I am just curious what people's experience was when they first saw different game systems in stores, or elsewhere. Like, your first videogame system you bought and so on. My memories go back to prior to this midnight madness sales and camping out. And these are memories I will look back to. Just curious what other people had.
My experience:
1. The NES. I go into KMart and see the NES behind a display. It was $250, and came with ROB. I saw games I remember seeing in the arcade. I was used to joystick controllers being the norm, so I ask the clerk where the controllers were and they pointed to the joypad. I go HUH? THOSE THINGS? How in the heck do they work? I did eventually get an NES, and played it, finding that the joypad was pretty good, except for Pac-Man like maze games. Wow, talk about sore thumbs though. The corners on the original NES pad were sharp and took getting used to. Oh, and there was the third party days. My brother telling me a detective game called "Wolfhound: Sherlock Bones" was coming out. Buying both MUSCLES and Chubby Cherib, and thinking they were decent at the time.
2. The Sega Master System. I remember seeing it in a Wards I believe or Sears. They had it set up. I thought the graphics were WAY better than the NES at the time. It was expensive though. Seemed real cool. One my other brothers got it as a gift for Christmas. We played it, had fun with it and the NES. And we were lucky enough to have a local video rental store actually rent Master System games. Oh, and then there was the original Phantasy Star we bought. Seemed EPIC at the time. I would still say it probably holds up even today.
3. The Sega Genesis. I read about it in a videogame magazine. Word about it coming out. Wasn't sure when. Well, I had finished a LONG session of SNK Baseball Stars on the NES and HAD to get it. Baseball Stars was rented and became I must get. Well, I go out to Toys R Us to get it and BLAMMO, there is the Genesis in all its glory. I get Baseball Stars and pick up the Genesis and a few games. I think three actually. At the time, Altered Beast was AMAZING, and Thunder Force II was downright incredible. That was a wow experience for me. Then it was months of enduring dry spots for games before the third-party hit. But, I was pumped about it. Had some disappointments, but Madden impressed back then. And then Herzog something or other was mentioned by someone (funny name) , and I ended up getting it, to find that Herzog Zwei was just plain awesome.
4. The Atari 2600. My mind is a bit blurry. I saw the system at someone's house and we played it. Also at Radio City Music hall. Wasn't able to get one, but my parents did get me an Atari 8bit computer. First the Atari 400, then the Atari 800XE. Had hours of fun with that.
I have had more memories of other systems, but these stand out the most actually (as can be seen by the Atari 2600, the mind was blurry on when I saw it first). My experience goes back to prior to what they do now, where they have everything down to a finely polished marketing machine, with orchestrated buzz, and advertising and partnerships all over.
Anyhow, anyone else have experiences on their first experience seeing or buying different videogame systems?
Probably a lot of memories would be like the Lexus ad that featured the Atari 2600 (games received as gifts):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDbL3S8DHa8
