Is it the age of the game? Is it the generation of the console you play on? Is it a combination of the two?
I recently learned about an ongoing commercial development scene for the NES long past when Nintendo dropped official support for it, and it got me wondering about this. There are new games still being published for the NES that I can buy as a physical cartridge. I bought one last month in person from a physical store.
It feels retro to play this game on original hardware, but in reality it didn’t exist until 2021. Does the fact I can play it on an NES make it retro, or does the game being only 2 years old mean that it’s clearly not?
On the other hand, classic games are re-released in collections on modern systems all the time. These games definitely feel retro, but the console you’re playing on certainly isn’t.
Is there anywhere a line can be definitively drawn here, or is retro gaming more of a feeling than something that can be locked down to one definition? I wanted to get some opinions on this, what do you guys think?
Well, let’s answer the easy ones first,
Old game on og hardware, obviously retro. New game on new hardware, obviously not. I’m like… 99% sure that I’d say it has to do with the age of the thing. I mean, I’d consider the N64 to be retro now. But the GameCube really isn’t quite yet, despite being old enough to drink. I’m not quite sure where the cutoff would be though, and I’m also pretty sure that the PS4 may never be considered retro somehow.
That didn’t really answer anything though. To figure out what the answer to your first question is, let’s do a little thought experiment. Games where the art style mimics a retro game: Would you consider these to be retro? In my opinion the answer is ‘no’. So I don’t think that a game that runs on say the NES but was made yesterday would be a retro game. I think it has to be something from the era, almost. By playing the game, you’re doing some retro gaming, but you’re not playing a retro game.
So on the flipside. Playing a game for the NES on the Nintendo Switch for example. You are playing a retro game, on modern hardware. That almost certainly would be retro gaming, since the game is old enough.
Technically my idea is almost the most open interpretation of retro gaming. The only thing it doesn’t allow to be considered retro gaming would be a game created today, made for retro hardware, and emulated. That would not be retro gaming in my opinion, since the only thing that links it back to that era is the hardware it was targeting.
I’m curious to see what others think
tl;dr
New Game, Old Hardware = Retro gaming
Old Game, New Hardware = Retro gaming
I like your distinction between ‘retro gaming’ and ‘a retro game’. Makes sense, well put.