It grips my shit that the dreamcast is considered retro yet others from the same era aren't.

Online gaming retro is it? Jet Set Radio retro? Stunning Soul Calibur retro?
VGA resolution? Bump mapping?

Bullshit and I'm sick of Sega fanbogs saying otherwise.

Bullshit and I'm sick of Sega fanbogs saying otherwise.

What he said!!! 😛

I'll offer my 2 cents as well:  my opinion is that it depends on the context being discussed.

For instance, let's say we're talking about something that is relatively slow-changing like comic books, which don't evolve in style so quickly. You'll probably have to go back 20 or 30 years to see a considerable style change, sufficiently different to warrant the "retro" moniker.

However, with something like PC games, which evolve at the break-neck pace of technology, you can go back 15 years and see that DOS games are significantly different than modern games.

I'd say, "retro" is whatever ignites the spark of nostalgia when pointed out over its current counterpart.  The timespan may be different for different things, and even to different people.

My personal use is as follows:
Music:  anything before the early 1990s.
Console video games:  anything before the PS1.
PC video games:  DOS games and earlier ones.
Movies: 1970s or before.

Notice that most of these coincide with major stages of my life.

    dZ.

I'm not against the DC being called retro as such, more that people deny the consoles from the same era the same status so to speak.

Dreamcast was released to get a slight jump on Sony and the PS2 and especially after the failure of the Saturn. It is the same generation of machines.

The MegaDrive came out TWO YEARS before the SNES yet it is still the same era.

The DC came out just 15 months before PS2.

Go figure.

At this point I just can't imagine ever calling the PS2 retro, I still struggle to call the PS1 retro!

And I know it's because the games are basically the same as the ones we see on modern consoles.

Had the NES not had the massive userbase it had, i'm sure the SNES would have been designed to launch a lot closer to that of the Mega Drive than it did, same for the Playstation 2, had the Playstation lost out to the N64 for example and Sony gone for it's own high capacity optical media, rather than DVD and thus not needing to wait until reasonably fast drives were widely avaiable, sure the PS2 would have landed sooner.

Know my friends class the Dreamcast as RETRO, as until 'recently' they'd never heard of it as they went straight from PS1 to PS2 and i still get a lot of comments like:WTF is THAT? when it's spotted under my TV.

They know Sega for the MD, Mastersystem, Saturn and arcades, few know of the MCD+32X, but Dreamcast is an unknown to them, thus they class it as Retro, despite it being from same era as PS2/Xbox+Gamecube.

Post title: I know what retro is! 
Sub title: A semantic point of view because meaning is important

I will furnish this post with 2 examples and an analogy to explain.  Ooh! It’s like an opening gambit at debating society all over again.   So, if you'd lend me your eyes....

Example 1.  One of the following two statements is false. 

1. The Commodore 64 is a retro computer. 

2. I received my first Commodore 64 for Christmas in 1985 and I still have it.

You may think that this is a bit tricky to work out because you didn't know me in 1985 and I might have made that up.  But never fear! That doesn't matter because the Commodore 64 is not a retro computer.

Example 2.  This year has been a veritable video game diet for me.  I have bought no more than a handful of games - a poor show for sure.  I did pick up a couple of games for my trusty C64 though.  I bought a replacement copy of 'Suspended' by Infocom because my original disk had stopped working and it's a game I love playing on the original hardware with the map laid out on the desk next to the computer.  I also bought the cartridge version of the brilliant new C64 game 'Soulless', released by Psytronik Software/RGCD this year.  It's a spectacular platform adventure game with echoes of many a past classic.  What's the point to example 2, you may or may not be wondering?  I'll allow a knowing grin and a few satisfied nods of the head to oneself for those of you that have read this far and correctly predicted that I'm about to say, 'only one of these games is retro.'  And give yourself a big pat on the back if you also know that I'm about to say, 'it's Soulless that is the retro game'.

Onto my final point, an analogy without a videogame in sight. Enter the world of bicycles for a moment.  In October this year I bought a brand new, very nice, steel framed, single speed, fixed wheel, road bike.  To me it is a thing of great beauty that brings joy to my heart whenever I see it.  I may even post a picture, but for now a brief description.  None cyclists forgive my indulgence.  So, it's navy blue, has a steel frame with classic geometry, no cable guides, a brown leather saddle and matching bar tape on period cro-mo drop bars.  There are modern alloy wheels and gum wall tyres making the whole package a lovely thing to look at and ride.  These features and details are important because they can mean only one thing; from the tyres to the saddle this is a retro bike.  A brand new retro bike.

