Your First Gaming Console + Gaming Memories

So just list your first console and any other info about it that you want and post some memories. I'll start.

My very first console was Super Nintendo. It was my first present I ever got and I got it during the christmas of '91, I was born about 4 months prior to that. My parents say that I didn't start playing it until I was about 1 and that I didn't actually grasp what I was playing until I was about 2 or 3. They also said that I like to chew on the controllers. The first game I got for it was Super Mario World, which came packaged in and to this day it's one of my favorite games I've ever played. I'm glad that SNES was my first console because it exposed me to the wonderful and magical world of Nintendo and many consider the SNES era to be the golden age of games. I still have my original SNES and it's in very good condition. There is no yellowing and the only "defect" with the console is that my name is written on it in red crayon. The reason for that is because I used to think I was so cool because I had one and I wanted everyone to know who's it was. Some of the controllers have bite marks all over them.

One of my earliest memories is the main screen from The Legend of Zelda. Idk why, but I just remember seeing the screen for the first time and finding it really intriguing coupled with the music. Also my dad had a NES and me and my best friend used to play a lot of Super Mario Bros.. Well one day I told him that you could jump over the flag and every time he played the game after that he would try and do it and be disappointed every time. Finally, after about a few weeks I told him that I just made the whole thing up.

Then there were the console wars in school between SNES and Genesis. I had both because I loved Sonic and even thought that he was cooler than Mario for a brief period of time before I regained my senses. I remember feeling so bad for the kids who only had Genesis and thought that it was better. The majority of my grade used to have a SNES and we would rip on them so hard.

Then there was Super Mario Kart which established who's character was who for every Mario game after that between me and my 2 best early childhood friends. I ended up going with Yoshi and eventually Yosh became my nickname since it sounds pretty close to my actual name. The other friend became Luigi and his older bro used to roll with Bowza until Wario came along.

As always I look forward to the replies.

My very first console was also the Super NES. I remember always have uncles who were way into gaming and I would play whenever I went to their houses but I never had a console at home. Then one day I finally convinced my parents to take me to the store to buy me a Nintendo 64 (because I wanted Banjo Kazooie). Then the sales guy at the Target convinced my parents to buy a Super NES because it was cheaper and had more games available. Good move on the sales man because instead of leaving the place with Banjo Kazooie I left with Super Mario All Stars. Having the original Mario games to play as a child was wonderful and if I could, I would go back I would thank the cash register worker myself. I later also got Space Invaders, Donkey Kong Country, Scooby Doo, and Super Mario World. I had the good fortune to have gaming uncles who knew which games to recommend and that led to me never playing a game I disliked on my first console which is really the reason I still game now.

The first console I ever played was a Colecovision. I played it on an old TV that had the fake, faded wood outlining and weighed a ton. At that time, the console was pretty old. My Dad had a Master System but it was only brought out from time to time on our main TV. The first console that was actually mine, bought specifically for my brother and I, was the Genesis.

My very own first console was a handheld one, the Game Boy Pocket. I bought it used together with The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and some other game I can't remember. As for first stationary console my dad bought me and my brother a Nintendo 64 which we spent a crazy amount of time playing.

The first thing I remember playing games on was my Dad's Commodore 64 (not technically a console, but hey, it's what we had). I played Radar Rat Race, Ghostbusters, Caveman Ugh-lymics, and Jupiter Lander among others.

My first console was a Nintendo Entertainment System. I got it with a three game catridge with Super Mario Bros., Tetris and Nintendo Worldcup. Good times playing those games, and Super Mario Bros. 2, Double Dragon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ninja Gaiden. I miss those simpler times. ahah

My first gaming console was a Sega Genesis and my first memories of gaming were of me attempting to play Sonic the Hedgehog. I ended up growing up with Sonic but I pretty much lost all interest past the Sonic Adventure games, although there was a short period of time when I was really into Adventure's second iteration.

But yeah I remember being pretty bad at the Sonic games back then since it was my first ever kinda platforming experience. I remember using cheats to play through all of Sonic & Knuckles at some point, if I remember correctly. While I feel very guilty in hindsight, I was extremely young back then. It's practically one of my earliest memories.

i had an NES. good times playing contra on it. 
 
i enjoyed playing the n64 a lot. i felt like it was good times to be playing the system.

First console was a PS3 in 2010 to be able to play Red Dead Redemption.. First gaming memory though, Duke Nukem 1/Commander Keen 4 on my brother's IBM computer.

