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.
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
Well done
Gamestop needs to go back to when their cases looked like thisI miss those styles, so much stuff has a corporate sanitized look and feel these days
We are not old, we are retro
I’m downright vintage.
Just 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 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.
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 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
Capitalism.
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.
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
The people born when this machine was released have finished school, learned to drive and potentially even started their own families.
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.
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.
That’s just the cord that came with the system, nothing very special about it. And it’s still perfectly compatible with modern TVs
Modern TVs in the US don’t have the coaxial RF jack…
I bought a brand new TV around Christmas and it came with one.
An adaptor costs like 10-15 bucks anyway
I never realized it’s legit a mini transmitter to your TV’s Antennae @.@.
Like wireless HDMI.
But now we stuck with DRM for failed ATSC 3.0 release :/
Imagine what could have been.
Disagree, but that standard every proprietary console except xbox and ps are retro.
It’s simply few generations older. If teenagers today weren’t born, It’s retro.
Naturally I’m biased because the stuff I grew up on is officially “Vintage” at this point. ;)
Yea it doesn’t feel right, I’m sure we’ll soon have classic and modern retro categories
i agree with this. i think a lot of people disagree because it feels like arbitrary criteria at first, but even as someone who grew up in the 360 generation, you could feel that the leap to HDMI signaled something more than just crisper graphics. the 360 and PS3 were both chasing the PC gaming experience, whereas the Wii was the last “bring the arcade home” box. while things like the introduction of polygonal graphics, twin sticks, VR, and internet connectivity feel like bigger shifts on the surface, i think this was the most signifigant and the best place to slice gaming into two ages despite them overlapping for a generation
The original 360 didn’t even come with an hdmi port, I remember playing Armored Core 4 on a crt. For me anything that was meant to be played on a crt is definitely retro.
Another way to differentiate would be things like rendering technology. While raytracing is starting to be partially utilized a little bit, I’d hardly say it’s taken over yet, so there’s not much technological difference between a 360 and a PS5. Mostly boils down to more cores and faster with some minor extra features. Far more difference between even the SNES and the N64 than between the PS1 and the PS5 imo.
You could also use Internet access as a determinant, but then even snes and Sega Genesis wouldn’t be retro (at least in Japan).
Could just define retros as anything that fits at least one or 2 of those 4 characteristics of retro video game consoles, but the xbox360 is pretty much modern by all of them.
I’m with you, retro is when they were still counting bits
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.
