What are Retro Games Consoles? – Advertised Feature

‘What are Retro Games Consoles?’ may seem like an easy question to answer, but trust me, it can cause some heated debates. Just the other day my friends and I were debating this topic. And even after many hours of chatting about it, we still disagreed on some aspects.

Now, a lot of what we were discussing came down to our ages and a few other characteristics. When I think of Retro, I think old, I think about something that offers you those warm nostalgic feelings of childhood memories. But by that very definition, it would mean different things to different people.

For example, for me Retro Consoles go back to the days of the Atari , Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum and would stretch until say the era of the Sega Megadrive, SNES and GameBoy. I may even stretch to the generation that began to go cartridgeless with the likes of the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and of course, who can forget the last cartridge console, the N64.

Some of my friends though argued that the likes of the PlayStation 2 and the original Xbox are retro now. One person even tried to claim the Wii was old enough but that was just clutching at straws for me. And whilst I understood some of their arguments, about how developers wouldn’t be remastering titles like Spyro if they weren’t old, I just don’t personally see them as being retro. I mean yes, I do feel nostalgic playing those old games, but it doesn’t seem long enough ago that they should be classed as retro. But is that just me trying to cling onto my youth? Am I too scared to admit I’m getting old?

Buying Retro Games Consoles

Maybe it isn’t just me though, maybe I am right. Just look at the evidence, if I can pass it off like that when you go into the shops and see all these re-released mini versions of old consoles with built-in games. Things like old Atari and Commodore Systems, Megadrive and SNES mini classics and even the PlayStation Classic console, all available from retailers such as Argos and Amazon.

I mean these are the consoles that I was just speaking about, but no sign yet of the ones that my friends tried to pass off as retro. So yes, remasters of games may be coming to current-gen consoles, but that doesn’t mean the consoles they come from are retro. Ok, so they’re no longer manufactured any more. But you wouldn’t class a Vauxhall Vectra as retro because they stopped making them for the Insignia, so why would you do it with games consoles?

Streaming Retro Games

I suppose you could potentially look at streamers who stream retro games from retro consoles, but again I’m not sure if that would answer the question. Only because you could have ten different streamers, streaming ten different games, from ten different consoles, and whilst some will no doubt be retro by my standards, others won’t. In fact, people could abuse the hashtag #retrogaming just to ​try and trick followers onto their stream, when it has nothing to do with that and they could be streaming online casino games on Twitch instead.

It’d be interesting to get the thoughts of some of you guys though because this was driving us crazy. Do you think I am right or wrong? Or do you have your own ideas about what makes a games console retro? Whatever your opinion, why not let us know below and try to see if we can finally answer this question that has been driving me incredibly crazy.