I went to a Gamestop the other day, and they had a little section for pre-owned games for older systems (think Xbox360, PS2, DS, etc). I was perusing and grabbed some games, but I noticed something, the cases that have the XBOX360 games have a giant “RETRO GAMING” on it in the centre. So I am like wtf, I grew up with the XBOX360, what the hell do they mean “retro”.
So I went and asked like friends and other people if the XBOX360 is retro now, and basically everyone was like “yeah”. I was talking to my EX about it and she was like “the xbox came out in 2005/6. There is more time between us and the xbox360 than there was between the xbox and the SNES when the xbox came out. Was the SNES “retro” when the xbox360 came out?”
I am like not ready, not willing to accept the XBOX360 as retro. Because that is saying my thing that I grew up with is “retro” or “old” now and im not ready to accept that because im not ready to be old.
I am also often upset, confused and scared by the passage of time
Downvote for making me think about it
zero downvotes
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
Gamestop needs to go back to when their cases looked like thisJust you wait until you reach a point where you think “I used to feel old when I was in my 20’ties. Now I’m really old.”
t. Am 41 years old.
Imagine what 60 must feel like.
More like the same thing.
At 80’s however will be like “Damn, I used to talk with randoms about my age and making such a big deal in my 20’ties. And now I’m in my 80’ties and I could die in any moment.”
At 100’ties will be like “Ah, fu-”
This was how I felt when the post about the PS2 turning 25 came by a few days ago. What the fuck happened.
Why is everything worse now lol
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.
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
Doom 3 holds up
Burnout 3 does, too. Still the best one they made and one of the best racing games of all-time.
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.
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.
Abe Simpson was younger as a character at Xbox 360 release (first appearance 1988) than the Xbox 360 is today.
I’m with you, retro is when they were still counting bits
its old but it isn’t retro at least not yet. Most xbox 360 games have modern game design none of them have that “retro” feel. Its an old system but none of the games feel old. Now the OG xbox being considered retro makes me feel like a dinosaur.
I would say “no” because the 360 did have the capability of 720p and 1080p. There isn’t much you have to do to get it working with a modern television.
That’s not the case with a TRULY retro console, either in terms of resolution or connectivity.
That’s not how “retro” works. If a song came out today, as opposed to any number of Green Day songs, which came out in the 90s, and 2000s, are considered retro.
You don’t have to do anything different with todays songs vs Green Day songs. You can play them just the same way.
Yet one is clearly retro.
Music and games aren’t quite the same deal. If you need specialized equipment to play a game, it’s retro.
What about handhelds?
Handhelds are really their own deal. I’d argue vintage is anything up through the OG Gameboy.
Retro would be anything other than that, with the possible excrptions of the Nokia NGage and Neo Geo Pocket (B&W) which would also be vintage.
I’m not sure I’m following this definition, everything after the game boy is retro? Or is it only the game boy and older?
Vintage is everything up to the Gameboy, retro would be the stuff in color.
Prior to Gameboy you had LED and LCD stuff like this:
The problem is that definition of retro has no end point, by that definition the switch lite is retro.
