When did you start playing playing video games?

I've seen polls that ask what generation of consoles people started with, but since I started on a NES, but during the SNES era it's hard to choose so I figured using years is better. 
 
Just want to get a general idea of the GB community.

I started on NES.. was born in 86 and my mom got me hooked not long after on mario and contra... she even taught me THE code..... I love my mommy

D because that's just after I was born and able to know what a button was.

When I was 4 so... 1993?

'94 used to play on the Famicom and Sega Mega Drive

My first console was the Genesis. I began gaming some time between 96' and 2000. I remember playing Altered Beast like a motherfucker.

My first taste of gaming was on the Atari 2600 and in the arcades. My first console was a Sega Master System. Zillion remains one of the most amazing gaming experience i've ever had.

My Dad has always had mad control issues with video games. Apparently when he and my mom were first together he spent a weeks worth of grocery money on arcade games without realizing it. Because of this, video games stayed out of my house until I was about 10.  
 
Luckily, the PS2 happened to be the most affordable DVD player at the time, so my mom finally relented and bought one. I can't remember exactly when I got mine, although I think it was 2002. Kingdom Hearts was my first game, and the commercials were everywhere.  
 
Sorry if I make anyone feel old. 

" My Dad has always had mad control issues with video games. Apparently when he and my mom were first together he spent a weeks worth of grocery money on arcade games without realizing it. Because of this, video games stayed out of my house until I was about 10.   Luckily, the PS2 happened to be the most affordable DVD player at the time, so my mom finally relented and bought one. I can't remember exactly when I got mine, although I think it was 2002. Kingdom Hearts was my first game, and the commercials were everywhere.   Sorry if I make anyone feel old.  "

1984- Local liquor store had arcades and would hang out at the arcade at the mall while my mom went shopping.

1994, when I was five years old. Got a Mega Drive with Sonic 2.

2000 when I got a N64 for my birthday.

Used to play on the NES with my brother, then I got an SNES for Christmas and the rest is history.

Crap, I just realized I picked the wrong answer. I was born in 91' but didn't start playing games til I was 6( Lion King for SNES is a very hard way into gaming BTW).

About three years ago ;)

I got a NES and SNES when I was about five. So probably 1997.

I was born October 1980 so i started playing games around 85, i got my first computer (Sinclair Spectrum 128k) and never once looked back!  Earliest memories include Dizzy (that lil egg with boxing gloves), a game called Treasure Island that came packed in, a shooter called Nostrodamus (you had  a spaceship that could turn into a helicopter) and of course typing pages of data from the book for hours and hours to make my screen change colour and beep.  Those where good days! ^_^

I was born in '77 and I played a few games (Arcade, NES, SNES, Sega Master, Sega Genesis, PC, Commodore) growing up, but only very rarely. First game I ever played was probably when I was about eight or ten years old and I probably played a videogame in some manner for a couple hours a year, combined. Didn't start really playing games at all until I was an adult (mid 90s) and thought I bought lots of games, I didn't play games regularly (every four to six months I'd play a whole lot at once and then never again for another half of a year) until probably the last five years, when I have made it a regular part of my life.
 
When I was growing up, games just weren't part of any circle I was involved in and I was stuck in a sport that consumed all of my time either training (before, during, after school, and all summer) or competing (every weekend, all weekend) in. And as an adult, I was too busy building up my career and working on a very large side-project that took about a dozen years to complete. So while I would buy lots of games with the intention of playing them, I never got around to it.
 
I really wish I had been given the chance to get into games much earlier in life, because I missed out on a lot of great stuff. That's part of the reason why I now own almost every console ever made and keep adding to my collection of old games in some weird attempt to fill in those gaps and have the "childhood" I never had. Heh.

I think I must've been when I was about six, so around 93. 
Super Mario Bros. generation ftw!

My dad bought an atari 2600 on a whim when I was very young (1983-ish? I would have been about 5). He wasn't that into it at all. My dad is quite the jock, and got very bored with it. I, on the other hand, started my obsession that day. Pac-Man was fun, Berserk was my favorite at the time.  I got into PC gaming around the same time I got my NES a few years later. I don't have a memory of a time I wasn't a gamer.  
  
I played PC games since I was very young, and my console progress went like this:
NES > SNES > N64 > Dreamcast > PS2, Xbox, Gamecube  > All Current Gen 

I started playing my dad's Master System around 1997 and somehow got my hands on a Genesis a little later on. It wasn't until around 2000 or so that I started playing the N64, and I didn't get my PS2 until 2004. 

Christmas, 1989. 
 
I had no idea what I was doing. It took me like 2 minutes to get Mario in front of a goomba that promptly murdered me.

1988. I was born in 86, so I started gaming very early.

Pong on a Magnavox Odyssey hooked to a Black and White TV back in the mid 70's was probably my first time playing a video game.

I started on a PC when I was a kid, probably 3-5. Kid pix (I consider it a game) was my first game!

I have no memory of "starting" playing video games. We've had some form of video game playing device in my house since before I was born. 

I honestly don't remember as I would have been young. I picked 96-00 thinking I'd have probably started in 96, but thinking about it more it was most probably before that. My first console was the Mega Drive, and my earliest memories of gaming are playing through Streets of Rage with my brother.

I think it was 89.

I was born in '90, and started playing around '94. My first game ever was Street Fighter II on the SNES.

When I was 4. So that would be.. 1997

1986-1990 was the best time to start. You got to straddle two worlds and get enough of a grasp on the earliest games while getting to experience the 16 bit explosion

Seems most people here started in 91-95. Not many after 2000 which is to be expected. A bit surprised though that so many started before 1985 and thus before the NES was released in the western world. I would assume a lot of those are Americans since here in Europe the video game industry was almost non existant pre-NES since we didn't have arcade machines (at least not in Sweden) and Atari was never big here as far I know.

B.
 
My siblings told me I was playing Mario World when I was around 3, not sure how much of that is true but given my current state and love for videogames that might not be far off the truth.

2000 when I got age of empires 1. I had previously seen all the tv adverts for N64 and played one my friends playstations, I wanted them so much but was never allowed to get either of them, which meant I was playing all my gams on the PC at first.

around 6, and im 31 so...yeah >_>

I think I was 4, so 1997.

95ish with Doom.

1988: My parents bought me a NES for my third birthday. I honestly don't know why they thought that was a good idea! :D

1985-1986.

Sega master system and nes, it was about 1995 i was about 4 yrs old , i had quite a few games for both but never really touched the master system except for the game that came with it (Alex the kidd :D) and duck hunt with that laser gun, i played the nes all the time i remember getting it for xmas one time with a rubbish bag full of games was one of my fav times of my life, discovering games for first time, i literally played super mario brothers 100's of times restarting over and over...i could never do the last level with the ship... haha.
 
Since then ive never looked back.