What is old school gaming?

This is something I've always wondered to myself, "when is it that we as gamers consider a game or console to be "old?" I happen to walk into a 3rd party gaming seller, the type that has all sorts of gaming equipment and rarities and I overheard some kids say some things that made me think. Saying things like "Super Nintendo is too old" and "Playstation 1 is crap because the graphics suck" when they say them on the shelves. It made me think.."Those consoles are still relatively new." This industry only recently started to boom within the past 2 decades. And yet their tone and attitude seemed as if they were observing a black and white film before 1927.

A peeve of mine is that younger generation  of kids are growing up, but they were not there to see the revolution as it progressed as the older generations of gamers like myself did, they were born into it when it already as gone through its changes. And this gap can put off younger generations from trying out real gems because their standards are too high because of what they are already used to. So in my mind I'm thinking "What right do they have to talk as if they know what happened if they haven't experienced games from our past", and when I say "our", I mean it as our collective past as gamers.

I grew up with gaming, and the industry has really come a long way from pixels and Mode 7 to fully rendered 3D cinematics and animations. Games back then were short, beatable within an hour or two given if you know what to do and where to go, maybe 5-10 hours if it was your first time. Now games can last for more than 5 hours, and thats if you know how to complete the game. I've been playing Disgaea and I saw my hours reach over 250 hours! Which is amazing to me - for a console game, but thats beside the point.

The thing about video gaming is that the structure that is set is very broad and flexible, opposite from the music or film industry. They have their set ways to make their products. We don't. We craft the rules and conditions to everything. The conditions needed to progress, how to win or lose. We have to balance the game and make sure nothing is broken or game-breaking through careful and precise calculations. Even if there were instructors or veterans telling us what is the proper structured way to make our creations, their decisions are still relatively opinion-based. Especially back then.

I can only speculate that its heavy on the "out with the old, in with the new" attitude. Everyone being in a rush to have the best experience with the latest hardware and software and forget the past. But It doesn't always mean that being up to date with everything means you'll have better experiences though. Compare a bike to a motorcycle. If a bicycle breaks down you can see what the problem is and you can easily fix it and enjoy your time cycling again. With a motorcycle you can't see what the problem is, and its a very high chance you would have to take it to a mechanic, unless you yourself know how to fix it. 

Gaming companies like Sony and Nintendo port some of it's games into the newer consoles, but it's library is not that big, and they are missing sooo many gems. granted they have to go through procedures and permission to get the games up on the network, but so many great titles are missing! I know this wont change their minds, but if I could say something to each one of them individually, I would sit them down, give them a churro, and tell them "listen mang, you got to try this game, you wont regret it."