What is a "Retro" Game? (or...when?)

[@Njsmooth60]

As a kid born in the mid 2000's, I'd also like to add on that you'll likely consider any game made before you were born as retro lol

[@aturchomicz821]

Its gonna be a horrifying day when People will start callling Sword and Shield "Nostalgic" part of their youths...

[@Njsmooth60]

@@aturchomicz821 I mean, my first video game was Wii Sports, and I'd say that's pretty nostalgic to me, so I think we're sort of already at that point

[@darken2417]

Problem is that some households may keep and continue playing the same console across several generations, as was the case throughout the lifespan of the Boomers. A console that belonged to an older brother of the family would then be played by the younger siblings like a decade after it released and before they get a console of their own of their generation. People would play the SNS all the way to 2003.

[@strawhatmonty22897]

@@darken2417 Like how I was born in 97, 2 years after the ps1 released and my first gaming memory is of sonic the hedgehog 2 on the sega genesis.

[@eric9822]

By that definition, for me there are no retro games. :(

[@DialE4Eggs]

I feel like saying a game is “Retro” is like saying a game is “Nostalgic” It’s very subjective and hard to nail down.

[@JmKrokY]

Ok

[@akiradkcn]

No

[@GayKermit-._-.]

Here's how a game works. 10 years: after a game is 10 years old people stop caring about it and it becomes worthless. 20 years: when a game is 20 years old the people who used to play it become nostalgic and interest sparks. 30 years: when a game is 30 years old it becomes classic. People who never played it before become interested in it, the game hits its peak popularity and people buy merch of it and crap. 40 years and beyond: after 30 years interest slowly dies down as most people have played it and grow tired of it.

[@TetraBitGaming]

Stop making me feel ancient my man

[@pissqueendanniella4688]

Im glad im not the only old person here 😸😸

[@nimkiibineshi24049]

I didn't know you had a husband named ancient

[@ZeusTheIrritable]

You ain't kidding...

[@dudepool7530]

So, I guess this is the gamer retirement home? *Sits in a rocking chair* Remember 7th Saga anyone?

[@sanicsanic6890]

lol

[@higginswalsan]

I love these “defining vague and terribly unhelpful gaming terms people throw around like they have no meaning” videos

[@Shmidershmax]

Someone needs to make a video about the word "clunky". It gets thrown around so much it's lost it's meaning. If a particular game isn't someone's cup of tea they immediately label it as clunky in one way or another

[@higginswalsan]

@@Shmidershmax that’s a really good one! It’s kind of interesting because it’s not one I’d name off the top of my head but I hear it used just often enough to know exactly what you mean

[@sergiowinter5383]

@@Shmidershmax I would like to know the origin of the word as well

[@elchomper.1063]

Because..... They have no meaning. Since Activision "remastered" modern warfare a 7th gen game on 8th gen consoles the word nostalgia is meaningless in terms of video games.

[@MrGreatDane2]

One thing that I want to bring up is that generational advances become less obvious over time, the leap between the 4th and 5th gen from 2D to 3D is definitely more impactful than the leap from the 7th gen to the 8th gen. Due to this it takes more time for a gaming generation to feel retro than before. This is also why the DS feels retro while the Xbox 360 does not, the technical capabilities were much lower and the machine therefore "feels" older

[@Alianger]

The DS also had some direct from N64 ports like Mario 64 Similar thing to the GBA

[@rirayejohnson8079]

The idea of the ds being considered retro is a scary thought

[@rndmzr153]

I still play Mario 64DS MarioKart DS and Wii

[@patrickorellana4340]

not to me it has sum very gud 2d games

[@ThatSneakman]

Please don't

[@randomtinypotatocried]

Especially with still having my old DS and still playing it from time to time. It's enough I just found my old GameCube

[@tipulsar85]

It'll happen fully in four years.

[@derk5867]

I think this made me realize that we can't really compare the passage of time. Technology is advancing so rapidly that what we consider retro between 2000 and 1980 is a whole other context between 2020 and 2000

[@sergiowinter5383]

@@plaintruths6062 Being from the greatest composers of all time: Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach.

[@tranidite]

@@sergiowinter5383 Not Classical, classic. There's a huge difference.

[@randomtinypotatocried]

@@plaintruths6062 Cassette tapes just started coming back in style and I won't mind CDs to come back since I still have a CD player in my old Jeep

[@henryfleischer404]

@@plaintruths6062 In some communities music can become classic much faster. Classic vocaloid music is generally from between about 2008 and 2012.

[@MrlspPrt]

To be fair, I bet most of the stagnation is because software complexity. I doubt we can see differences as big as 2D becomes 3D, not even ray-tracing is meaningful because it doesn't get us a real difference... in fact, I'm thinking about a playstyle revolution, that's where Nintendo would be at the upper hand (and I'm NOT a Nintendo fan, so this is weird for me to say). The previous transitions were notorious because those were simple games, most of those may be used as high school projects... but asking for a modern game is something at different scale. This is where AR would be useful, but I bet for new hardware interfaces at the same time that photorrealism is achieved (if this is really important)... so this would be the secret motive because MS developed the Xbox: they can easily follow trends (and fail, just like they did with Kinect).

[@JohnSmith-sk7cg]

I consider N64 and older retro as a game development rift between old school game design and modern game design. That really started cementing itself in the Gamecube/PS2/Xbox era. N64 and PS1 make it because they were still trying to figure things out and fight the hardware when it came to 3D design so those games often don't fit in the modern framework.

[@gogongagis3395]

Pretty much what I was going to comment. Since perhaps the early / mid ps2 era when modern design started to really crystallise, changes have been pretty much iterative refinements rather than big generational leaps. I am sure this factors in some way into what many people would consider “retro” - (ie it’s hard to consider a lot of the ps3 library “retro” when a lot of ps3 games play and feel extremely similar to things being put out now.)

