Interesting thoughts on this.

I think it's only natural as part of cultural transferral, as you mentioned, but would agree that games hit a little differently than films in this regard. I think this probably has more to do with Youtube's ability to transfer feelings of nostalgia around subjects in ways that previous generations didn't have moreso than gaming being different fundamentally.

It's certainly interesting times. When people younger than the games express nostalgia for games they didn't even play, it's always a bit of a double take. I would argue this is happening more with films as well, with things like Jurassic Park.

I think this phenomenon is at least as old as visual mediums for video game advertising. When I first saw Devil May Cry montage on a gaming TV channel my jaw dropped - graphics won’t ever get better than this, I thought. I’ve seen those ads over and over and even though I haven’t ever owned a PS2 until a couple of months ago that imaginery, style and music made a deep impression on me. This is probably why remakes and remasters are so cost effective - for older gamers advertising was already done and because of the monoculture back then everyone has seen them.

Conversely, I’ve been going to a local gaming pub for trivia on geeky stuff for many years and based on it I get the impression that the general knowledge on retro games among younger people is enriched through the osmosis but I don’t think they have any nostalgia for them.