racketboy.com

I just wanted to know what everyone thinks is"retrogaming" and when the actual cut off is if there is one. I know it is all relative (i.e. depending on your age), but can it be anything before the current generation of gaming or is there a specific generation cut off?

I grew up with a genesis, then a 64 and saturn so I think thats the cut off date, 64, ps1, and saturn.

i second that

edit:
Dreamcast seems to fall into the retro category alot because it died off much sooner than the other 128-bit systems and because of homebrew.
I'd make an exception for it. But not ps2 or x-box.

I think anything not current-gen is retro. It definitely holds true in the car world so I don't think it's much different here.

PharmaceuticalCowboy wrote:I think anything not current-gen is retro. It definitely holds true in the car world so I don't think it's much different here.

I pretty much agree.

When it comes to this site, it's mainly based off my own habits (go figure).
I've always classified the stuff we typically cover as "Neo-Retro" (essentially "New Retro")
"Old Retro" would be your pre-NES stuff. We typically discuss the middle ground or post-crash games where we really saw the gaming industry grow and mature.

Also keep in mind, just because a game is on a modern console doesn't mean it isn't a retro game. There are many 2D game still being released that I consider "retro" or at least "old-school".

I consider the N64 a retro console, along with the Dreamcast and Saturn, but the PS1 isn't in my mind... I think my views are similar to a lot of people on the site, strange how consoles from the same generation can seem to come from different time periods. I think it helps that the N64 used cartridges, and that the Dreamcast died off so young, but I can't really see why the PS1 isn't a retro console.

I more or less base it on a generation of consoles that I have meet people that weren't old enough or even around for.

Genny/SNES, and younger, fits there perfectly. There are kids who walk down my street who weren't alive when I jammed out a 2 day session of Kid Chameleon.

But I've had to bump it up to Saturn for myself as well. Though PS1 doesn't hit the mark quite yet. PS1 is a bit of an issue to me because even though it came out around the same time as the Saturn, it lived a longer life and was in the lime light for a very long time. It's kinda like comparing the MX, NES, and SMS. NES just isn't as old school as SMS or MX merely because still today everyone can easily pick up an NES anywhere. Where as SMS was very hard to come by and didn't sit in the lime light very much.



All in all though, my say doesn't matter much. I call myself a retro gamer, but that's really not what I am. The only reason I play older games is because they are games I grew up with. You won't see me picking up games I didn't grow up with. I'm not out hunting for that uber rare Atari game, or none main stream C64 games. I didn't grow up with those. I had a few Atari games like Pitfall and the sort... but in all my gaming life started on the NES and SMS. So that's about as far back as I enjoy.

You can see more of my explanation here:
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/2007/05/ ... gamer.html

Dreamcast is the cutoff for me......So up until the Dreamcasts "Birth"....is retro.......everything after is not to be considered. Think of it this way....if they are still selling the systems new.....it surely cant be retro.

PS1 just stopped being made back in 2004 I believe.....Now it can be called Retro

Definitely the 32-bit era for me. I can't really consider the PS2/Dreamcast/Xbox/GCN to be retro quite yet, as I've always considered retro to be at least two generations back. That's not to say though that we can't use our "128-bit" machines for some retro compilations.