[@Jupiter__001_]

@@gogongagis3395 Aye, imagine someone saying Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is retro.

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

I fully believe if they just updated the textures for Mario Kart Double Dash and dropped it today, no one would notice it is an old as dirt game. Same with KH 2 or Klonoa 2 on the Playstation. They feel very modern, it is only the graphics and QoL stuff. Of course turn-based JRPG's suffer the most from the QoL differences (SMT 3 Nocturne vs SMT 5 being s good example) but most genres are fine.

[@A-Spoto]

I agree. The PS2/Gamecube were the last major graphical jump between console generations. I love blocky early 3D games but the graphical jump between PS1 and PS2 is about as big as the graphical jump between PS2 and PS5. It's hard to imagine PS2 as retro because it just doesn't look "that" different from current hardware despite the age difference.

[@justbny9278]

i think it's kinda safe to say we have rough 3 eras, one with a more chaotic experimental gaming scene up to the 6th generation with the ps1 and the n64, then a transition period overlapping those two all the way to the ps3 and x360's releases and early life, to the more Modern Era now that might just begin changing soon too as the line between console generations gets insanely blurry and more technical and the medium begins to fold into itself a little more now that it's been cooling down for a while

[@Amesang]

On a similar note, Nirvana's _Nevermind_ was released in 1991 - 30 years ago. 30 years before _that,_ in 1961, The Beatles… hadn't even released an album, yet!

[@TheGahta]

Imagine a time where people make burly, neckless protagonists with chesthigh walls to crouch behind and lots of brown environments not because of corporate committee design but because it's retro 🤣

[@aturchomicz821]

Noooo😫

[@DashsChannel]

Eww, don't even get me thinking of that. Though to be fair the first two Quakes were brown and drab too and those are classics, and the limited colors were due to the strict hardware limitations in the mid-late 90s. Still have no idea why everyone wanted to be drab and brown over a decade later when hardware was so much better. My first exposure to first-person shooters was sneaking onto my dad's home office PC at midnight to play Doom, back in 1995 or so. It always baffled me how plain old Doom was so much more colorful than the puke-colored corporate roidfests being churned out by the dozens in the mid-2000s. Especially with only 256 colors! Halo also managed to be bright and attractive graphics-wise, in a sea of generic drab-colored imitators. So the problem didn't seem to be any sort of hardware limitations.

[@Blankult]

@@DashsChannel quake is brown because it wants to be brown, not because of limitations

[@scottoleson1997]

How about a gears of war remastered? 😂

[@rac1equalsbestgame853]

I added to games like MW2, but I prefer the browy/ greyy graphics of those days over the identidyless photorealism/ Pixar graphics of today

[@queen_alexandra996]

I think in general "Retro" can be described as being 3 generations behind the current generation of consoles, NES games were retro around the gamecube era, PS1 was retro during the era of the PS4 and now original Xbox games are seen as retro

[@CardCrusher29]

Personally, I consider two generations behind as retro.

[@sync9847]

I think it would be more like 2 generations. By the GameCube era (early 2000's) even the SNES and Genesis were considered to be retro

[@BenoHourglass]

@@sync9847 I think three would be a better one because the 360 is only two generations away yet the last games were still being made for it after the One came out. However, if it's three then the end of the OG Xbox would coincide with 2005, which I think would be a better timespan.

[@Blankult]

Dude, by the time snes was around people already thought the nes was old

[@akiradkcn]

@@Blankult "thought"

[@nathanielcarter5269]

30 years old and still have my OG xbox, N64, Gamecube (with gameboy attachment), and Wii.. this video made me realize I may be more of Antique gamer now, surpassing retro lol

[@Blankult]

I play nes games. So am i ancient? I'm only 21 tho lmao

[@LeoDamascusVG]

4:24 "We don't see developers going out of their way to emulate this style." A Hat in Time disagrees

[@DrowseProductions]

ehh kind of. Sunshine's

[@LeoDamascusVG]

@@DrowseProductions And that their art style is inspired by Wind Waker, and the murder in the orient express is inspired by that Paper Mario TTYD level. And if A Hat in Time doesn't count, Bug Fables certainly does

[@LoneWanderer013]

Sometime in the future there's gonna be people that want one of those retro Xbox Ones and PS4s

[@AleK0451]

somehow i doubt that xbox ones will be in high demand in the future since xbox is now just sharing its games with pc and you don't really need a retro pc to play a retro pc game

[@aturchomicz821]

@@AleK0451 Windows Live Games is dead and has ruined many games from the early 2010s, why do you not think something like that could happen again??

[@AleK0451]

@@aturchomicz821 because those games don't use anything similar to gfwl, are mostly available on steam and microsoft isn't planning on moving from windows 10, only updating it much like mac os has been doing for years

[@MrMoon-hy6pn]

@@AleK0451 Windows 11 is coming out, pretty soon at that. I'd call that moving from windows 10.

[@AleK0451]

@@MrMoon-hy6pn windows 11 isn't much different from 10 underneath, it's literally a skin

[@NamelessGamer29]

As someone who grew up playing the Gamecube when it came out I would consider anything before the HD era to be considered "retro" but I can see some people arguing that it goes past that.

