newest gen where people either think you’re awesome for buying it now because they get the fun of old stuff, or stupid because they think the old stuff is crap and only the new is cool. For that reason I would agree to allow it on retro places, as modern gaming places just wouldn’t appriciate it at all while people who are already into older stuff do on a somewhat regular basis. But that doesn’t make it truly retro per se, and it really should take over or be all you use.

I would argue that retro is individual. Depending on when you grew up and which games you played back then.

In my view, systems without an HDMI output or which default to a 4:3 aspect ratio are retro. But I don’t expect everyone else to share this opinion, and that’s totally fine. 🙂

20 years is considered vintage if that helps.

~15 years is the arbitrary cutoff that feels right to me, despite how old it is continuing to make me feel

I would almost say anything that doesn’t require an internet connection to work with 100% content could be considered retro at this point.

My line is at the transition from 2d to 3d mostly.

2d is retro. Early 3d is like the awkward teenage years. Everything since Xbox 360/PS3 is modern to me.

I’m at the age now where I know deep down the Wii is retro, but I don’t want to accept it.

I have a simple definition, hardware is retro if it’s no longer being produced, software is retro if it’s no longer beind sold

EDIT: posting this here because I can’t seem to respond to a kbin user below, the message never goes through:

A digital re-release is different from the original release, in my opinion. For example, Full Throttle is on steam but I had the original one, which came in a box. You can even download the CD-ROM ISO somewhere, but you can’t find that box with the CD-ROM anymore (unless you buy it secondhand from someone).

The way I see it based on what was retro 20 years ago, something becomes retro when it’s 20+ years old. In the 90’s, stuff from the 70’s was retro. In the 2000’s, 80’s stuff was retro. Now in 2023, stuff from the 2000’s is technically retro.

But by pure dictionary definition, anything older than current stuff is retro. Memes from just last month that aren’t relevant anymore would technically be retro, by definition of the word.

For me I’d say retro is Gen 6 and below, but specifically including the Dreamcast and PS2, but probably excluding the Xbox, and maybe GameCube.

The Xbox was the first console with internal storage built in and both the Xbox and GameCube used shader pipelining aka modern GPU architecture. Basically, I feel if shader compilation is a requirement for emulating it, I don’t consider it retro.