There’s no hard and fast rule that says how old a console needs to be for it and it’s games to be considered retro.
There are a lot of people that say that anything from two generations ago is retro. That would put the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and the Wii in the retro camp.
Do you think the PS3 generation is retro or if not what consoles do you consider to be retro systems?
For it to be “retro” a paradigm shift has to occur. Considering that PS3 and 360 were both HDMI systems, with online play, friend lists, private messaging, bluetooth/wireless headset supporting, and both have achievements, tell me, is that very different than the systems that are currently available? All that’s really changing with your gaming experience is playing games with worse lighting and the tedious mechanics that plagued a lot of gen 7 games. PS2 and og Xbox are definitely retro, but unless cloud gaming all of a sudden became the norm and consoles just became streaming boxes, I think PS3 and 360 are still modern consoles.
The 360 orignally didnt have HDMI (started with the launch of the Elite about a year after the 360 originally launched, iirc) and the OG xbox supported many of those when Xbox Live launched. On the other side, the Wii barely had any PS3/360 era hallmarks listed above and the ones it did support were almost never the main focus of the game. I honestly can’t remember the Wii even supporting a headset.
The paradigm shift currently underway is a transition to non-physcial distribution media and games-as-a-service. Streaming boxes aren’t viable enough over the internet, yet, but local downloads sure are. The PS3/360/Wii would all be retro if the defining factor was the average person not relying on an internet connection to play an average game. Yes I know eariler systems had digital downloads too but the average person still played more physical games than digital. Today it’s more even, if not a digitial lead. Most games of the Seventh Gen era didn’t require digitial updates; today you’d be hard pressed to find one that works without needed to download half or more of the game just to install.
Streaming will almost certainly be the next era after the current digtial one, but the internet isn’t quite good enough for a wide enough audience for that, yet.