What era of gaming did you grow up in?

[Paul_B-C]

My friends always had the SNES and Mega Drive, which I was really envious of growing up. I remember playing Battletoads in Battlemaniacs and Yoshi's Island at a friend's place and being amazed! (of course, Mario 64 was a revelation a little while later)

Eventually a couple of years after the PSX came out I got one for a birthday with Crash Bandicoot 1, and I've been going ever since then.

[kingdomheights777]

I remember the first day I watched my uncle play super mario bros / duck hunt, i was around 6 years old. I was just in awe of it, but I truely loved them when the SNES came out!!

[the7k]

I was around for the very late NES era, but never owned one. I simply had some friends that had an NES, and I'd go over to their house to play Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Mega Man, Duck Tales, Mario Bros, StarTropics, Tecmo Superbowl and Kung Fu. (Those are the game I can remember playing)

I didn't get full-fledged into gaming until right when the SNES launched. By sheer dumb luck, I got entered into a school raffle and won the SNES w/ Super Mario World. So, Super Mario World is definitely what hooked me into gaming.

I actually remember that back then, the raffle prize I really wanted to win was some dirt bike, and when I got the SNES I was actually disappointed. Thank God I'm not like that anymore.

[Nanten]

I was born in 1989. The first games I ever played were on the NES when I visited my cousin or these other two friends of mine who are brothers. The first games that I remember playing are Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, RBI Baseball, TMNT: The Arcade Game, and Operation Wolf.

Around Christmas of 1993, I got my first console: A SNES with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Tetris & Dr. Mario. Later, I got Super Star Wars, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Battletoads & Double Dragon, Super Mario All-Stars, and quite a few other games I can't remember that somebody later stole from me.

In 1999, I got a PSX and spent a lot of time playing a borrowed copy of Metal Gear Solid that winter, which is about where I'd place the end of the era I "grew up in." In 2000, I began to play RPGs like FF7, FFT, and the Legend of Dragoon, which marked a shift in the kinds of games I played in general. This has started to change more recently as I discover games I missed out on back in the day and collect old games I used to have.

So, what era did I grow up in? Basically, generations three, four, and five.

[IcKy99]

i was about 1 when my dad got NES from my mom for x-mas that was around 1990, so as soon as i was around 3 i could remember playing Mario/Duckhunt with my dad, i think we had GOLF, nintendo baseball, Pinball, TMNT and some other games, then around 94' my mom bought me a genesis so i had that for a year then 95' i got a snes and played both systems back to back untill 97' when i got a N64! then 98' i got a ps1 and 2000 i got a dreamcast and waaaay late into 2003 i got a PS2/Xbox but i sold that xbox to gamestop not too long after i got it.

so i grew up in the DEFINITIVE era of gaming

[Dig]

I was the youngest of four siblings, so my parents bought video game systems for my older siblings' enjoyment. That meant that an NES existed in my earliest memories and I remember an original game boy as a family Christmas present for long car trips. After that, my parents would buy new game systems from time to time whenever old models were at extreme discounts before the newer systems were released.

To wrap this up, I grew up out of sync with the gaming community such that our family only had an NES, Genesis, and a Game Boy up until about 2001. In the summer of 2001, I felt I was invested enough with gaming as a hobby that I skipped the N64/PS1 generation and purchased a fancy new PS2 with my hard-earned money.

[General Chaos]

This definitely depends on how you define growing up. I was born in the early 80s but unlike many of my peers I don't pretend to remember much from the 80s. I would consider myself a child of the 90s, video-game wise, at least. Nevertheless I certainly have fond (if vague) memories of the NES, and much clearer recollections of the Genesis and SNES.

I was also fortunate enough to have started PC gaming very early on in my life and many of those experiences probably define my gaming heritage more than consoles.

[superlarz]

I got an NES probably 1988 or so, it was back when the Zapper was still gray. Mario was nice, duck hunt probably got me hooked. Mario 2 was my my first real favorite game I have had. And then I got Mario 3 when it first came out. I still remember the commercial like it was yesterday. Mario....Mario...Mario... with all of the people and the camera zooms out and they make a Mario face. I was still pretty young when we got a Genesis, it was between Sonic 1 and 2. First game I really had there that i fell in love with was X-Men. I would have to say Genesis is probably the system I loved most, and because of that, all Sega systems have a soft spot in my heart.

The order of systems I owned new is
NES
Genesis
PSX
PS2
Wii
PS3

[Haoie]

16B. Go me.

[Raziel]

I was born in 1993, started gaming about 1996 when my mom bought a Russian Famiclone. I know it seems very weird, but if you consider the fact that Estonia regained indepence in 1991 from a 50-year USSR occupation, not so much. Economy was pretty much in shambles and my mom and dad didn't have high-paying jobs either. It's not like I was the only one, Famiclones were popular up to the late 90s. It wasn't until 2001 when I got a PS1 ( ) that I entered the world of 32-bit while missing the wonders of 16-bit (seriously, I didn't know jack about Mega Drive or SNES).

Great times.