>>1903659
I think you're definitely on the right track, but clearly the cutoff shouldn't be around 2000, it should be between 1994 and 1996. Really, the cutoff is when the standard went from 2D to 3D, and that was with the release of the Saturn, PS1, and N64. If I wanted to be extra pedantic, I'd argue the Jaguar and especially 3DO and Jaguar are in the same category. And that brings to mind the fact that obviously the categorization shouldn't be by year, per se, but by hardware generation. Kriby's Dream Land 3 might have come out later than Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot, but obviously it is more retro than them.
And to be clear, it's not that being 2D makes something retro, because obviously a 2D game that comes out right now isn't retro. It's that there is a stark difference in the era when games were expected to be 2D and when games were expected to be 3D. Some hardware and software developers were slightly earlier or later joining that era, but the era did change. Obviously the average N64 game is more like the average Gamecube game than it is like the average Super Nintendo game, and this difference becomes even more stark if you're comparing PS1 to PS2 or Super Nintendo.
And then some autists come out to get mad about the fact that I'm ignoring computer games and arcade games, but defining hardware generations is harder there, yet games still made similar transitions at similar times. Yes, there were some pionneering games that came out on those types of hardware first, and you can argue they blur the lines, but that only brings back my point that hardware defines things. Daytona didn't come out that long before the Saturn, and obviously it's more like racing games after it (which would almost all have polygonal tracks), like say, Need for Speed, than games before it, which were all 2D, like, say, Outrun. And don't say it's only graphics, because obviously polygonal racing games feel totally different than 2D racing games, even if they were "Super Scalers" or whatever other way you want to categorize them.
And yes, Need for Speed isn't retro, despite being a 3DO game, because again obviously it has more in common with modern games than it does with even the most recent 2D racing game before it. 3DO isn't retro, it's just old.
Mario 64 is more like Odyssey than it is like World. Crash Bandicoot is obviously influenced by things like Sonic and Donkey Kong Country, but it still plays more like Shadow Generations than it is like Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
>>1903710
I'm sympathetic to the idea of dividing into more eras, which encompass more than a hardware generation. I definitely subscribe to the idea that things really got even shittier after 2007, and even then, 2007 just happened to be the last year we got some really good games with design sensibilities from the previous generation, before all the new trends really took over. So really, if there were to be a dividing line around there, I'd still put it with the hardware generation, and just say that 2007 was a holdover/transition year, much like how many early PS1 games were still 2D, but the transition was obviously happening, and the generation would not be defined by 2D games. The 360/PS3/Wii generation would not be defined by the same trends that pushed the previous generation. Near-universal online, plus casual pandering and motion controls, changed things significantly.
But the difference between PS1/N64 and PS2/Gamecube really isn't as stark. It's a matter of hardware but not really core gameplay. Graphics got better, and Nintendo finally adopted larger storage sizes, but the types of games were still similar. The rise of open world games in the early 2000s is pretty notable, but I wouldn't say it's anywhere near the game changer that 3D and online were. And yes, I know online stuff existed, and was built into the Dreamcast and Xbox, but it still was an extra feature and not a standard thing you were expected to have to even play a lot of major games.
Handhelds and other forms of hardware that might have different trends are still parts of the eras they chronologically released in. The eras are defined not by the exceptions but the rules. Obviously saying Game Boy Color is of a different era than the N64 is retarded, it's just serving a different niche.
I also think it's fair to put another dividing line with the Famicom and its generation of hardware. The types of games changed very drastically in that generation. I could even get as specific as to say that Super Mario Bros. is the specific moment that divided things. It's when mainstream games suddenly became things designed to be played at home rather than at the arcade. And no, a few home computer games that were designed to not be played arcade style are not enough to change this, since they were incredibly niche. Super Mario Bros. changed the game. But I'm still inclined to just count the release of the Famicom as the beginning of the era. Sure, most of the early games were arcade games, but it early games of a generation are often more like the generation before, as it takes time for developers to figure out how to really take advantage of the new hardware.
This then makes me realize that I have two eras defined as being two generations each. It's been more than two generations since the last era ended. That makes me want to say we should be on a new era now, but I can't bring myself to pretend that PS3 games and PS5 games are actually different, aside from PS5 games not existing. It's all a bunch of moviegames or multiplayer focused flavor of the month garbage. Even the graphics hardly look different. There hasn't been a major change like games being made for the home instead of the arcade, games becoming 3D, or games becoming online.
And yes, obviously there are trends that carry through eras, and early examples of trends that would come to define later eras, but again these are the exception, not the rule. I thought it was awesome to play Dreamcast online back in Y2K, and then Xbox did it a bit more, but it wasn't until the generation after, when all the major systems could do it, that it became expected and standard.
>Ancient: Pre-Famicom
>Retro: Pre-3D consoles
>Old: Pre-online standardization
I'm tempted to use "Antiquity, Antique, Vintage, Retro," like anon's image up there, but I'm too attached to the idea of "Retro" meaning "pre-3D," because "Retro" is the one distinction that is commonly made, and if only one distinction is going to be made, it needs to be pre-3D and post-3D.