As far as I've seen things become retro in my own life as well as what was considered retro when I was born/a kid, I would say anything that is 20 to 30 years old is retro. Once it's older than that, it becomes vintage or antique.

Retro is I find something you are just too young to have have experienced directly. It is your older brother's cool. Yours is nostalgic; your parent's, vintage.

I think it is a blurry line.

Video games have always used terms like "next generation" in marketing, so that does have an influence. My students think PS4 is retro. They think iPhone 13 is retro!

When I was in my early 20s we didn't consider CDs retro or vintage, and that was the early 2000s when the tech was around 30 years old.

Before we also had big jumps, or at least we were told they were big jumps.

Analogue to magnetic tape to digital 8-bit to 16 to 32 to 64...

If I had to write an essay on the topic, I would focus on the aspect of "the way things were..." Meaning that something could be thought of as retro if the process of making it work vastly differs from the current process.

The PS2 didn't have HDMI, but it did have internet connectivity. There were wireless controllers, but they were a little different from today. The TV was probably a CRT so you had to change the channel to make it work. Magazines still had demos sold with them...

My conclusion: a young person can probably figure out how to get a PS2 up and running, so it isn't retro technology, it is just retro gaming.

Yeah, this is one of those things that gets a lot of people seriously up in arms.

Classic cars, for example, are defined as ones that are 20 years or older, or if they have some particular significance. I think that can generally work for games as well. Some might bristle at the idea of the OG xbox and PS2 as retro, but they're both pushing 25 years old at this point. Which is why I think it's generally an ever-moving line. But it's also one that can often be subjective. My first game console was an NES. But someone else's first console might have been a Gamecube. So our frames of reference are going to be different.

I think it's also challenging when a lot of older games are still playable on modern hardware. There's a ton of games that were released for the OG xbox that are still playable on the xbox one (not sure about series x|s): Morrowind, Halo, KotoR. Since we often think about retro games being ones that are out of production and difficult to play in modern times (like the difficulties with connecting an NES or an Atari 2600 to a non-CRT TV). But backward compatibility has shifted that window for a lot of titles. Which is why I think a lot of people balk at the idea that an xbox or PS2 might be considered retro, even given their age.

So I think it's really a matter of relative time + a healthy dose of subjectivity

I think it's several different things

1. a visual design aesthetic
2. specific gameplay mechanics
3. "legacy" systems and software

I think each of them can differ in whether they're fixed or not. Generally I think that in game design, retro is fairly anchored when it comes to visual aesthetics and gameplay design. "Boomer shooter" mechanics and visuals, pixel art games, etc. I suspect we'll still see those 'retro' games in 20 years, and probably not see e.g. Ubisoft-style open world control-point-capture games being called retro.

Consoles though, I do think shift into retro status very consistently. I think there are people who would even consider DS or certainly GBA games as retro already.

Gaming wise I'd say anything 6th gen or older. As for tech I'd say anything that is end of life. Obsolete and at least 15 years old