I grew up in New Zealand and spent the longest time playing other kids games. My cousin had a Master System with Alex the Kidd in Miracle World built-in and a copy of Sonic 2 that I would play the ever loving crap out of. My friend down the street had an N64 and the pair of us took down Ocarina of Time. His older brother was the resident PC pirate and plied me with my first tastes of Adventure-genre titles such as Loom and Monkey Island.

But it all really started with my grandmother's Commodore 64. My older sister would play Wizards of Wor religiously (memory serves, she could get up to the second Pit arena) and I would eventually follow in her foot steps. One year, our parents surprised us with a huge floppy disk case full of games, which I now realise were pirated but we didn't care if the names were written on labels with pen, we now had more games we could ever play! We never beat most of them, either because they were insanely hard (Ghostbusters) or were bugged due to bad code cracking (Defender of the Crown - I could never save that princess without it crashing).

I would one day go on to purchase my own Playstation a few years post release, catching up on titles I'd missed. So here I am before you; this odd anachronism of a gamer who remembers the days of LOAD, RUN, and SYNTAX ERROR but couldn't tell you about the glory of the 16 Bit Era.

@JakeLogan: 16 Bit era was where it was at.

My first one would have been the NES, I have a few older brothers so it was theirs and I just happened to play it, and as for the first game I played, I can't really say. I just remember looking at Bomber man for the nes and wondering"Man that game looks soooo cool" but the first really good memory is of playing Golden eye with me and all my brothers.

@AhmadMetallic said:

First console was a PS3 in 2010 to be able to play Red Dead Redemption.. First gaming memory though, Duke Nukem 1/Commander Keen 4 on my brother's IBM computer.

You scared me there for a second!

My first console was the SNES as well. Actually, it belonged to both my brother and I. The first game we got was Super Metroid (which is still my all-time favorite game to this day). I was only 3 or 4 years old but I remember watching my brother play through it and thinking it was awesome. Once he finished playing it I got a chance to try the game out; obviously I wasn't too great at such a young age. But I still played a lot of games on the SNES as I grew up, even after I had a PlayStation and N64. To this day I still like to dust off the SNES to play some Super Metroid or Donkey Kong Country.

First console was a Sega Genesis, and my earliest gaming memory is playing Streets Of Rage 2 on it.

@NakAttack: Streets of Rage was awesome.

Since I was a smart kid my first gaming memories were on a PC, not a console. Wolfenstein 3-D and Doom.

First console was the Playstation. Jet Moto allll day.

My first console was the SNES, but my first system was the Game Boy Pocket. I remember receiving the yellow version for my birthday when I was very young along with a copy of Black Bass Lure Fishing. I played that game a bunch but my fondest memories with the system stem from my tenure with the Pokemon games. I remember walking around my backyard for hours as I made my way through Virdian Forest, as I captured Mewtwo, and when I'd play my friend's copies to level up their Pokemon for them.

@mac_n_nina said:

So just list your first console and any other info about it that you want and post some memories. I'll start.

My very first console was Super Nintendo. It was my first present I ever got and I got it during the christmas of '91, I was born about 4 months prior to that. My parents say that I didn't start playing it until I was about 1 and that I didn't actually grasp what I was playing until I was about 2 or 3. They also said that I like to chew on the controllers. The first game I got for it was Super Mario World, which came packaged in and to this day it's one of my favorite games I've ever played. I'm glad that SNES was my first console because it exposed me to the wonderful and magical world of Nintendo and many consider the SNES era to be the golden age of games. I still have my original SNES and it's in very good condition. There is no yellowing and the only "defect" with the console is that my name is written on it in red crayon. The reason for that is because I used to think I was so cool because I had one and I wanted everyone to know who's it was. Some of the controllers have bite marks all over them.

One of my earliest memories is the main screen from The Legend of Zelda. Idk why, but I just remember seeing the screen for the first time and finding it really intriguing coupled with the music. Also my dad had a NES and me and my best friend used to play a lot of Super Mario Bros.. Well one day I told him that you could jump over the flag and every time he played the game after that he would try and do it and be disappointed every time. Finally, after about a few weeks I told him that I just made the whole thing up.

Then there were the console wars in school between SNES and Genesis. I had both because I loved Sonic and even thought that he was cooler than Mario for a brief period of time before I regained my senses. I remember feeling so bad for the kids who only had Genesis and thought that it was better. The majority of my grade used to have a SNES and we would rip on them so hard.

Then there was Super Mario Kart which established who's character was who for every Mario game after that between me and my 2 best early childhood friends. I ended up going with Yoshi and eventually Yosh became my nickname since it sounds pretty close to my actual name. The other friend became Luigi and his older bro used to roll with Bowza until Wario came along.

