When did this crap "toys vs real gaming machines/entertainment multimedia machines" get started?
I believe it was somewhere in 4th gen when Sega came out, and when other Nintendo competitors used coolhunting marketing aimed at teens. They particularly were appealing to teens, trying to increase their self-awareness in a specific way, they were trying to distinguish them from younger gamers by calling Nintendo "kiddy" and it's gaming machines "toys" (in addition to techy words like "blast processing" or so called bit wars like in "do the math" commercial etc.). In fact, it worked. Young people at this age are very vulnerable and excessively worry about their social position, and by any means they don't want to look like kids (though in fact they are). I know, these're blatant stereotypes but this kind of marketing worked, and it's pretty funny that this kind of mentality still lives on.
Here's one of typical commercials at the time:
