it is more on about the time spent on gaming regardless of age. but getting old age means reaction time wouldn't be similar to when we are younger.

for me, wanted to play a lot of games but i don't have the luxury of time. but i enjoy it at my own pace on when i would play.

NES era wasn't about reflexes, it was about learning patterns.  Die, learn the pattern, repeat.  Punch Out, the game in your sig, was almost all about learning static patterns.  Platformers were usually static patterns.  Duck, wait, jump.  Memorize that and you could beat most "hard" NES games in a few minutes.  I used to beat Punch Out several times a day when I was bored.  However, difficulty from finger and wrist pain caused by uncomfortable controllers, that was real.

Perhaps you mean the previous generation, which mostly blew the NES era into fragments in terms of reflex speed.  That's because many arcade shooters didn't end, they just kept getting harder and harder until you ran out of lives.  

NES era gamers, if you jumped them forward into 2016, would also be hosed when thrown into competitive multi-player.  The twitch needed for playing against other humans can only be developed playing against other humans.  It requires a more dynamic toolkit with so much more to read and react to.

I've been gaming since my dad brought home an Atari 2600 and I don't buy the idea that NES/SNES games were harder overall.  You just died more because the games were designed so that you often had to die to see the solution.  That doesn't make it harder, it just makes it more frustrating.

I think it's more case by case..

There will be younger gamers that are better than older gamers and vice versa :/

I'm 31 and I've noticed a fundamental shift in gaming. When I was younger, we were always looking forward to the next big thing. For examples, when the Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and Nintendo 64 were brand new, you never heard about anyone going out to hunt down an old Atari 2600. We didn't care about that. We looked forward to the future. Nowadays, even though PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are doing well, the people who own those machines seem to have contempt for them. They're like what Windows PC's were in the early 2000's. People hated them but felt they had to use them. At the same time, young kids, particularly teenagers and people in their early 20's are getting excited over the old stuff. Retro gaming is a huge business. Even the not-so retro consoles like GameCube and PS2 have been a good business for those who sell games. It never used to be like this.

So, to simply put it, I would say older gamers had it better because of what they got in the end whereas newer gamers have it worse because if you look at the trends and where the industry is heading, it isn't a very positive future we're looking at here.

I'd agree that younger people would likely be better than me partially due to not having as much time to invest in video games to get good at them, but I also feel at a point where I wonder why does it matter if I'm good at them or not? I just wanna have fun with them, haha.

I'm not 30, but I got to enjoy the gens from NES onward, and it was def awesome living through the growth of video games

Well, I'm a 38 year old gamer and the reaction time issue is partly true, partly a fallacy. A lot of gamers who grew up during the 80's and 90's played games that required d-pad movement and extremely fast trigger responses in SHMUPS and Sports games. A lot of gamers in their 15-20's today basically suck when n it comes to using a d-pad and being fast on the buttons, but I think might be better at FPS gaming since that has been the main focus of twitch gaming in the last 15 years (for console gaming atleast). It's all just anecdotic evidence of course.

in terms of the issue regarding how many generations one age groups might experiences compared to the other: Well it's really great for younger gamers today to have this wealth of great games, both new and old. I just hope a lot of gamers take their time with the older games since they come from a time when games were made with lifes and continues which is a different approach than today. It's also important that we as a gaming community spreads gaming of all generations, to alla generations of gamers and potential gamers.

Of course one can argue with this specious empty logic.  You can't say "X is better than Y" because of future accomplishments that X may or may not achieve.  If gens are getting more spaced apart in time, then old gamers still win because they will experience more gens by the time they die (the pace was faster in their youth).  By your argument, a fetus is the greatest gamer in the world.  Sorry, but that is a really, really, really weak counter.

Your gaming history is just as epic as your graphs!  

Fetus master race FTW!  

You're right about gens getting longer but what I really mean is a period of time.  I was just using gens because people think like that.  What I really mean is the younger generation in their 20's have experience a number of the best gens and still have a ton of years to play.  

The over 50 crowd don't.  I know which I'd rather be. 

Younger gamers are getting their hands held so tightly that anything with actual difficulty is gonna make them give up in submission when it comes down to it except for the rare ones.