As always I look forward to the replies.

When you was one? thats crazy

Mine was a Sega Genesis, forgot how old i was exactly, maybe 5 i think. Got it with Sonic 2, played the shit out of it. Bought Sonic 3, played the shit out of that as well. My parents bought me alot of games for that console, i would say 60+. I played alot of platformers though, hardly any RPGS, which im sort of annoyed about. My first proper RPG was FF7 when that came out. I wonder how my young mind would of handled for example FF6 or FF4 or something along those lines. Shiit, i wonder what i would of thought of Shining Force or something back then. I was so accustomed to platformers, side scrolling beat em ups and fighting games, my ideology of gaming was that, and that alone.

Technically, an Atari with q-bert, but i was like 4 years old so i dont really count that. So probably a mega-drive - Aladdin, Lion King, Streets of Rage. Good memories of those games, especially Lion King, that game was ace.

My first console was Sega Genesis when I was 5, I believe. So many vague, but good, memories of my dad waking me up after my mom went to sleep so we could play Sonic, Street Fighter 2 and this MLB baseball game. (cant remember the name) That's where my love of videogames started =)

@Sayishere said:

When you was one? thats crazy

Mine was a Sega Genesis, forgot how old i was exactly, maybe 5 i think. Got it with Sonic 2, played the shit out of it. Bought Sonic 3, played the shit out of that as well. My parents bought me alot of games for that console, i would say 60+. I played alot of platformers though, hardly any RPGS, which im sort of annoyed about. My first proper RPG was FF7 when that came out. I wonder how my young mind would of handled for example FF6 or FF4 or something along those lines. Shiit, i wonder what i would of thought of Shining Force or something back then. I was so accustomed to platformers, side scrolling beat em ups and fighting games, my ideology of gaming was that, and that alone.

The first RPG I played was FFIV (FFII on SNES) and I was 5 or 6. I received a lot of tips from Nintendo Power and once you know how to read and just talk to everyone in town it's not that hard. That's the thing about games back in the day if you read the manual on how to play them everything was good. Now games are so simplified and manuals are like 5 pages long or just come on the disc.

Oh shit, forgot about Pirates! For Genesis. I don't think I ever "beat" it but many days were spent just sailing my ship around and crashing boats into towns so I could just sword duel a person for control. The actual boat battles were too hard for me at that age. Haha

My two older brothers had a Philips G7000 Videopac (Magnavox Odyssey 2) and a TI-99/4A respectively so those were my earliest game experiences. I vividly remember playing the TI-99/4A Space Invaders clone and on the Philips a cowboy shootout style game. Later I would play my cousins C64 where my love for The Last Ninja started.

The first console that I personally owned was a NES which I had begged for, specifically the TMNT bundle. Hard as that game was I really enjoyed it, and I'm almost embarrassed to say that my favorite games from that era were all crappy movie license games like Terminator 2 and RoboCop. The first Mega Man and Power Blade were the first sort of "real" games that I liked. Fucking hated Mario and thought he was gay and childish (lol I was like 8 at the time), in fact I started to find the whole console format childish and simple, and became a PC zealot. Until I years later sat down with my nephews PSOne copy of Gran Turismo 2 and being a huge driving sim enthusiast I was hooked. When the PS2 came around with promise of more Gran Turismo and a 3D Grand Theft Auto I just knew I had to buy one. So that is where I'm at now, sort of a PC/Sony combo "fanboy".

Playing my first gun game on the Binatone games system, Using a big fat orange gun, you aimed at the screen and shoot a cross that was bouncing across the screen. From that i was hooked on gaming....

My first console was the NES. I played the hell out of Duck Hunt, Mighty Bomb Jack, and Bubble Bobble.

Dr. Mario on the NES. It was the only game we had and my dad was REALLY good at it. I was like 3, and didn't get to play very often.

NES. My parents wouldn't let me play Super Mario Bros. because I was too young and it was too complicated. Like any good 5 year old boy, I got sneaky and fired the game up when no one was looking. I didn't get in trouble when they caught me because I'd gotten farther in the game than they ever had...thus the long love affair with gaming was born.

When I was around 6-7 I was at the neighbor girls house down in the basement where we were playing Doctor with our pants off. We heard her mom come down the stairs and scrambled to put our pants back on, and to have an answer for when she asked the inevitable question of what were we doing we turned on the NES in the room and started playing Super Mario Bros. Once she left and we heard her walk back up the stairs she started taking her pants off again so we could get back to touching each other, and when she looked over at me she asked why I wasn't taking mine off again. I said we can do that later. What's this Nintendo thing?