[@scottoleson1997]

Yeah Nintendo were retro until 2012. Makes sense. That’s why I feel like most of their charm has died since the Wii

[@friendlyninja5048]

Something someone said once regarding retro vs non-retro in video games has stuck with me ever since. Because of this I define a console or game as retro if it was released at least 15 years ago and two generations ago. So I would, as of the time of writing, consider the entirety of the seventh generation (e.g. Wii, Xbox 360, PS3, etc.) and earlier to be retro. The DSi and systems like it are somewhat trickier as they contain improved hardware and their own set of exclusives, but I think it could also be considered an iteration of the DS hardware. This makes the most sense to me personally as during the seventh generation I probably would have considered the PS1, Saturn, and N64 retro consoles. I think it helps to realize that retro still has value. For example, some of my favorite games are older than me -- some by a good bit. If the game still brings enjoyment, it still matters. As an aside, I wouldn't mind a PS2-styled retro throwback game. 😂

[@umji3389]

it used to be pretty clear cut that anything before 6th generation was retro. yes, they were still standard definition games, but they were 3d with relatively smooth graphics. now we're throwing age into the mix, but i don't think the age matters as much as the technology involved.

[@thekingofmoo4346]

I consider anything made primarily for CRTs to be retro.

[@aturchomicz821]

So Gamecube??

[@scottoleson1997]

Wii

[@thekingofmoo4346]

@@scottoleson1997 that's definitely borderline, but I'd put it in the "retro" category myself..

[@TheAbsol7448]

Original Xbox 360.

[@thekingofmoo4346]

@@TheAbsol7448 uhh... I'd say modern. Many of its launch games were at least 720p, and later models were very clearly designed for HDMI.

[@mjbgames4963]

Video Game Generation Era Classification List: “New” Gaming Consoles - 0-9 Years Old “Old” Gaming Consoles - 10-19 Years Old “Retro” Gaming Consoles - 20-29 Years Old “Vintage” Gaming Consoles - 30-39 Years Old “Antique” Gaming Consoles - 40-49 Years Old PS5, Xbox Series X/S (New) Nintendo Switch Lite (New) Nintendo Switch (New) PS4 Pro, Xbox One X (New) PS4, Xbox One (New) Nintendo Wii U (New) Nintendo Wii (Old) PS3, Xbox 360 (Old) Xbox (Retro) Nintendo Gamecube (Retro) PS2 (Retro) Sega Dreamcast (Retro) Nintendo 64 (Retro) PS1 (Retro) Sega Saturn (Retro) SNES (Vintage) Sega Genesis (Vintage) Sega Master System (Vintage) NES (Vintage) Atari 5200 (Vintage) Atari VCS (2600) (Antique) Atari Pong (Antique) Magnavox Odyssey (Antique)

[@SkyScourgeGod]

I like this classification chart, it actually makes a fair amount of SNES, I mean sense lol. Admittedly its a bit scary though. By this charts logic the Xbox 360 will be retro in 4 years from now with the Wii and PS3 following soon after. By that time the Genesis and SNES will be close to being seen as antiques. God I feel old, rofl.

[@mjbgames4963]

You have a very deep SNES of humor. I mean sense lol.

[@ianeons9278]

Sounds about right to me

[@pokekiller787x]

The reason it feels so off to call games from 2007 retro even though games like mario world would be considered retro in the same time frame I feel is innovation games haven't changed nearly as drastically since 2007 as they had from 1991 to 2007.

[@almostliterally593]

I was born in 1995. The first console i ever played was the Sega Saturn. My neighbor also had a NES and Genesis. Sometimes we played his Super Nintendo too.

[@DarthPudden]

Personally, everything said here, except I'd put the eras count to the year that the console stopped being made, or the last game to be officially made for the console. That helps accound for long running systems.

[@Kennephone]

I was born in '02, and I grew up with, what at the time were about 10 year old consoles from the 32 bit era, so I consider those and earlier retro. I have so much nostalgia for n64 and ps1, but they're getting really expensive these days.

[@Vossst]

"Whatever's experiencing a nostalgic resurgence" makes the most sense as a definition to me. There are specific counterexamples, like how "retro-futurism" is a specific aesthetic, but it seems like an effective enough guide. The graphical styles of games doesn't make as much sense considering the rapidity of iteration in the earlier years, which has certainly diminished since perhaps the late 00s. An important lesson is that visual design is always more important than pushing new tech; at some point we'll have every lighting technique and dynamic volumetric destruction simulation and it will once again be a matter of making something people want to play rather than baiting preorders with shiny prerendered promotional material.

[@STCburner]

There already is a wave of ps1 inspired retro horror games.

[@matthewolsen103]

Concluse is a pretty great free example

[@Jupiter__001_]

There's a pretty spooky one based on that Japanese bathroom demon that offers you red or blue toilet paper, but hilariously the game has Unity store assets (specifically a pair of anime-esque schoolgirls) at the very start just outside the fence, which looks very weird considering the rest of the game is fairly low-polygon. Thankfully they are shrouded in darkness, but it's still weird.

[@greenhowie]

the haunted PS1 demo disc community is awesome

[@AWISECROW]

There's are a few PS2-inspired ones too.

[@johnclark926]

It’s very interesting that the 5th generation aesthetic resurgence is mainly with horror games compared to other genres. I think there’s 2ish platformers and there’ll be plenty of FPS but they pale in comparison to the amount of 5th generation style games that emulate horror games of that era. It’s a bizarre connection, I’m sure game developers in the mid-to-late 90s hadn’t thought their low-polygon models were scary enough to influence a wave of games 25 years later

[@vixwashere7811]

2005 kid here, I generally consider any game console before the PS2/Xbox generation as retro.

[@goldenfloof5469]

When I was very young, I loved playing ratchet and clank on the ps2, but looking back on it, that wasn't what I remember most fondly of my childhood. I remember the ps3, wii, and ds as the consoles of my childhood, the ones I've had and played for a very long time, and about a year ago I bought a copy of Driver: San Francisco off of ebay because I was nostalgic for when I played it when it came out back in 2011. So yeah, my nostalgia trips are definetly hitting the hardest for that generation, the late 2000's, the earliest time I can clearly recall.

