The first console I ever bought with my own money was the NES. Saved up Birthday and Christmas money until I could afford one. As with the Atari 2600, a lot of the games were pretty lame, but some were awesome. I used to play Nobunaga's Ambition with my friend all the time. Final Fantasy (1) blew my mind. Anything with ninjas was awesome and the sports games were more fun then than they are now. I never liked Mario, however, and found it boring.
Then I got an SNES. Traded some skateboard parts to a rich kid for it and a few games. Zelda was fantastic, but the rest, including another Mario game, kind of left me cold. A lot of the games weren't all that different from the NES. So many platformer and platformer variations that I started to get really bored with gaming. Luckily, even though I'd stopped caring about buying new games, I went with a friend (same one I played Nobunaga with) to a used game store. Saw Final Fantasy 3(VI), remembered the first FF I'd played on the NES, and picked it up on impulse. That was the single most important moment in gaming for me. However, I couldn't find anything else like it, so I got bored with my SNES again.
Then the PS1 came out and felt light-years beyond the SNES. I still remember where I was when I first saw the Final Fantasy VII commercial. With that, there was no doubt which console I would buy. I didn't regret it in the slightest, either, as I enjoyed the PS1 about 10x the SNES (except for FFVI). Suikoden, Final Fantasy Tactics, Gran Turismo, Soul Blade, Alundra ... the PS1 made me into a gamer.
The N64 never had a chance with me. I barely remember it existing. Everything just sounded the same, while the Playstation had all this new stuff. Honestly, the way Nintendo relies so heavily on the same old franchises has always turned me off. Then the GameCube came out and it looked so goofy, while the PS2 had all these RPGs and fighting games and racing games and just about EVERYTHING. Again, with me, it was no contest. Got a Dreamcast, too, which marked the first time I had more than one console in a generation. It's library was just so damned cool from the start.
Reading through this thread I've noticed a lot of people who insult anyone who switched from Nintendo to anything else. Seems really petty and conceited, if you ask me. I switched because I liked what Playstation offered better, end of story. If anything, I resisted at first because I had felt "loyal" to Nintendo. Not having Final Fantasy kicked that loyalty in the head and threw it out into the street, though. Nintendo didn't have what I wanted but Playstation did. If that bothers anyone, too bad.
