1st console you owned?

[Jeevan | 8,907]

18 hours ago, DorkOverlord said:

My first console was an Atari 2600 (Vader). My mom bought it at a garage sale with a bunch of games super cheap in the mid 80's. I was actually kind of sad when she gave it away to the Salvation Army once I got my NES a few years later.

 

I re-bought a Vader a couple of years ago and have most of my childhood games now. 

had a similar experience with the purchase of our 2600.  we got it at a yard sale when I was in kindergarten loved it!

[MegaMan52 | 2,439]

24 minutes ago, croagunk said:

My first handheld console was the Game Boy Color, and my first TV console was either the GameCube or PS1. My GameCube is my top favorite console.

Nice. The PS1 and GameCube are both such awesome consoles!

[glazball | 168]

Odyssey^2 - I guess my parents thought the keyboard made it more computer-y, and it did teach me the basic qwerty layout.  Loved me some K.C. Munchkin.  The system was a bit outdated when I got it and it was a year or so later that I finally got the console I wanted (and everyone had), the Atari 2600.

[twiztor | 847]

On 9/28/2021 at 1:10 PM, MegaMan52 said:

The NES was both the first game system I owned and played. It was, is, and always will be my favorite video game system.

same. my younger brother and i got one for X-Mas '87. it was the only console we had (he ended up with a GameBoy at some point) until i purchased the n64 (my first big purchase after i got a job!) in '96. i shudder to think how many hundreds of hours that NES ran for, and how many nights we left it on to not lose our progress. 

[LutherDestroysTheGond | 690]

Our family had my mom's Atari from before I was born.  We played it on a black and white TV and I didn't know Atari games were in color for a long time.  

In like 1991 or 1992 my Dad bought a NES on layaway with Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt for the family.  We slowly got used games from garage sales and flea markets, which were pretty robust back then in my area.  Eventually, I saved up chore money and was able to buy Zelda 2 new from Toys R Us from the Classic Series Line.  This was the first game that was mine only.  Since it was the Classic Series, it was a gray cartridge and I did not know that there was a gold cartridge version of Zelda 2 until I was in college in the late 2000s. 

A few years later, we got a SNES and my older brother was gifted a Gameboy for his birthday.  He reluctantly shared it with me and I was gifted a few games over the years.  We eventually got a Super Gameboy and that's how I experienced most of the Gameboy games we had because my brother stopped sharing with me.  

A few years after that, I got a Gameboy Pocket with Pokemon Blue for my combined birthday/Xmas gift.  This was the first handheld that was all mine.   This was 1998 right after Pokemon Blue first came out.  I got a paper route around this time and was able to start buying my own games.  I eventually bought myself a Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, DS, PSP, etc. over time when I was working.

Over the following years, we received various home consoles over but they were all for the family.  The PS1 (which was more for my dad than us kids), the N64 for an Easter surprise, and a Saturn off of family friends.  These didn't get played with very much because we didn't have many games and within a year or two of getting them my brother and I pooled our paper route money to by a Gamecube at launch. 

A year or two later my Grandma bought herself a Dreamcast that was heavily marked down on clearance (maybe $30?) with clearance games that stayed at her house.  She would play Bust A Move and Wetrix and other puzzle/casino games when she was home alone but when we came over we had a small stack of games that we all played.   Yet again, not mine but for the family.   

When my dad left our family a few years later, he got us kids a PS2 to try and make us feel better.  I played it a little but never really got into it.  It was more for playing PS1 games since my uncle had stolen ours and sold it for drugs a few years prior. 

Eventually, when I had graduated high school, my Grandma called and asked if we wanted her Dreamcast as she was going to sell it at her church garage sale if we didn't want it.  Initially, me and my siblings all said no.  A few days later I called her back and said I decided that I would take it.  I figured it would be good to take to college with me. It was a day or two before the church sale so if I had waited it would've been gone.  Technically, that Dreamcast was my first console that was mine outright.  I played the crap out of it.  My roommates were not a fan of the grinding motor.  I still have this same console. 

In the late 2000s I found a TurboDuo at a flea market that I purchased with games.  This was the first home console that I bought outright for myself.  Shortly after this, I bought myself a 3-in-1 console that played NES/SNES/Genesis cartridges and I barely touched the Duo.  The multi-console was a piece of garbage.  

