First console you ever had?

[Amonares]

Playstation 2

[Champ147]

Mine was Atari 2600 playing the heck outta the likes of Galaga, Centipede, Q-bert, and more. 

Then I remember getting the NES a couple years later since it was the newest greatest thing coming out of the great gaming crash of 1983 that almost eliminated gaming consoles all together. For those that don't know, and since I actually study video games for college, the industry went from a 3.3B dollar market to a 100M dollar market as it lost 97% market value. To get an idea how bad, look up the Atari game burial of 83. 

Anyway, that's my starting grounds and a little history for you young ones, especially those that started gen 5. 

[A_Tennis_Giraffe]

Mine was a Commodore VIC-20 (although I guess technically it's not a console). I really wish I still had it 

 

I then got a Gameboy Original so that was my first handheld console, and then a couple years later I got a Nintendo 64. I still have both and to my knowledge they both still work.

 

So I guess depending on what your definition of console is, it's any one of those! 

[colinnola]

Atari 2600 here, followed by a Sega Mater system and then PS1.

[saki]

I played a lot of consoles when growing up, but they all belonged to my parents. They/we had a NES, Super NES, Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast and Playstation 1. But I couldn't tell you which one of these I played first. 

 

The very first console I could call my own was the Playstation 2 (Slim).

As for handheld: PSP followed by the Nintendo DS.

 

I started playing on PS2 kinda late! I blame my parents who tried to persuade me to play with their Nintendo GameCube, which caught dust in the living room, because they didn't enjoy it either. I have to admit I never played it even once! ?

Edited April 5, 2020 by SaKi_Kazuya

[thefourfoldroot]

Commodore 64. Still have home video of my playing it as a very small child - some single screen platform game where I had to collect sections of a rocket.

[FireFoxie]

NES 

[shadowhood1111]

mine was either the Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis

[Raidou Kuzunoha XIV]

I honestly don't remember, it was either my N64, PS1 or Gameboy Color. My money is on the GBC, pretty sure I got an N64 after my PS1 as well. I've kinda been blessed with the fact I was an only child and never had to share my consoles, and my parents were fine getting me multiple consoles. I didn't have too many games as a kid though, but I had plenty of time for them so there were quite a few games I replayed and 100%ed. Now I have literally thousands of games and not enough time to play them.

 

I think the first console I actually bought with my own money was the Xbox One, when I was about 17-18. My father still got me my launch PS4 for Christmas.

[El Duderino]

My first console was the set pictured below. I've been playing games since around 1989, but my mother was against us kids having games in fear of seeing negative impact on school grades.

 

[sunnydaleAlumni]

 Pong Console sold by Sears. Got it as a Christmas gift...still remember how cool it was to figure out you could set the game to play itself  

[Taihou]

I remember having a PS1 playing Gran Turismo 2 on it and then getting PS2 for christmas I would say 2002 and playing the shit out of Gran Turismo Concept and Gran Turismo 3. That PS2 still works and I still play it from time to time

[StraightVege]

There were several different consoles hooked up in my living room growing up, but the first one I ever personally owned was the Sega Master System. Still have it in a cabinet.

 

My favorite game was Phantasy Star, which I could never finish back then.

[AJ_Radio]

Sega Genesis was the first console I had for myself. The NES was the first I ever played, but me and my 40 year old sister shared it when we were kids.

 

Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Toejam & Earl, Streets of Rage 3, Gunstar Heroes. Watching Doug and Hey Arnold on Nickelodeon, then tuning in to Family Matters with Steve Urkel and The Fresh Prince of Bel-air with Will Smith.

 

It was a great time to be a kid.

[djb5f]

We got the NES when I was young.  It was fun because what else did you have, but 95% of the games were so basic.  No depth, no replayability.  You bought a cartridge and so much of the time saw everything there was to see within an hour.  Even the “good” games like Super Mario Bro’s were artificial in that it forced you to play the early levels of the game over and over to see later levels.  

 

Kids don’t know how good they have it today.  It is a gaming paradise comparatively.
 

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by djb5f

[yellowwindow7]

don't know if I ever commented here before, but my first is the Atari 2600.

 

though the first console I ever played on was the MSX that one of my older brother's borrow it from a friend of his which we played on it Pinging Adventure, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Centipede, Grand Prix, Nightmare and a top down japanese survival horror game I forgot what was it called where your son have been kidnapped and you have to enter a haunted mansion to bring him back.

[Kasper2005M]

PlayStation 2

[ZandatsuRising]

A C64 from my brother

[Helyx]

First console was Atari 2600. First handheld was Gameboy (original).

 

First console I purchased with my own money was Game Gear.

[AJ_Radio]

9 hours ago, djb5f said:

We got the NES when I was young.  It was fun because what else did you have, but 95% of the games were so basic.  No depth, no replayability.  You bought a cartridge and so much of the time saw everything there was to see within an hour.  Even the “good” games like Super Mario Bro’s were artificial in that it forced you to play the early levels of the game over and over to see later levels.  

 

Kids don’t know how good they have it today.  It is a gaming paradise comparatively.
 

 

 

It was the same with television. The themes were simple and to the point. I'd rather watch Steve Urkel than watch most of these melodramatic Netflix and Amazon Prime shows filled to the brim with debauchery and hedonism. Sure, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was cliche, but it was memorable. 

 

Kids today live in an era of paranoia brought about by the age of information. Because people cannot magically become capable of comprehending or understanding all the information that has hit them like a storm, they are fixating over everything humankind has done wrong; wars, radiation, extinction of resources, diseases; and crises of food, water, electricity, land, air, morals, values, -isms, etc etc. Much of this has existed since the dawn of humankind, but the big difference between the childhood I had and what the children today are going through is the drastic change in technology. Anybody can just look up everything Trump did wrong and then just muddle their opinions. 

 

Simplicity can be a good thing. The kids I was with over 20 years ago weren't slaves to technology. The kids of today are in contrast, slaves to technology in more ways than one.

 

I was happy to have just a few games for the Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis. Nowadays I'm sitting with a buttload of games on both PS4 and on Steam and a quarter of the time I'm bored out of my fucking skull playing them. All while reading the news on the internet and my smartphone constantly getting updates from all the news apps I have on it.

 

I was grateful to be a kid when I was. I wouldn't trade that for anything, and I certainly am extremely lucky I am not a kid living in today's fucked up world.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Spaz

[thefourfoldroot]

C64. Although I was very young snd have few memories of it now: playing darts, collecting pieces of a rocket using a guy with a jet pack, and rolling around chopping peoples heads off in some Barbarian game...

[saiyanbloodstyle]

PS1 for me, amazing console.

[RunItsAShark]

For my 5th birthday party at the local Pizza Hut my parents put a giant box (to a 4 year old turning 5) on the table. It was the N64 which I got on November 22nd 1997, and little me never looked back since.

Edited September 28, 2020 by RunItsAShark

[Ghost_of_Ziggy]

Sega Mastersytem with Hang On & Safari Hunt built in.