The Passage of Time: GameStop Officially Moves the Seventh Generation to the Retro Case

If you needed a sudden reminder of how fast time is actually flying by, GameStop just delivered a massive reality check. In a social media post that instantly went viral this morning, the retail giant officially declared that the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii U are now classified as retro consoles.

Yes, you read that correctly. The consoles we spent our entire teenage years playing are now sitting in the exact same vintage category as the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis.

Let us look at exactly what this classification change means for your local stores and your physical game collections.

Behind the Glass

For years, these games have been slowly disappearing from the standard store shelves, often shoved into the bottom corner of the clearance section. But this new retro label completely changes how the company is going to handle the seventh console generation moving forward.

• The Vintage Treatment: These consoles and their game libraries are being officially moved behind the glass displays at participating retail locations. They are no longer just old secondhand games; they are now considered classic collectibles.
• The Nostalgia Tax: We all know exactly what happens when a gaming era officially becomes retro. The prices for pristine discs and rare controllers are absolutely going to spike. Games that used to sit in the bargain bin for two dollars are about to become highly desired vintage pieces.
• Hardware Exchanges: GameStop is actively pushing a new campaign specifically targeting these older systems. They want to rebuild their stock of functional hardware to feed the massive wave of nostalgia hitting the gaming community right now.

A Golden Era of Gaming

It feels incredibly strange to call the era of the original Modern Warfare and Skyrim retro, but the math does not lie. The Xbox 360 launched over twenty years ago. These systems built the absolute foundation for modern online multiplayer and digital storefronts. Seeing them get the respect they deserve as classic hardware is awesome, even if it makes a lot of us feel incredibly old today.

If you have a stack of old PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 discs gathering dust in your closet, you might want to verify their current value before you decide to let them go. The vintage market is about to get extremely competitive.

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