[@theraccoonasaur3282]

I’d consider ps2/GameCube era and before to be retro because at that was a time before online multiplayer was widespread. The consoles booted straight into the disc and not a menu if there was a disc in it, and all games had to be physical because downloading games wasn’t a thing yet.

[@Blankult]

Not just graphics, many "modern" games use design philosophies that were established in the 2000's, so if graphics aren't as drastically different as they once were, only design can make a game feel "retro", but since games still use the same design that doesn't happen. Games on the ps3 and x360 are only going to feel very old once we have a new standard, that could game design but i think it will be VR, if that becomes the standard, any other games will feel old within a few years.

[@gamesndebunker]

I was born in 2008 and I consider everything before the XBOX360 as retro. Even though the 7th gen released before I was born, I played those consoles at friends houses and with my family. My first console was 8th gen (Wii U). So I consider the DS, PSP, PS2, OG XBOX, and Gamcube, along with everything before that, retro.

[@meaninglez100]

My mark for retro is 15~ years ago. Gamecube, PS2, Xbox are all retro to me now

[@Bro3256]

as a video game collector who was born in 2002 I personally qualify anything that's 20 years or older to be retro heck the Japanese show GameCenter CX recently added Gamecube and Gameboy Advance games to their lineup as they now consider those systems to be retro which is pretty interesting to hear although I believe there's multiple factors for something to become retro and not simply the passage of time, it's just that us "retro gamers" like to keep it simple and give cut-off dates

[@DannibusX]

I’m in my 40s. My first gaming experiences were on the Atari 2600 when I was a child. Retro gaming is constantly evolving IMO. I would consider it a generational thing. Say the Xbox and PS2 would be what I considered retro by today’s standards. The 360 and PS3 would be too new as of yet to be truly Retro. But who knows. I have my PS3 to buy the PS1 JRPGs I missed out on in my early adulthood because career reasons. $10 for Suikoden II is much better than $400. I still have to go through my old cartridges and replace the batteries in almost all of them. Crazy times.

[@calebmooneyham287]

I think "retro" gets it's charm and appeal from nostalgia, which is more personal. For me at this time, I draw the line at the 6th generation of home consoles (ps2, Xbox, etc)

[@lucymorrison]

Personally, I’ve always seen anything at or before the PS2 era as retro, the PS3 and newer are “modern”, HD graphics, network connectivity, online gaming, movie streaming, all that stuff is there.

[@ZontarDow]

The Berlin Wall was up for 28 years, and came down 32 years ago

[@aturchomicz821]

Yeah yeah we get it the Chinese Regime has outlived the Soviet Union🥴

[@MrlspPrt]

Cleopatra's life is closer to us than the Pyramids construction.

[@aturchomicz821]

@@MrlspPrt WOW REALLY????😳😳😳😳

[@SLW27]

The WTC was up for 28 years and came down 20 years ago.

[@AdistuffRBX]

Really imo any game that’s more then 25 years old should DEFINITELY be considered to be retro. Right now the N64, PS1 and Sega Dreamcast are becoming retro. You can tell because of more interest with them, Nintendo switch online adding the N64 and more and more reasons. GameCube will also be retro soon. I can’t imagine when the wii will be retro… not that I had one lol. “The Wii is retro” AHHHHHHHH “The WII U is retro” AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[@BeanDar]

One day I will open up an arcade called “stuck in the 2000s” and it’ll all be considered retro by that time.

[@NathanielBarlam]

Interesting perspective, especially as it's becoming more common to remaster/rerelease games on next gen hardware. You get waves of nostalgia for a game like Last of Us: one wave for its PS3 release, one for its PS4 remaster (the way a lot of people first experienced it), and presumably there will be another wave for this PS5 reremaster that's in the works. Not to mention something like Skyrim, which has seen a thousand different editions...

[@aturchomicz821]

Skyrim is a game from 2011, younger then NV. Wtf

[@FoxBoi69]

i was born in 2002 and got my first video game device in 2011. it was a nintendo ds. couple of years later i got a wii. no i'd consider everything up to the ds retro and everything startig with the wii modern. but i don't think currently modern games will ever really have a mainstream retro market since most of them require online functions and servers to run. those will all have shut down in 10 years

[@paulisaperson0516]

Nostalgia never occurs if you never stop playing or doing something

[@tobyhendricks9951]

People are making throwbacks to the PS1 early 3D. Dusk, Ultrakill, A short hike.

[@koffing2073]

Yes many small indie games

[@Xalth0rn]

This made me feel so very old. Also, your music slaps and I don't see enough people mention it.

[@superduperdrew12345]

A 20 year delay is reasonable for retro for me. Having technological advancements become smaller with each generation makes the latest retro thing feel increasingly less old though. I may have played destroy all humans when I was 4, but I can also play it in 4k with backwards compatibility and it doesn't have a particularly retro feel to it compared to a game that is only 5 years old. Pixels, low poly, and cartoony platformers by default feel more retro to me. I struggle to imagine a day where people will specifically try to recreate the look and feel of a ps3 or even late ps2 game because they just don't look or feel that different.

[@vizthex]

I'd say "retro" is anything that's 20 - 25 years before the current year, and anything before that is more "antiquated". this is based on the fact that i can't get 20 year old PC games running/working properly without external tools or mods (the original Deus Ex being my main example).

[@BluesM18A1]

considering that visible improvement in game graphics has slowed down and become more subtle over the years, it's really hard to call consoles such as the xbox 360 "old" or "retro" when the technology still LOOKS relatively new, and most importantly does not affect the kinds of games that are available on it. With that in mind, I usually draw the line at the time console games started focusing on online multiplayer. Maybe one day people will be drawing their "line" at whenever VR becomes widespread and affordable.

