What Is Retro?

Video Games
21

I think anything pre high definition is retro and everything after is modern era. So everything before PS3 and Xbox 360 is retro. The just puts the Wii, PC and handheld devices in an awkard to define place though.

3 Likes
22

I don’t geddit. Please explained :man_shrugging:

3 Likes
23

Question: What is retro?
Answer: Your mom!

AKA @WerqKeen being funny :rofl:

4 Likes
24

This is why I think years as a metric is more useful than generations or technological shifts. PCs are difficult to pigeonhole in on generation, but it’s easy to look at the launch year of a game and determine if it fits an age criteria for retro. I also think that the line between SD and HD is a difficult one to use as a delineator between retro and contemporary. On one hand that’s because HD will itself become retro, and on the other, plenty of contemporary games are intentionally SD, yet not old enough to be considered retro. they may be retro inspired, but not retro in terms of age.

As for the Wii, it will be retro in just a little over three years.

4 Likes
25

You watch your mouth on speaking those vile words. I still remember picking mine up the other day. It’s still 2006, right?

8 Likes
26

Lol, it’s ok, eventually you grow accustomed to being old.

4 Likes
27

5 Likes
28

What BMO said, just literal barrel bottom scraping humor. :slight_smile:

5 Likes
29

KINDA LIKE HOW I WOZ SCRAPIN YOUR MOM’S BOTTOM

please forgive me lord

3 Likes
30

Yeah, I do agree it’s not the best way, PS2 games were still coming out long after the jump to HD as well. But the change from SD to HD has been an easy marker I’ve used to separate older from newer. If I picked an exact number I would say 25 years. I don’t think 10 or 20 is enough, especially as more time passes. It’s something that will probably continue to change as the medium gets older.

3 Likes
31

Just a few showerthoughts:

Has retro to be old at all?

If I make an old school game that plays and feels like, let’s say a GameCube game, but is released 2023, wouldn’t people call it a “retro game”.

Cuphead was called a retro-platformer at release, but maybe more for the style than the platforming?

Vintage has as requirement “must feel like a pre-existing time period”. A game could be vintage when there is a huge shift in technology that puts games immediately in the “before the shift” and “after the shift” periods, even when they are not that old. Maybe that’s what happens with console generations too?

Also the first ever video game was made in October 1958, which means in 2058 that could be considered an antique game (at least 100 years old).

I feel like a dinosaur now and go and brush my white hair.

2 Likes
32

In terms of new games being classified as retro, I would say it doesn’t qualify as it may have a certain aesthetic, but is only utilizing the look and possible control schemes/ designs of games from years and decades prior.

I think retro nowadays as a term may be outdated and a bit muddy. Whether we could start using a different word altogether or more clearly define the current is certainly up to debate.

3 Likes
33

Yes.

It may be retro inspired but not retro. Using an aesthetic doesn’t render something retro.

Vintage and retro are terms with some overlap, because in common parlance vintage and retro both mean “old”. But the term vintage is very specifically tied to seasons or years, and thus eras. While everything before a certain date may be retro, the vintage is more specific. I think this is where generations come into play, where we could say each generation itself is a vintage (the gen four era, the gen five era) or we can group them by tech (8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, 128-bit, HD, UHD eras, etc.). All are vintage as a group but each is a distinct vintage, whereas everything prior to a certain era or vintage by chronological date is retro, and everything after that date is contemporary.

3 Likes
34

um ackchully dinoshaurs didn’t have hair, they had hair like filament called protofeathersh, so conshider yourshelf schooled :nerd_face:

2 Likes
35

No no, i am not an antique dinosaur, I am a vintage one, we have shiny white fluffy hair. Those old stinky reptiles, how dare to compare me to them! :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like