I'm from the 3rd gen. There wasn't a particular genre. Every kid in my neighborhood would jump from Super Mario to Contra to Double Dribble to Shadowgate and Tecmo Bowl. We didn't care. We just figured out the rules, jumped in and had fun. I always played everything.
Now there was a time when I fell pretty hard for motion controls, open world games, music games, etc but those usually lost my interest after time. I would usually go back to the tried and true. I used to buy a lot of FPS games despite disliking the genre. I think I had more FPS titles on PS1 than anything else at one point and it kinda disgusted me. I didn't like them very much but I kept buying games like Medal of Honor and Quake II.
I guess fighting games (well, Street Fighter, at least) and third person action/adventure will always have my heart. I haven't changed much.