[@CaptainKiwwi]

The DS is most definitely undeniably retro, Hell, as of recent, I've come back to my old DSi and realized the last time I used it was like 4 years ago and I played it then to get nostalgia about when I used to play it 9 years ago

[@theraccoonasaur3282]

I don’t think the DS is retro

[@JimmyJames10-k7v]

@@theraccoonasaur3282 it is

[@Killertamagotchi]

With regard to video games and their hardware, retro is actually something that is at least 2 generations old or whose software and hardware are no longer sold and also no longer officially supported on the software side. So that's a Nintendo Wii, PS3 or X-Box 360 retro. A WiiU, PS4 or X-Box One, on the other hand, does not

[@Aetohatir]

I'm born in 95, and as something of a Videogame collector I think the Wii is the newest retro console. This mainly comes down to the technology used, it looks older than PS3 and X360, but also video outputs. My current screen doesn't have an Analog video input. So I have to convert the Wii into a digital HDMI signal to play my wii games on original hardware (barring Wii u). And that's kind of where I currently draw the line. How much effort is it to set up currently. I could give a PS3 to a random person and they could just use it. But with the Wii it takes effort. A willingness to read into conversion and line doubling and lag etc. To me that's the effort line.

[@chillmanmax775]

i like this video, but you forgot one thing: homebrew. as kids end up growing up, they find their own box to be useless, because you want the next best thing, but what if your useless box, wasnt useless anymore? thats where homebrew comes in. you can "backup games", customize your menu, cheat, emulate other boxes, and even turn it into a media center. hell, kodi started development as a media center. 3ds systems shot up dramatically because of homebrew, you can use discord on it and basically do anything you want with the thing. even switches that have bugs that arent patched still sell more than normal because you can run android and linux and emunands on them. hell, i own a hacked vita and i use it as a daily driver, knocking out even the switch because ps3 level games are one "backup" away because i own a 128 gb sd card and an sd2vita, and its compact formfactor makes it easy to carry around while also giving a servicable way to watch youtube, and movies. i'd call a console retro if its hacked easily (no "you need x firmware, or soldering required", more like "you need to have a pc, and the console", needing a game is pushing it but ill allow it) and discontinued. i would by definition call a xbox a retro console because its easily hacked, only requiring a dongle and a game, but not the xbox 360 because its still used for media centers, and its impossible to hack without cracking open your box. id guess you could call it "not official" but retro gaming isnt inherently official. if these companies could have their way they would probably lock down the older consoles and make you play the new ones, or pay some fee to use it. plus not to mention that you probably bought your retro console on ebay if you didnt get it in its lifecycle. but yeah, i think homebrew is a overlooked thing, and i hope more people can find it out and take place in it.

[@WildernessRocks]

Weirdly my online gamer friends range from 20’s to 70’s and I’m 47… the first Atari was my OG game system.

[@specticulrtainment1809]

that one part where you said that peoples nostalgia of these things could then also become nostalgic later on is honestly kinda true. i was a preteen in the early 2010's and never grew up with an NES, SNES or genesis etc. (because that was before i was born) but around this time was when i got introduced to the internet and would see so many people online talk about old games that i never knew about and watching retro game reviews on youtube. Because i had so many fond memories of watching other people talk about this stuff, a lot of the iconography and music from so many old games have become nostalgic to me from other people's nostalgia. i definitely feel that most strongly with megaman, seeing him all over the internet in the early 2010's has ingrained the franchise in my mind as THE retro game icon and despite only recently did i actually play megaman for the first time, the series feels somewhat nostalgic to me just because of that association driven solely by nostalgic nerds posting memes, fan videos and remixes that i saw and was influenced by as a growing 10 year old.

[@otakubullfrog1665]

One could also apply the rule that a console could be called retro once it no longer has a section in most GameStops, but no sooner. This means that the current generation and the previous generation are never retro (upon which most people would agree) and that there's a delay between when a new console releases and the oldest non-retro console becomes retro. This also seems to check out in that people didn't suddenly start calling the PS3 a retro console the day the PS5 launched.

[@MuchWhittering]

I guess for me it's any game or system that I didn't know about until after it was current. Like, I think of the N64 as retro because I didn't know about it until the Wii era, and yet I don't think of the PS1 as such because I had one when it was current.

[@noticias6111]

:) 9:30 makes me feel glad for still updating it not only since it's the basically the household m.o. for playing Blue-rays and DVD's even if it's losing relevance to streaming

[@zed54]

I grew up with the DS and PS3 as a kid and when I turned 20 just this past year I bought some old games I used to play because of nostalgia, and it still hit me hard when he said the DS could be considered a retro console

[@bullymaguire6091]

I’ve always just decided that anything pre-2000 is retro. The idea of “last console before you were a teenager” doesn’t really work, because teenagers probably aren’t going around calling the PS4 retro.

[@StarLotus]

Same here Years ago, I thought that any game or console released before 2000 was retro, and after that was "modern". Also, that "before teenagehood is retro" doesn't work for most people; It would be pretty hilarious if I call the Switch "retro", a console that's still selling a lot!

[@bullymaguire6091]

@@ikagura Well it’s definitely not retro yet

[@josephmedina7460]

I was born in 2001 and my first experience in gaming was playing one of those consoles that had a bunch of old nes games already installed into them that my parents bought me. Now those old games give me a sense of nostalgia remembering the good times playing Contra with my dad as a kid.

[@wunyons]

Your example of the '11 year old kid when the ps4 came out' really hit me as I was 11 when it came out, now in 2 weeks time ill be 19 and have been working my job for 3 years and since done my GCSEs (UK) and currently on the verge of passing a plumbing course at a local college

[@mutavhello6654]

I think "retro games" will eventually become like "classic rock". Classic rock used to refer to any rock music made 20+ years ago, but as time went on it became a term to refer specifically to music of the 60s and 70s mostly. "Retro games" will probably have a similar evolution.

