I look at games from a technical point of view. If the system is no longer supported by the manufacturer and it's not on the shelves, then it's retro. PS2 is still sitting on the shelves and Sony stopped manufacturing it almost a year ago, but there are tons of games on the shelves in every store I can walk in to, same goes for PSP, they still manufacture and sell it officially. To me, retro starts with pong and ends on the systems like Xbox, yes, Xbox is quite modern, but you won't find a new console in BestBuy, MediaMarkt or Auchan. I wonder what you guys think on my theory. 

Quote from wildbird5150 on August 5, 2014, 12:39
I look at games from a technical point of view. If the system is no longer supported by the manufacturer and it's not on the shelves, then it's retro. PS2 is still sitting on the shelves and Sony stopped manufacturing it almost a year ago, but there are tons of games on the shelves in every store I can walk in to, same goes for PSP, they still manufacture and sell it officially. To me, retro starts with pong and ends on the systems like Xbox, yes, Xbox is quite modern, but you won't find a new console in BestBuy, MediaMarkt or Auchan. I wonder what you guys think on my theory. 

This is the logic I subscribe to, as well. Once it hits the stage where games aren't readily available anymore, then I count it as being "retro." Though, like most, I often don't refer to the more modern retro systems as being retro. Contradictory, I know, but the mainstream ideal of retro usually revolves around SNES/Genesis and back, while the modern retro equivalents (PS1/N64/Saturn -> Xbox/GameCube) are simply "old." So, in my mind retro is a two-sided thing: Modern retro and Retro. Strange, but there it is.