Kyval

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?

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.

That’s pretty much what emo/scene was back in the mid 2000s. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Doesn’t change expectations of others for you to respond to work emails or other shit at all hours.

That was still a thing before the internet/cellphones. My dad would receive phone calls at home at all hours back in the 90s and he was just a low level manager. He just pretended to not be home. When work gave him a cell phone, he would just turn it off when he left work and pretend his phone died.