[@andrejg4136]

Yeah once a medium (or genre) gets old enough we starting being able to make some clear epochal labels. So like you have the Arcade-likes of the late 70s and 80s, the early 8 Bit (Atari, Colecovision), late 8 bit (NES, Master System), 16 Bit (SNES, Genesis, TurboGrafx), 32 bit (PS1, Saturn), 64 Bit (N64, Dreamcrast), DVD-Based (note the switch because bits became worthless for PR, PS2, og XBox, GCN), Blu-Ray/HD-DVD (XB360, PS3, Wii*), Blu-Ray II (PS4, XB1, Wii U), Blu-Ray III (Switch, PS5, XB1S) Though it's been harder to group Nintendo systems since they are so idiosyncratic in their hardware practices. Generally they do whatever is most cost-effective for themselves and ride it until they can't.

[@MrPomegranX]

I like that, due to games being a new media yet have been around for half a century means we get to see gamers get old. specially since tech is progressing a lot it can make a 20 year old feel old and a middle age dude ancient.

[@sergiowinter5383]

With a lot of 20 year olds gaining protagonism in sports and in media, it is almost expected to a 20 year old feel ancient. The fact that 8 year olds are getting ACL injuries trying to get to the NBA shows the need that a 15 years old teen has to be a star, or at least prepared to achieve full stardom with 20 years old, a pretty recent phenomenon

[@hectormontes7056]

I consider retro to be the Sixth Generation and before, Vintage to be anything before the Third Generation and ancient to be anything before the First.

[@Kumimono]

I was under the impression, that "retro" means something new, using an old style. So, NES Super Mario isn't retro, it's, classic, perhaps. Anyway. I've used a rule of thumb, if a mid-range PC can emulate a console, it's retro. Caveats apply, some never systems are easier to emulate than older ones, like 360 vs Saturn. And Nintendo using somewhat less powerful hardware than it's competitors means, that Switch is getting to that "emulates well on a PC" bracket...

[@MrlspPrt]

Good point, but I wonder if "classic" only applies to good games, so E. T. is "old", but neither "classic", nor "retro".

[@higginswalsan]

I like that criteria, like you said it’s not perfect but it’s really good

[@sothatsdevintart2562]

I was thinking a similar sentiment, if it can be emulated by a mid-range PC, then it’s technically retro.

[@Kumimono]

@@MrlspPrt E.T. is certainly a case of it's own. Literal archeological dig...😁

[@Kumimono]

@@shaurz Certainly, language is a thing constantly in flux.

[@thepowerisyetunknown7710]

It felt really weird opening up the browser on my Wii U and realizing just how much time I spent on it as a kid. And then it dawned on me that the Wii u came out 8 years ago when I was 11.

[@ianeons9278]

I was 5 when it came out

[@Chelaxim]

I was 19 when the Wii U came out now get off of my lawn!

[@Chelaxim]

I was 19 when the Wii U came out now get off of my lawn!

[@Droidiak]

It’s almost like dating generations of humans like late gen xers and early millenials worshiped the 8 bit era and Atari before that where later millenials worship the snes up to GameCube era and probably early zoomers worship the GameCube to probably 360 generation. Every 20 years a old console generation hits the retro nostalgia age and is brought back into the light.

[@ianeons9278]

So by this definition the 1st Generation, 2nd Generation, 3rd Generation, and 4th Generation are all Antique, The 5th Generation and 6th Generation are Vintage, and the 7th Generation is Becoming Vintage, and of course all of these are called Retro, especially the 5th, 6th, and soon 7th gen. I predict the 8th Generation will become Retro by 2025-28, as by then someone who was between the age of 6 to 12 in 2012-2017 would be a young adult by then. Someone who is 10 now and somehow has a PS5 will likely find it retro by the time they are 20 in 2031. The Vita,3DS,Wii U,PS4,and Xbox One are approaching their 10th anniversaries in a year or two meaning that they will likely sky rocket in price and eventually become vintage enough for remakes of 8th gen games to happen.

[@whitegemgames]

A lot of this you already touched on but I feel like a large part of why “retro” has become such a hard to define term is largely because of the diminishing returns of graphical improvements every generation, and is causing the length of time for something to be considered “Retro” to increase as a result. Anything before the GameCube/PS2 era is either pixel graphics or really low poly, but GameCube/PS2 era and beyond you can clearly make out what everything is supposed to be and is a lot more defined. So it’s a lot easier to say everything before that is retro because the lines are a lot less blurry just by looking at the games, I would say that GameCube/PS2 probably IS retro by now though.

[@conza1989]

Really good video, I think it's the 4th or 5th of yours I've seen in a couple of days before finally subbing. You're right there's no clear answer and the PS4 example at the end is excellent to demonstrate that. Personally, I think it may be easiest to say something 2+ generations old is Retro, I haven't thought too much about Antique that may be it's own topic. Could be as simple as 4+ but I'm unsure if that works.

[@jckorn9148]

It's two generations back. NES games in Gamecube's Animal Crossing was wild and unexpected. So today, the 360/PS3/Wii/DS/PSP era is now "retro" I'm in my 30s and I have big nostalgia for my college days playing PGR3 on the 360 and Loco Roco on my PSP.