For other consoles that I owned outright:  Later on, my wife bought me a Xbox 360 slim on Black Friday one year.  I barely played it, it was our Netflix box.  I also bought myself a Wii U at some point.  Also in the late 2000s/early 2010s, I found an OG Xbox, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Sega Cd, and PS3 for cheap eventually over the years on craigslist/garage saling/flea market/etc.  

[MagusSmurf | 577]

SNES with Super Mario World and Mario Paint, followed by Super Mario All Stars a few weeks later.

[Sumer | 221]

Coleco Gemini...Coleco's knock-off/clone Atari 2600.

It just showed up one day, probably in 1984 or 1985 with a bunch of games.  My dad must have gotten it through Random House, as they were selling it with a slew of games as long as you joined that Random House club, like their tape or CD club.  However, our Gemini was "badged" differently from the normal Random House one, so it is still a bit of a mystery where it came from.  My dad, who is 76 this year, can't remember a thing about it or where he got it.

Anyway, we just called it the "Atari" since it only played 2600 games (remember, this was not the ColecoVision).  I have told this story before on these forums, but, at the time, I don't think I knew that Coleco made anything other than the Gemini, but then we went over to our babysitter's house and he had a ColecoVision...and we played "Smurf" in all of its ColecoVision goodness and we were blown away.  I was pretty mad that my Coleco couldn't play the same games as his Coleco and had a rough time understanding it all!

Anywho, that Gemini is long gone.  My mom sold it in a garage sale circa 1990 or something like, as we were full in on the NES by that point (which we obtained in Xmas 1987).  I do remember enjoying the Gemini's dual joystick/paddle controllers compared to the separate ones from Atari (which we had spares of those too).

Oh, and playing 2600 on a black-and-white 13" Zenith was a right-of-passage back then!

Edited October 5, 2021 by Sumer

[Strikezone1 | 154]

NES. Xmas of '89 IIRC.

[Quaze | 342]

Atari 2600, followed by NES sometime later.

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

Honestly don't remember. Unlike many people here, I was born in to an era in which emulation was already very much a thing, which is how I experienced the vast majority of 8 and 16-bit games early in my gaming career. If I had to really think back to the first actual console I ever laid my hands on, I want to say it might've been a Super Nintendo, but I'm honestly not 100% sure. Thinking back to my early early childhood, it could've been an SNES, or a Genesis, or a PS2 (My step-brother Hayden had one which I played once in a blue moon) or an N64, maybe even one or two more possibilities I'm forgetting... I've been surrounded by video games my entire life which makes it very hard to pinpoint the first actual console I played. But if I had to throw out a guess, I'd go with SNES. I hope it is anyway, since it'd be fitting that the first console I ever touched would end up being my personal favorite, haha.

[G-type | 2,476]

My first computer (TI-99/4a) used cartridges... so it was basically like a console.

after that, I got a 2600.

First console I bought myself was a Virtual Boy. $24.99 on clearance at KB Toys, and the games were like $4.99 each

[ScaryD | 235]

The first console I had was an Atari 2600 (Heavy Sixer). My parents bought it for my brothers but I played it until I was six or seven. My Dad wouldn’t buy me a NES until it broke. I was so glad that day finally came since several of my friends had NES’s. I think the only reason it died is we accidentally put an incompatible game in the system. Years later I got that system from my parents house and clipped the leg off a chip and got it working again.

[RH | 4,882]

First Family Console - 2600

First, personal console - Game Boy

First, personal console I bought - Game Gear

[T-Pac | 7,509]

I got a Gameboy Advance SP in middle-school.

I can hardly imagine a better introduction to "console" gaming for tweenage CasualCart. And at the time, I had no idea that most of my favorite games were actually ports of 8-bit / 16-bit classics.

-CasualCart

[Tanooki | 4,929]

On 10/7/2021 at 5:15 PM, CasualCart said:

I got a Gameboy Advance SP in middle-school.

I can hardly imagine a better introduction to "console" gaming for tweenage CasualCart. And at the time, I had no idea that most of my favorite games were actually ports of 8-bit / 16-bit classics.

-CasualCart

True, not just because of it, but what it could also do and was exposed to.  There were a good many SNES conversions and ports, then there were a number of 8bit NES/Famicom releases too.  And then there's the entire GB/GBC library as a choice pretty much as well.  So much choice from a few formats, it's hard to think of a more capable way to get started.

[O.G. CIB | 415]

My first system was unfortunately the Atari 5200! with Star Raiders in 1986. I was WTF mom why not Nintendo??? That was my only game for years and I hated the system.
 

