When does your personal mental cutoff for "old games" begin? Do you have an end date as well?

My gaming memories start with the 2nd generation consoles (Atari 2600 etc). We owned a TI-99 "computer" which is technically not a gaming console but really was for all intents and purposes. But I think gaming culture didn't really take off until the third generation (NES), so I consider anything before that gaming prehistory.

 

I use "timeless" and "classic" for classifying games, books, TV shows, movies, music, etc. Old just sounds sad, lol.

To fall in the "timeless" camp requires losing myself in the experience whether it's for the first time or many times after. I've played the original Castlevania for example since it came out and it still feels fresh and exciting every time I play. Even older games picked up for the first time later in life can feel this way. I didn't play Castlevania Symphony of the Night or FF7 until 2008 and was hooked from the first play and still can pick it up either at any point today and get fully into it.

With "classic", I can appreciate how much effort went into it at the time it was released but it feels dated by today's standards and harder to play. Games like Adventure for Atari 2600, the original Final Fantasy, and even Super Mario 64 land here. They're not bad games by definition, and in fact I played them all many times ages ago. I just can't anymore, but I can respect them for what they did for advancing the industry.

 

For me old games are psx and below basically. Old to the point where I probably wouldn't play them is nes and below

 

Pre-2000 is retro to me, even though it's arbitrary.

 

I dont really have a cut off date. I have multiples of my consoles encase of failure. I got more controllers then ill ever use. i have multiple crt tvs. and the use of flash carts saves the cart/console wear and tear. got most of the roms. When ever i feel like playing anything im good to go. Took 20+ years to get where iam now.

 

Never. Games never gets old.

 

Retro - two generations from current. So DS/DSi/Wii would be the start of retro for me.
Vintage Retro - starting 20 years (a generation) before now, wherever that leads you. That would be Gameboy Color to NES-ish.
Antique Retro - Any console or its games released before 1980. Atari 2600 and anything before it.

These guidelines were just made up on the spot by me. They just "sound right". Others probably will disagree.

 

My first console was an Atari 2600, and aside from that I only played PC games until I got a SNES when I turned 12.

I might play a few Atari games every now and then for nostalgia's sake, my favorites were River Raid, Pitfall, Mario Bros., and Galaga, but none of the Atari games really hold my attention for more than 5 minutes now.

Similarly most NES games won't hold my attention for that much longer. And a lot of the ones that do have had enhanced ports made on other consoles (Final Fantasy series, Super Mario Bros.)

But SNES games and up I can honestly say I still enjoy. I will still sit down and spend hours playing Yoshi's Island, which is my favorite game ever. Kirby's Super Star was good too. The Donkey Kong games were awesome, and let's not forget the infamous Lion King.

 

Hard to define, but anything from before I was born does feel old to me. Maybe not the best of standards, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

I am 19 years old but since my dad used to be a gamer we had both a N64 and a PS1 at home. The PS2 and gamecube were what I'd consider my first two consoles though and I have stuck with nintendo and sony in the console space ever since even after moving over to primarily PC gaming around 2013

 

I couldn't play anything beyond NES era, even the PC games looked so uninteresting (looking at you, might and magic Series). Dark times.

 

My parents never wanted to buy a console (when you try so hard to avoid something it goes for the worst), I played on PS1 1, only one friend of mine had NES, the console that marked my generation is PS2 and Gameboy, I played mainly on pc and then I got my GBA

 

I started gaming with the n64/ps1 and onwards from there.
I was 8 years old i think when i played with the n64.
When i think back, anything before ps3 is a "classic" console/game period.

When i think about in terms of games and when graphics are just not "bearable" to me is probably the original nintendo, but some games can still be played (think of games like megaman). Snes graphics are perfectly serviceable, but when a modern games copies the graphics of an N64 i cannot tolerate that, neither does the ps2/psp kind of games if not done correctly. Some ps2/psp games like valkyrie profile silmeria and final fantasy crisis core still look fantastic in my eyes, so it is not that the console is not capable of making good graphics from that time era. Usually MMORPG's and mobile games on a budget with 3D graphics resemble the "ps2 era" style graphics, but lack the graphical fidelity of some ps2/psp games and are just not really nice to watch at.

When people tell me they lived in the atari time online, i see them as 50+ year old people, but if i see someone mentioning a ps3 or 360 game as a classic game console, i feel old and i think the person in question is like 12 lol.

I do not really have a starting date or end date when it comes to "classic" - i think the ps1/n64 is classic in a sense that it is a time period i started playing, but anything before the nes/snes is retro in my eyes because i have not experienced the gaming era of said console.

 

anything with worse graphics than snes/gba

 

Atari Home Pong.

 

I grew up with SNES, GB(C) and N64 so anything before that doesn't interest me much. Including NES, which I find to be a bit basic as far as audio capabilities go. SNES and GB(C) chiptunes just sound awesome, and good music is one of the most important things for me in games.
I'm not sure if I played SNES, GB(C) or N64 first, my mom used to rent a SNES sometimes, I didn't get one of my own until much later, but I'm not sure when she first rented one. I'm pretty sure I got a N64 before the SNES, though I enjoyed both equally. SNES was the peak of the 2D era for me, there are so many great games on that, that look and sound great even today.

 

I cut off retro gaming at the Genesis and Super Nintendo as those came to an end in 1998 in the States. Console wise, I end with the 32X.

 

Dont understand the question but i will say i never played anything before NES and also i stopped being "CURRENT GAMER" on the Wii U, i got stuck there and i dont play anything current because i have to many games to finish on Wii U and i refuse to move to the next gen until i finish my games. I only played RE7 on Xbox One... and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and its DLC on Switch that's all for this current gen for me.

 

I had most of em when I was a kid.
Atari 2600/5200/7800, Coleco, Intellivision, Odyssey, pong & light gun-specific systems, C64, Vic 20.
So yeah I'm up to speed with everything since then, more or less.
Some of the more obscure systems in the 90s I didn't get to play, but was aware of and have emulated.

 

I differentiate between "classics" and "old".
"classic" is for me everything that I connect with my childhood memories which I did not have to buy myself.
My gaming career has been very long. I started with a C64 -> Gameboy -> Gamegear -> NES / Master System 2 -> Amiga 500 -> GBC -> PSX -> My own Windows 98 PC
My friends had the missing consoles: SNES, Mega Drive, N64
So for me everything up to the PSX is "classic" (or maybe Retro if you like that term more).

Starting with the PS2/GBA I bought consoles with my own money. Those are the "old" consoles of my teenager years. PS2, Gamecube, Dreamcast, GBA...not quite classic/retro but definitely old.

The rest is easy: PS3 / Xbox 360 is "last gen", PS4 / Xbox One is "current gen", whatever comes next is "next gen".

Nintendo does not work with the usual "generation" cycles anymore. They have their userbase of loyal fans and push out a new console whenever they feel like it.