Your console chronology

[the King]

What was your first console and how and what order did come to accumulate so many games?

For me as a kid I finally saved up enough money and got myself a Nintendo Entertainment System. Sometime in middle school I remember taking all my NES stuff to Funcoland to trade in and get a Sega Genesis. This process happened again with my Genesis to get a Playstation the summer between my senior year of high school and first year of college. This is about 3-4 years after the PSX came out, but at that time like most 16-18 year olds I was more busy chasing girls then playing videogames. Obviously in college that continues, but you need something else to do instead of going to class. One of my roommates had a N64 at the time, so were all set. Lots of late nights after partying of playing Goldeneye and Mario Kart 64.

Then my sophmore year I was dating a girl and went back to her hometown for the weekend and down in her parents basement, there it was. A original NES. Well, that NES came back to Kalamazoo with me and thus began my retro collecting. Soon I bought a Genesis again along with a Super Nintendo. My roommates and I would go to Funcoland weekly and I'd always pick up a couple NES, Genesis or SNES games on the cheap. About this time the Dreamcast came out. Wasn't terribly interested in it at the time, but ended buying one used before the PS2 launch and loved it. Got a PS2 on the second shipment and then got a Gamecube at launch, etc. AT this time I went a little crazy and got my hands on a Sega CD, Saturn, Sega Master System & Turbo Graphx 16. The only one of those I still have is the Sega Master System. Recently, I've gone more for a quality over quantity. Got rid of the systems that didn't really get any play.

So, I went Nintendo to Sega to Sony and then crazy. No loyalty really there, but my first and favorite console is the NES and I still have the one that got me in retro gaming.

[Zerodash]

Until I was able to buy my own stuff, my family had:

Atari 2600 --- TI-99 --- Atari 7800 --- NES --- Genesis

After that point, my love for games (and parental pressure) had me working all kinds of jobs, after which I would buy whatever console I could afford:

Sega CD --- 32X --- SNES --- Saturn (at launch, this cost a fortune for a teen!)

By college, I had to scale back my gaming for obvious reasons, but managed to scape enough up for hardware:

PS1 --- N64 (gift from family for getting into college) --- Dreamcast

I will never forget getting the Dreamcast at the midnight launch when I was in college. I "missed" two days of classes thanks to the DC!

After school, I "grew up" and got my career going, and started buying up all the consoles I ever wanted in the past or present (have around 45 right now). It's cool, but getting a new console just doesn't feel the same now. I feel more "attached" to the systems I bought when coming up with the money was often a matter of eating ramen for weeks at a time!

[Hatta]

1980 - Birth
1987 - NES
1990 - Genesis

Around 1994 or so I pretty much lost interest in console gaming, and played PC games for the next 5 years. Until...

1999 - Dreamcast!

Around that time, I happened to find an INTV-II in a thrift store for next to nothing. Wow that opened my eyes to the history of gaming. Shortly after I started collecting Atari stuff. I also got a big lot of C128 stuff at a university surplus sale... $20 for a lot that would get at least $200 today.

I ended up just ditching the C= stuff when I left for college in 2000, the rest of the games went in storage. I emulated a lot for the next few years, and played a shit ton of Nethack.

Like Zerodash, I've put together a collection of just about everything I want since getting out and getting a job. And yeah, getting a new console or computer isn't quite the experience it was. After a while, the stuff you haven't bought yet, well there's a reason you haven't bought it yet. Still, I find myself spending more time with consoles I wanted but didn't get back in the day. I guess I like the mixture of nostalgia and novelty from using old stuff that's new to me.

[dsheinem]

Sometimes there are long years between acquiring consoles, other times just a few short months....but based on the first time I had one of these consoles of my own to play:

C64---TI-99---Atari 7800---Genesis---Sega CD---32X---PS1---PS2---|interest in retro gaming begins|NES---Dreamcast---N64---Saturn---SNES---Gamecube---Wii----PS3---TurboDuo---Jaguar---Odyssey2---360---2600

and portables:

GB---GameGear---GBA---PSP---DSL---DSiXL

[Hatta]

C64---TI-99

That was a bit of a step back, wasn't it? I know the TI-99 has a pretty impressive CPU for it's time, but not much RAM, crappy slow basic, and pretty limited software support.

[dsheinem]

C64---TI-99

That was a bit of a step back, wasn't it? I know the TI-99 has a pretty impressive CPU for it's time, but not much RAM, crappy slow basic, and pretty limited software support.

These were basically simultaneous. My grandfather had a C64 that I used to play on quite regularly (enough that I feel I should count it), but we had a TI-99 at home at the time as well. This is all very early in my memory and I am not sure if he had the C64 or if we had the TI-99 first, but I do remember being quite impressed by his set up compared to what I had at home and playing both around the same age (5 or 6). Of course he also had a TI-99 and I also fondly remember playing Parsec with my grandmother at their house. In any case, I had two solid options from an early age

[Limewater]

1982: Birth
Christmas 1988 (approx): TI-99/4a
Christmas 1992: Family got an NES
1996 (approx): My little brother bought a gameboy. I helped him pay for it, and played it a little.
1997 (approx): My little brother bought an SNES. I played it some, but still mostly played NES
2002 (approx): I helped a lady fix her computer. She gave me one of her kids old gameboy colors as a thankyou.
Fall 2004: I bought a friend's original "indigo" model Gameboy Advance for $25.
Fall 2006 or Spring 2007: Bought a Nintendo 64
Around the same time: Bought a Sega Dreamcast
Early 2008: Bought a gamecube
<some time in between>: Found a 3DO at a thrift shop.
Spring 2010: Bought a PS2 slim
Fall 2010: Bought an SNES

[Bradtemple87]

To the best of my memory:

(neighbor kids had nes) -> genesis -> snes -> ps1 -> gb pocket -> gb color (launch) -> virtual boy (clearance bin) -> gba sp -> ps2 (fat) -> gamecube -> xbox -> dreamcast -> n64 -> psp (launch) -> ps2 (slim black) -> ds (fat) -> ps2 (slim silver) -> ds lite -> 360 -> ps3 slim

[YoshiEgg25]

N64 (1997) -> Game Boy (1998) -> GBC (1998) -> GBA SP (2002) -> GameCube (2003) -> DS (2005) -> Wii (2007) -> [BEGIN RETRO INTEREST] -> PS2 (2010) -> Dreamcast/NES (same day) (2010) -> [JOIN RACKETBOY] -> Game Gear (2010)

This isn't counting the two extra Dreamcasts and GameCubes I've gotten.

[Balasubbie]

1989- Commodore 64
1994- SNES
1995- Sega Megadrive
1997- Nintendo 64
1997- Nintendo Gameboy
1999- Nintendo Gameboy Colour
2000- Sega Gamegear
2000- Sony PSX
2001- Sony PS2
2001- Nintendo GBA (I won this from a teletext competition, fun times)
2004- Nintendo Gamecube
2007- Sony PS3
2007- Nintendo Wii
2009- Nintendo DS

Wow, I feel disgustingly materialistic.....and lucky, mostly, if not entirely, lucky. Felt the need to include the brand of each system for some odd, entirely aesthetic reason.