[@Alianger]

A throwback to something that was popular and fell out of fashion at some point, the older games themselves are vintage (if they are high quality, otherwise they're "just" old) Antique is generally something 100+ years old and of high quality for its time or in general

[@TagetesAlkesta]

As someone who was born in 2001, I grew up primarily with the 7th generation of consoles. The consoles I had as a kid were a PS2, PS3, a PSP, a Wii, and a DSi. Those are consoles that I'm nostalgic for, and will always hold in high regard. But I cannot fathom them as "retro" consoles. For me an example of a retro console is a Genesis, or an N64. Mainly things that peaked before I was born. Things I didn't grow up with and didn't have the chance to play.

[@spinballmaniac7873]

Same dude, as well as same consoles and handhelds!

[@PurpleBroadcast]

This dude sounds like the guy from knowledge hub

[@YatzeeWillWearAGreenHat]

If rising worth is a faktor, I shiver in fear, because that means the Wii and Nintendo DS are beginning to be retro!

[@princessmaly]

Yeah, most of this makes sense to me. The exponential technological increase during the 90's with video games complicates things, but in general I'd say "retro" can't simply mean the last decade because we're talking aboot less than 10 years. Like, think about it, you wouldn't call anything from the 2010's retro, especially early in this decade. So it has to be at least two decades away in general, with 90's video games being a special case. Vintage is more about the state of preservation, but I think you need to at least be a classic to be vintage, and classic definitely means at least 25 years old. Antiques? Video games haven't been around long enough. Antiques are on the scale of centuries. Books and furniture are antiques, video games are still comparatively brand new, and the emergence of the "retro games" culture in the mid-aughts was the actual literal first wave of stylistic recycling. Imagine being around the very first time someone decided to start wearing fashion from 20 years ago and deciding there was ever a time when "antiques" existed. Just sounds ridiculous.

[@3dvultworld1234]

As someone born in the early 2000's, the PS2 and the DS played a huge role in my childhood and the childhood of almost all my friends, now we are all around 18 and 19 and we are all nostalgic for those systems

[@daniel_rossy_explica]

The last console I ever had was a PS2. "Retro" for me is anything that a PSX could run, or some games from the Genesis.

[@scottoleson1997]

After getting a Dreamcast for the first time and playing it. I definitely feel like it perfectly bridges the gap between modern feel and playability but retro hardware and style and music. The games still run faster than some modern games lol

[@paytongagliardi8709]

I would also argue that retro invokes a distinct style and since gaming in 1985-2005 went through so many more style and hardware changes that retro feel is easier to differentiate than the all 3d, etc etc hardware and style of 2000-2020

[@ethandodd8493]

the ps3 being 'retro' is sending me for a loop because i didnt get a ps4 until 2019, my family has had our ps3 since '09. It still feels like a new thing for me. I'm 14 and a half

[@CornmanC]

To muddy the waters even more, is an old game that's still getting updated considered retro? The oldest game I played frequently growing up was Garry's Mod (2004), and it's still getting updates 16 years later.

[@casualcadaver]

Xbox 360 and Ps3 are for sure retro. 2005/2006 was a long time ago. People wont accept it because the graphics and gameplay still hold up and the fact that they lasted so long as the main consoles . Over 15 years ago .

[@frankieiv3637]

I’m 20 and I feel nostalgic about Halo 3. Just wait until today’s kids feel nostalgic about Halo Infinite.

[@Wm7forthewin]

ok

[@Goldberg1337]

I think that "retro" games has to do with the tech available when those games were made. Video game technology has come a very, very long way, but it reached a peak in the 3D era. As mentioned in the video, games from the PS2 or original Xbox don't really seem too different from modern current-gen console games. When you consider that early Xbox 360 games like Call of Duty 3 had identical PS2 ports, you can see what I mean. So I don't think you're going to see any PS2-style retro-throwback games, since they would essentially just be modern games but with worse graphics. However, the PS1 era (which is what I grew up with) still had primitive 3D graphics that can still hold a certain charm. There have already been a few PS1 and N64 throwback titles, so I wouldn't be surprised if we get more of this sort of early 3D retro games in the future.

[@mutecommercials]

I grew up with NES, I’m 38, this video made me feel older and more ancient than squeaker could accomplish.

[@dudepool7530]

Medical science: people now live longer. Gaming: people now feel ancient before they're even middle aged. I'm 34, and right there with ya man...

[@MisterN1]

I was never a part of the snes, nes, or atari generations but my parents were and we all had those games growing up. Needless to say I'm very nostalgic for them despite technically being a late n64 era kid.

[@DrowseProductions]

If anyone wants to have an amazing "Retro" collection for cheap start collecting 360/PS3/Wii/Wii U games. They are new enough that they can be found at any gaming shop or even thrift stores but just old enough that the price has plummeted. Don't wait 5 years to start collecting for the 7th generation cause the collecting competition will be much higher by then.

[@internetjous]

I mean, that's curious, I'm 15 and I grew up playing the PS2, so I actually consider it to be Retro, but some more experienced gaming enthusiasts wouldn't say so. Loved the video, great work!

[@sebastianswan7975]

Same thing with me, exact same age but grew up with the Wii, DS, Wii U and 3DS. The word retro is really arbitrary though since the Wii U and 3ds didn't come out that long ago.

[@ianeons9278]

I'm only a year younger and I grew up on the 3DS,Wii U,Xbox One, and PS4, plus the Xbox 360 and Wii at my cousins house.

[@AModernRogue]

This channel deserves infinitely more subs

[@sothatsdevintart2562]

To me at least, it is safe to assume that once a game or game system reaches (at minimum) 15 years of age. It is now technically “retro”, as most system and system games aren’t being produced and sold to consumers, and successful emulation systems begin to become more common.

[@xenos_n.]

Definitely older than 15 years is retro. Older than 10 is arguable. I think the 15 year point is when a game is DEFINITELY retro. At least to me. When the term came to prominence, we were calling NES games retro that were 10-15ish years old.

