Should the PS3 and Xbox 360 be called retro?

[psychic_dream]

How do you define “retro”?

[J1M]

Retro shouldn't be a moving target.

Pick another term. Comics had its silver age, for example.

[Tangerine]

I usually just go by the most prominent console of the time. It's what indies are trying to emulate anyway.

[Segata]

GTA V is my favorite retro game!

[weaselus]

Has it already been 15 years?

[Valter]

Ask yourself if Dragon Age Inquisition and Persona 5 are retro. 'Cause those are PS3 titles.

[Trickster]

Yes. It's old crap.

[KnightoftheWind]

I dislike the term "retro", I prefer the terms "classic" or "legacy". Retro means something new, that's made to look old.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Yes it is retro. What people are conflating is old games that the current generation doesn't remember with a specific, narrow aesthetic of pixel and early 3D graphics on CRT screens.

[psychic_dream]

Retro shouldn't be a moving target.

Pick another term. Comics had its silver age, for example.

What term do you think fits best? I don’t believe words like “vintage” or “classic” quite capture what people mean when they refer to old games from past eras, games shaped by unique aesthetics and hardware limitations.

I usually just go by the most prominent console of the time. It's what indies are trying to emulate anyway.

Do you see the PSP and Nintendo DS as retro? Game developers were still releasing quality titles for both well into 2011, beyond just licensed and sports shovelware. They also had internet connectivity, even if the hardware felt dated by then.

Regarding your second point, the 16 bit pixel art craze seems to have cooled off. It’s no longer the indie scene’s go-to style; they’ve shifted toward milking PS1 aesthetics, at least from what I’ve seen lately.

Lunacid seems pretty fun from what I’ve checked out. It’s a shame the devs doubled down on adding pronoun stuff after someone made a mod to remove it.

[J1M]

Retro shouldn't be a moving target.

Pick another term. Comics had its silver age, for example.

What term do you think fits best? I don’t believe words like “vintage” or “classic” quite capture what people mean when they refer to old games from past eras, games shaped by unique aesthetics and hardware limitations.

I usually just go by the most prominent console of the time. It's what indies are trying to emulate anyway.

Do you see the PSP and Nintendo DS as retro? Game developers were still releasing quality titles for both well into 2011, beyond just licensed and sports shovelware. They also had internet connectivity, even if the hardware felt dated by then.

Regarding your second point, the 16 bit pixel art craze seems to have cooled off. It’s no longer the indie scene’s go-to style; they’ve shifted toward milking PS1 aesthetics, at least from what I’ve seen lately.

Lunacid seems pretty fun from what I’ve checked out. It’s a shame the devs doubled down on adding pronoun stuff after someone made a mod to remove it.

Looking to comics or movies for inspiration, I would suggest terms that don't have an implied value attached to them.

Arguably, an 'era' could span more than one generation of consoles so we can't just name them like centuries ("VII gen").

I'd need to put more thought into it if I was going to try to be prescriptive, but here are some ideas.

• Early-3D era or 3D era
• Hobbyist era, Hacker era, Toy era, Cinematic era (when mocap cutscenes got more funding than gameplay iteration)
• Sidesscroller/Soulslike/etc era (if one wanted to denote an era by the dominant genre)
• Microtransaction era or Cash Shop era
• Garage Studio era, Outsourcing era (when mainstream titles were predominantly made by teams of two dozen people or less; when team sizes exploded to include cheap artists overseas)
• Sanitized Comms era (multiplayer games changed forever by lawyers)
• Couch Multiplayer era, Mandatory Multiplayer era, Always Online era (stages of progression)
• 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit eras could take you pretty far, but you might need to look past the marketing of the N64 or consider graphics card specs beyond the 64-bit era
• Magazine era, E3 era, Direct Marketing era

[rusty_shackleford]

No, nobody refers to movies from 2005 as retro. It's not age but technology.

[J1M]

No, nobody refers to movies from 2005 as retro. It's not age but technology.

True for movies, but I think less so for comics where there were fewer leaps in technology.

[rusty_shackleford]

No, nobody refers to movies from 2005 as retro. It's not age but technology.

True for movies, but I think less so for comics where there were fewer leaps in technology.

Comics stopped being read around 1995 so nobody knows

[Tadeusz]

I would suggest terms that don't have an implied value attached to them.

I too prefer more specific terms rather than some vague definitions like retro. Maybe these periods can be classified by game engines or their groups? Current era has some prominent engines (Unreal, Godot, ets), before that there were custom game engines so this can be a starting point.

[methoxetamine]

Lunacid seems pretty fun from what I’ve checked out. It’s a shame the devs doubled down on adding pronoun stuff after someone made a mod to remove it.

Lunacid was made by a ******, not sure why you expected anything different

[rusty_shackleford]

double down on the pronoun removal mods, need an arms race with devs

[logincrash]

Retro means something new, that's made to look old.

That's my understanding too. Actually old **** is called "vintage."

[KnightoftheWind]

Retro means something new, that's made to look old.

That's my understanding too. Actually old **** is called "vintage."

I dunno, when I hear the word "vintage" I imagine 100 year-old antiques. I think I'll just call them legacy games, or classic games when it comes to the heavy hitters.

[Tangerine]

Do you see the PSP and Nintendo DS as retro?

I could entertain the DS, but not the PSP. If I were to put a finer point on it, it's the difference between the aesthetic being significantly limited by the hardware vs chasing fidelity. Personally, I see the PS2 as the border.

[J1M]

Retro means something new, that's made to look old.

That's my understanding too. Actually old **** is called "vintage."

I dunno, when I hear the word "vintage" I imagine 100 year-old antiques. I think I'll just call them legacy games, or classic games when it comes to the heavy hitters.

These days, vintage means a faded t-shirt.