What Is Retrogaming

This is something I think about more than I probably should—what counts as “retro” when it comes to video games? Ask ten gamers and you’ll get ten different answers. Some folks say anything before HD graphics. Others draw the line at the PS2. And then there’s always that one person who thinks the Switch is already vintage. (Bless their heart.)

For this blog, I’m making it simple: if it came out before the seventh generation of consoles—so, before the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii—it’s retro. That means we’re talking everything from the Atari 2600 up through the Dreamcast, PS2, and GameCube. We’re diving into the pixel-heavy days of the NES and SNES, the early 3D awkwardness of the N64, and the disc-spinning era of the PlayStation. The sixth generation feels like the last moment before the whole industry turned into what it is today—always online, always patching, always chasing realism.

It’s not just about hardware, either. The feeling of those games matters. The simplicity, the weird experiments, the janky controls, the unforgettable soundtracks. Some of them aged like fine wine. Others… well, let’s just say nostalgia’s doing some heavy lifting. But that’s part of the fun.

Now, I’m not saying I’ll never mention a newer game or a cool modern indie that feels like it belongs in the ‘90s. I probably will. But the heart of this blog beats in cartridges and memory cards. It’s about flipping through old instruction manuals, blowing dust out of the connector pins (even though that never actually helped), and discovering weird little titles that never got the spotlight.

Whether you grew up with these games or you’re just discovering them for the first time, welcome. This is a space for appreciating the stuff that made us fall in love with gaming in the first place. And if you’re here, I’m guessing you know exactly what I mean.