How old does a game have to be to be considered "retro"?

[Eric the Orange]

My guess would be old enough for someone who is at least a teenager to be nostalgic about it. i say this because I've recently been seeing PS2 era games being called retro in some places which just blows my mind.

I guess it shows my age then that I consider retro to be anything that was made before 3D games became the in gimmick. (which they aren't now but when it was new 3D was as gimmicky as motion controls are now.)

 

[Sixcess]

I'd say the 90s or earlier. I couldn't believe some of the comments people were making about Halo: CE when the anniversary remake was released last year.

Which leads me into my second definition - a retro game being one that holds to a style of graphics or gameplay that its genre as a whole has moved on from. That's part of why I can't consider Halo as a retro game since it plays more or less identically to current gen shooters, but say a modern FPS that played like Doom or Quake would be retro, or most 2D games.

 

[HarryScull]

2 console generations behind.
PS3-modern
PS2-old
PS1-retro

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Retro is before 1995 since that was when the games industry sold it's soul to the devil.

 

[Fappy]

Kids these days and their "retro" gaming. Haha, how quaint.

2 console generations behind.
PS3-modern
PS2-old
PS1-retro

Yeah, I'd say this makes sense.

 

[Hazy992]

2 console generations behind.
PS3-modern
PS2-old
PS1-retro

Yeah I was gonna say this, two gens behind.

 

[RJ 17]

To me, Retro is anything NES or earlier.

And on a side-note, allow me to recommend a documentary movie called The King of Kong: A Fist Full Of Quarters.

It's about a guy and his quest to get the world record at the retro Donkey Kong arcade game. Really is a great movie in itself and it's pretty informative with regards to retro games in general.

 

[ultrabiome]

retro is everything up to and including the introduction to 3D (as in true rendered 3D), in my opinion. so basically everything up to N64 and PS1 and early 3D computer games (quake, deus ex). i guess soon there will be retro 3D, but if you say a game is retro, it either means its actually from that period, or so heavily inspired that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference (mega man 9-10 is a great example).

everything else is retro-inspired. there are amazing newer 2D games, but i wouldn't call them retro necessarily. even some 3D games are retro inspired in some ways (demon's souls difficulty and design come to mind), but that doesn't make them retro.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

Id say PS marks that line. PS2 and onward wouldn't be retro in my opinion.

Also apparently these games are old enough for Sony to call them "Classics"

 

[BloatedGuppy]

10 years. Give or take. But 10 years is a pretty good rule of thumb.

For example, Baldur's Gate is a retro game now. KOTOR isn't, but it's getting closer every day.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

I would say when a publisher ceases to release games for a certain console/handheld, it is considered old, and when a new console steps in to replace the previous console, it is considered retro i.e. PS1, Dreamcast, N64, Gameboy Advance, etc.

 

[hermes]

Pixel based graphics and midi based music.

That means retro, to me, means SNES/Genesis or earlier. Before the time the industry thought everything has to be 3D...

 

[Snukastyle]

I'd personally say anything before 1990...NES games and earlier are what would be retro to me, as I've been playing console games since the Atari 2600 was popular.

 

[Blunderboy]

To me it's more about how the game makes you feel rather than merely how old it is.

 

[esperandote]

I would say 3 generations

PS3-360-WII current
PS2-XBOX-GC middle
PS-N64-DC old
SNES-GENESIS retro

 

[BENZOOKA]

Fashionably nostalgic or old-fashioned.
It's subjective.

When I was playing Amiga as a kid, I would've considered Tetris, Pac-man, Ping Pong, etc. as retro. And I still would do that. But I never use that term so.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

It has to be at least 2 console generations old before it can be considered "retro."
PS3/XBox360/Wii - current
PS2/Xbox/GC - old
PS/N64/DC and prior - retro