It was introduced barely 20 years ago. By that rationale the PS3 is a retro console
It was 17 years old, or 14 years since wide distribution in the USA.
What counts as "retro" basically comes down to when the person you ask was born.
The final new international games were released in 1994, but Europe still got new games into 1995.
Japanese Famicoms were still being sold in Japan when the PS2 released. They sold more in Japan in 2001 than in 2000.
So no, calling the NES "retro" in 2000 wouldn't have made all too much sense.
> In 2005, Retro Gamer called Snes9x "the best SNES emulator available".[12]
If there was a Retro Gamer magazine writing about SNES emulators, I think it's safe to say some people did consider even the SNES to be retro, 14 years after its US release. My personal experience having used Snes9x around that time, we also considered it retro.
Clearly not everyone though, which is my point in saying what's retro will depend on who you ask.
By 2006 when the PS3 came 'round, the NES was definitely retro. It wasn't a livingroom staple anymore, and examples that survived were well-loved (either in the wear-and-tear way, in the appreciation-of-objects way, or both).
The NES was only ~21 years old at the time that the PS3 came out.
kids these days... stares at the C64 in the corner