Yeah, I was going to say the same thing - I think it’s generational, and time doesn’t really make much of a difference. There’s obviously a lot of room for nuance though. Is a PS3 game retro? Is a 360 game? You could argue either way. But PS2, original Xbox? It gets pretty clear when you go two generations back that you’re in retro game territory. By the time we’re on PS5 and xbox one xeriex x xxx, will PS3 and 360 firmly feel retro?
It’s hard to say, because games are more likely to get updated now, brought forward a generation. I wrote a long time ago about how we were getting diminishing returns on graphics. And really you judge the generations by their bigger games, not the indies, XBLA and PSN titles which might look like just about anything.
So Uncharted on PS4 looks amazing, yes. But Uncharted 3 doesn’t look that much worse when you take everything into account. Ultimately it’s animation, framerate and fidelity that make the biggest differences. But!! I’m almost getting to the point where I can let Uncharted 3 be retro, visually, so… I think 2 generations back is it for me.