[@scottoleson1997]

@@xenos_n. that means Assassin’s Creed, Gears of War, Oblivion, Lego Star Wars II, Bully, NFS Carbon, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, COD 3, new super Mario Bros, LoZ twilight princess, Just Cause, and Guitar Hero II are all retro games now.

[@Jupiter__001_]

This is like the argument that any car over the age of 20 or 25 is a classic. I think there is something more than just age requirements that must be met, in particular I think that changes in game design are very important.

[@SenorGuina]

@@scottoleson1997 yes, i see all those games as retro

[@rac1equalsbestgame853]

@@scottoleson1997 And Tools of Destruction is only one year away from being retro then

[@meowmasterL346]

6:45 Funny he finds it weird a 2007 Pokemon getting remade now when we were actually way overdue for one timewise; FireRed and LeafGreen came out only *eight* years after their originals! HGSS were about 10 years after, ORAS 11 years after, so by that logic BDSP should've came out around 2017/2018. Not to mention a main point of remakes is to take advantage of the shiny new hardware and our 2021 remakes barely look better than the last 3DS ones did 😔

[@Diwasho]

Yeah, remakes in general used to come closer to the original releases. MGS1 was remade less than 6 years later because the jump in graphics between the 5th and 6th generations was stark. Now there's less incentive to remake games from the second half of 2000's and newer because they age so well, PS4 games look comparable enough to PS3 ones, and going from PS4 to PS5 there's even less distinct difference. AAA games released within the last 7-8 years will probably never be remade from ground up, just tweaked and tuned up enough to call them a remaster but nothing beyond that.

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

I agree with your definition/unit of measurement. But it definitely feels like there was a leap in game design for the PS2/Gamecube era that we haven't fully left yet.

[@RussellSenpai]

The idea of Christopher Strachey 's Draughts for the Manchester Mark 1 being ancient is scary for me. Obviously because I was there for its 1951 presentation as the first "technically completed" "video" "game". /s

[@tvsonicserbia5140]

As a kid of the 2000's I have my own ultimate standard similar to your with 2D games, for me retro is all the consoles where majority of the games natively use an analog CRT aimed video format like 240p or 480i, the Wii is fully analog but still every Wii game supports 480p and that one isn't reliant on CRTs.

[@AkiraleTorimaki]

If you wanna go back to the very first video game (possibly Christopher Strachey’s 1952 video game “Draughts”) using this video as reference, it is as old to the Legend of Zelda (Nintendo Entertainment System/Family Computer) as LoZ (NES/Famicom) is to us today. 1952 - 1986 - 2021

[@RageRaccoon]

these outro jams are becoming my favourite part of these videos

[@Shovelchicken]

To me, retro is when technology has pretty drastically improved since the creation of the thing in question and the limitations that influenced its development are no longer present. Games designed to be retro aren’t retro because they’re not facing the same technology limitations that retro games usually had to design around. All 2D Mario games play pretty much the same, but the newer Mario’s aren’t retro because they don’t have to be designed around the limitations of the hardware.

[@Blankult]

I don't agree. Game design palys a huge role in the evolution of games. Back in the nes/snes era, many games were based around arcade games, since those were the standard. In the n64/ps1 era games started to move away from the arcade design. That's why older games are so brutally hard, arcades were made to suck your wallet dry, and those older games were doing the same. Then in the ps2/gcn/xbox era, games were being designed in what we could call "modern" games, which is still pretty much the same nowadays. You can make a "retro" game that has technically better graphics, sounds and whatnot from what it's drawing inspiration from, but the game can still be "retro" simply because it has an older design philosophy. Ever head of boomer shooters? There has been a lot of new games of that genre. They're basically what people used to call "doom clones". Just play one and you'll instantly feel the difference from that to a modern shooter, even if the graphics were "modern".

[@akiradkcn]

@@Blankult you understood nothing of what he said

[@Blankult]

@@akiradkcn His point is that retro is when the technology in which the game was made has improved significantly, so games made today that say they're retro can't be retro because they lack the technical limitations from that time. My point is that retro is beyond technical limitations, it is also about game design and culture in general, thus retro games made today can definetely be retro, even though they aren't limited by the technology they're referencing.

[@akiradkcn]

@@Blankult no, "retro" IS a term made to refer to old things, ignoring that is to ignore the meaning of the word itself. modern games can be the so called "neo-retro", but NOT true retro. Etrian Odyssey and Elminage are prime examples. Both being based on Wizardry, a game that uses a specific gameplay style due to hardware limitations, Elminage and Etrian chose to mimic Wizardry despiste not being bound by the same limitations. Shovel Knight is another example of Neo-Retro.

[@Blankult]

@@akiradkcn The very point of the video is that the word "retro" doesn't have a set definition what are you talking about lmao. "Retro" does not equal "old", but refers to old things. That's a fact. The rest of the meaning of the word "retro" is where opinion comes, and in my opinion "retro" isn't a word that only refers to technical limitations, but that also refers to the "feel" of old things (hence game design and pop culture). Also nobody calls shovel knight a retro game, they call it a retro styled game.

[@josephmosseri5647]

My favorite example of this is that the Wii (2006) is as old to us now as the SNES (1991) was to the Wii when it came out.

[@calibvr]

I love the Genesis-Saturn era so much

[@sonjaadamson1714]

I think after reaching 20 years of age, it becomes retro.

[@Gaia_Gaistar]

I'm 36 but a lot of what I consider retro is changing. I consider PS2, Dreamcast and Gamecube retro etc whereas it didn't really enter my mind in the past. There's a bit of a resurgence of PS1 era style indie games with low poly graphics i've taken a liking to.

[@willrands1532]

Retro to me is just before I was born. It’s that simple for me. So for me it’s anything NT before 2005.