That was my first experience with video games.

I don't remember which came first but my sisters had an NES and SNES, I remember the NES more fondly though. We also had a family PC that I watched my sister play point-and-click adventure games on for hours.

My first console? A Snes because I thought Unirally looked like a boss. Gaming experience would be Ant Attack on the ZX81 or a really weird driving game that didnt have a screen as such but rolls of paper, one of which would drop down with an explosion painted on it when you crashed.

I started the typical way. NES with the Zapper, packaged in with the Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridge.

My dad brought me to Funco Land as a birthday surprise and bought a used NES bundle. It was a shock to me as my mother was incredibly adamant about me not playing video games (she still is to this day, actually). Thanks dad!

My first console was a Sega MegaDrive (Genesis for you Americans) when I was 6. First game I played was Sonic the hedgehog 2 and loved it to bits. I remember playing a lot of SNES at friends places but I don't really have much Nintendo nostalgia like most have. I don't really enjoy Mario or Zelda games that much, so that might stem back to why I guess. I did really love the first Star Fox though.

It's got state-of-the-art High Resolution Graphics!

Standing amidst the gaggle of kids playing / watching Nintendo Entertainment System being played in the toy department, you guys remember that shit? Must have been around 5 years old when I first came across one. My parents loved it as well, would just drop me off there, go their grocery shoppings and pick me up exactly where they left me. Might have well been attached to a ball & chain, 'cause when you watched SMB2 or Fester's Quest being played there, as a kid it was your obligation not budge an inch and keep your damn eyes in the TV.

Also relevant:

Metroid 2: Return of Samus. The first game I recall completing. Still remember the next day at school: Booted up the last save, just before Metroid Queen, half of the class peeking behind my shoulders. Casually beat the boss, pick up baby metroid and escaped the planet. Impressed oohs and aahs and aweomes!s fill the air, while the one kid whose older brother was working for the local Nintendo branch (thus owned and had completed most of then released games) giving me an approving nod. That day I was the Boss.

edit. grammar.

edit2. remembered the bit about the nintendo-kid of the class.

My first console was an atari and my earlier experience was playing the atari version of Pac-man with my father...

I always say that Nintendo got me into games with the NES, but Sega made sure that I stuck around. My sister got a NES for her birthday, and that was great for several years. But then one of her friends wound up with a Genesis, and I saw and played Sonic 2 for the first time and thought that it was just the coolest thing ever. At some point after that I ended up with my first console, the Genesis with Sonic 1 packed in, and I've been hooked on games ever since. As a bonus, I'll also always be a huge fan of Sonic. I love that little guy.

My dad built a woodsplitter, sold it, and we bought an Intelivision with Astrosmash and Football. F&$% the Atari 2600!

My first gaming console was the Sega Genesis. I remember playing tons of MK, Sonic, and Shinobi with my big brother. We got a Game Genie for Christmas, and I don't remember too much about it other than how fucking weird, and awesome it all was. Loved that Genesis.

@Mahonay said:

I started the typical way. NES with the Zapper, packaged in with the Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridge.

My dad brought me to Funco Land as a birthday surprise and bought a used NES bundle. It was a shock to me as my mother was incredibly adamant about me not playing video games (she still is to this day, actually). Thanks dad!

That's usually how it goes. Dad is always the best when it comes to introducing you to things that mom doesn't want.

Play station 1 with NFS:HP3 thinking the opening intro was the in game gfx and having no memory card to save so leaving tekken 3 on for 2 weeks with all the characters unlocked. Only having a mono tv and my dad thinking the red cable was like some super HDMI shit that we needed so we went to a store and they sold us an RF converter... Oh the late 90's

NES. Xevious.

Fuck.

A secondhand SNES, along with Super Mario World and Super Mario Kart.

I used to swap games with my friends and get to play new games every few months (or whenever we got to see each other). However, I once swapped my copy of F-Zero X (for the N64) to one friend for his Mario Party and never gave back my game (which was a 7th birthday present!).

Amiga 500 playing North & South with my brother!

The first console I actually owned was a GameCube. But my family owned consoles before that, so my first gaming memory would be on our SNES. Playing Super Mario World would probably be my first memory, and having an awesome time with that.

On a side note, I specifically remember my brother's friend bring a copy of a Mortal Kombat game over and my mum not allowing me to watch them play because it was too violent for me. Haha.

My first console was an Atari 2600. I remember playing Combat, Pitfall, Q-bert, etc. Boy, games have come a long way.