Retro isn't about how old something is.  It's about imitation, specifically, imitation of the past.  If that's not enough to make you balk then try the fact that 'imitation of the past' can relate to the recent past too.

I think the word 'retro' has been adopted to describe how old something is, over 10 years old or anything before the Dreamcast and not the PS2 type old, even how obscure something is can mean it gets tagged as retro.  By doing this we invite debate.

It's like the fruit community, I guess there is such a thing(!), deciding to use the word ‘apple’ to describe all green fruit.  Limes, grapes, melons, pears etc all called apples. But, then there are the fruit that start off green before turning orange or yellow.  Bananas are green before they go yellow, so at which point during that colour change do they stop being apples and become bananas.

Those of us that play old games on old systems are simply playing old games.  Perhaps  ‘vintage games’ or ‘classic games’ is more flattering and appealing!  Those who play new games designed with more than a mere nod to videogames of yesteryear, a remake, or a full on new title like Soulless, can accurately say that they’re a Retro Gamer that plays retro games.

None of this actually matters as this discussion will run and run in spite of classic, old, vintage or retro terms.

Oh, there is one more thing.  I took a liberty with my first example waaaaay up there at the top.  Sorry about that – I didn’t plan to go on this long and thanks for reading all of this.  So I’m sure you know that not too long ago some people re-released the classic ‘breadbin’ Commodore 64 with modern innards.  It has a Blu-Ray drive and can boot to display the homely blue glow of the Commodore 64 “READY.” screen.  Lo!  The C64 is now officially a retro computer.

Had the NES not had the massive userbase it had, i'm sure the SNES would have been designed to launch a lot closer to that of the Mega Drive than it did, same for the Playstation 2, had the Playstation lost out to the N64 for example and Sony gone for it's own high capacity optical media, rather than DVD and thus not needing to wait until reasonably fast drives were widely avaiable, sure the PS2 would have landed sooner.

The SNES was originally supposed to be backwards compatible with the NES, which is why it has that horrible slow CPU.

Nintendo removed the feature before release so they could be greedy and get people to buy more games.

Ironic somewhat that all these years later, something similar has reared it's head again.

If word out there is true (and 1 of the hackers that cracked the PS3 security, along with various other consoles, seems to think it is as he claims to have hacked the Wii U to a degree already!) then the reason the Wii U CPU is so slow, is because it's just a multi-core evolution of the Wii CPU, which in turn was an upgraded Game Cube CPU.

Nintendo wanting B.C for G.C on Wii and now Wii on Wii U.

This topic got brought up again recently with the advent of the PS2 article in the latest Retro Gamer magazine.

So I thought I would add a poll and revive it for the new members.

Originally I said the Dreamcast or anything that came out before the year 2000 but after hearing other peoples opinions I think my minds been changed. I'm going to go back one more gen to the N64, Saturn, PS1 generation so for the purpose of the poll I have to say other. That just seems like a better place to cut it off with the cartridges on the N64 and the primitive 3D graphics on all three. The Dreamcast is too advanced and it is in the same gen as PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube and I definitely don't find any of those retro.

Originally I said the Dreamcast or anything that came out before the year 2000 but after hearing other peoples opinions I think my minds been changed. I'm going to go back one more gen to the N64, Saturn, PS1 generation so for the purpose of the poll I have to say other. That just seems like a better place to cut it off with the cartridges on the N64 and the primitive 3D graphics on all three. The Dreamcast is too advanced and it is in the same gen as PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube and I definitely don't find any of those retro.

Yeah, i struggle to class the DC as Retro as your talking an era where PC graphics cards were becoming the norm in consoles (or the equiv.of...) and your talking of systems with the power to handle enough polygons, texture mapping, lighting etc to bring photo-realism to a level previousily unheard of.things like MSR, F355, Ecco The Dolphin, Soul Caliber etc still hold up well today, as does Le Mans.I draw the line at PSone/Saturn at the moment.

The PS4/Xbox Next would, for myself have to be established before i'd even consider the DC being Retro.

I'd have to say anything I grew up with... and this includes my Teenage years, I didn't really get into games heavily until about the age of 16 when I got the Saturn and found out about the dreamcast being in bound... anything before that obviously 100% retro as far as I'm concerned but certainly at the very least I would think it would have to be 10+ years or pre-2000

though I also consider things that are non mainstream or weren't necessarily considered successful to be retro as well... not sure if that's right or if I'm just associating the two based on my own experiences