When we move to Florida 1988….. she said she would surprise me with something big (surely an NES)….. nope a Sega Master System.  Smh gaming was doomed for me until I met the neighborhood kids that had an NES. I was one of this kids that had a Turbografx-16 and no Nintendo or Sega system.  If it wasn’t on sale and cheap it wasn’t happening. 

[Renmauzo | 1,196]

My first console was the NES. I'd played the 2600 a bunch at the sitter's house, but wanted an NES sight-unseen...there was just a vibe about it in the mid/late 80's.

So my and my sister's birthday comes around (4 days apart) and we're surprised with an NES which we were over the moon about, but my Mom got the basic set with no pack-in opting instead to buy a copy of Q-Bert. Now don't get me wrong, I like Q-Bert, but I was like, "This isn't Mario...was there no Mario?"

I wouldn't go on to try Super Mario Bros. and then Super Mario Bros. 2 until 1990. The silver lining was that, back in the 80's when Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa came out, there was this misinformation going around (I would learn years later looking it up online) that imported copies were being tagged as 'Baby Mario'. When my Mom saw that at our local rental store (shocking to think a small town rental place would carry imports), she asked the owner to buy it and she paid $80CAD for the Bio Miracle Famicom cart. I went some 21 years thinking this game was actually called Baby Mario, lol.

I wouldn't get an actual Mario game until 3, but Bio Miracle is an awesome game and I wouldn't do it differently even if I could go back.

[AstralSoul | 502]

NES was my first console that was mine. I got it for Christmas in 1989 with Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt. But the first console I ever played was Atari 2600 which was my dad's with Pitfall likely being the first game I ever played.

[Webhead123 | 675]

The first game console in my household would have been a used ColecoVision that my parents bought for me sometime in the winter of 1985/86. They also bought an Atari 2600 sometime later in '86 but Coleco came first and I remember playing a ton of Donkey Kong and Looping.

The first game console that I bought with my own money was a Super Nintendo, which I purchased on December 26th, 1991. That console would change my life forever.

[Capn_RDM | 9]

  My family's first console was the Intellivision but we only had a couple games and quickly moved on to the NES which took over my childhood.

[Kguillemette | 1,542]

A VTech Socrates. A very early form of Edutainment. In fact, I still have the beast in my basement! Just need a TV to hook it to. The Talking cartridge used to freak me out. Something about having a creepy robot voice telling you if it's the right answer or not was too much of a burden for for a small child like myself to bear.

[inasuma | 1,202]

I believe My family owned a SNES first? Although the first console for solely me would probably be my atomic purple game boy with Pokémon yellow.

[Sumer | 221]

On 10/24/2021 at 4:49 PM, Kguillemette said:

A VTech Socrates. A very early form of Edutainment. In fact, I still have the beast in my basement! Just need a TV to hook it to. The Talking cartridge used to freak me out. Something about having a creepy robot voice telling you if it's the right answer or not was too much of a burden for for a small child like myself to bear.

Haha!  We had a Socrates too!  I think we got it the Xmas after we got the NES, as my mom and dad saw my brother and I were "video game-crazed" with the Gemini/Atari and NES...and not to mention the constant hours in the arcades we went to.  So, they wanted an "educational system" to give to us to play on the side.  I think we only ever played it once or twice...that thing got thrown out quick.  

[RH | 4,882]

On 10/24/2021 at 4:49 PM, Kguillemette said:

A VTech Socrates. A very early form of Edutainment. In fact, I still have the beast in my basement! Just need a TV to hook it to. The Talking cartridge used to freak me out. Something about having a creepy robot voice telling you if it's the right answer or not was too much of a burden for for a small child like myself to bear.

 

10 hours ago, Sumer said:

Haha!  We had a Socrates too!  I think we got it the Xmas after we got the NES, as my mom and dad saw my brother and I were "video game-crazed" with the Gemini/Atari and NES...and not to mention the constant hours in the arcades we went to.  So, they wanted an "educational system" to give to us to play on the side.  I think we only ever played it once or twice...that thing got thrown out quick.  

Not my first console, but we had one of these. I loved that thing. Never got the BASIC cart for it but I wish I had.

[NostalgicMachine | 227]

Sega Genesis Model 2, January '94 for my 6th birthday.

I got Aladdin and Super Wrestlemania and I couldn't have been happier.