Tell us about gaming in your country

[Kerotan]

Ireland:
As a kid people mostly played the ps1 and the gameboy. I think the colour version was the rage back then. Everyone in school talked about Pokémon, crash bandicoot or spyro.

Ps2 came along and took over. All types of games and i noticed some adults even thought it was cool to play. Gba was still played but near the end of the ps2 days it was almost exclusively kids much younger than me.

Psp came out and about few people I know got it but most of them were either forgotten or sold for a 360 or ps3.

So ps3, ds, 360, and wii all come out. 360 took a big early lead over ps3 as the online was good but the ps3 was also way too expensive. Add to that killer games like halo 3, gears of war 1, cod taking off on it and the gta 4 deal. Somehow the ps3 eventually made a comeback to become slightly more popular by the end of the gen. That pissed me off because my friends were split 50/50. This was the gen I realised it was cool for adults to play. Both from making online friends who were much older and seeing it around me.

Ds was super popular and my parents ended up buying around 10 between all my sisters. But every kid had at least one of them. Wasn't cool for anyone i knew but kids to play it but everybody knew what it was. Like the gameboys before it.
The Wii was huge here for 3or4 years. Every second tv ad was about it and everyone had fun with it. Adults buying for their kids ended up enjoying it for themselves, old teenagers at partys and of course kids. My sisters at the time loved the mario games, kart racing among the Wii sports games. Was a huge success here but strangely faded away and is now largely remembered as " oh yeah we used to have so much fun with that thing".

Finally this gen. Wii u launched had a lot of ads but bombed big time. Don't know of anybody with one and the ads for it have disappeared. The 3DS was popular but from talking to kids nowadays and seeing them in general they all want an ipad or an iPhone. Costing their parents an initial fortune but the fact games are so cheap is probably winning parents over. Plus an ipad in the house becomes the mother or fathers best friend and a handheld could never do that. Safe to say the DS hype has shifted to apples side.

The ps4 and x1 launched. Thankfully everybody is know or have talked to either have or want a ps4. I'm sure there are a few with an xbox 1 or a few who want one but the ps4 is seen as the cool go to console so you only see these people talk about it or upload a picture of it to Facebook. That's the snowball effect right there and pretty much covers 16 year olds plus. Now from chatting to my cousin who is 14 he says it's really annoying because at school everyone is fighting over which is better and his friends are divided. So that leads me to think the 360 left a more lasting effect on young kids who their first main console was the 360. Everyone else who experienced the ps1 and or 2 is going with the PS4.

But again I find my little god son asking me if I have a ps4 and it seems the new generation who previously only played a Ds as a kid is now going towards a playstation apple ipad combo.

That's my 2 cents on this country. I read a statistic a few years back that said Ireland has the highest ratio of consoles to population.

We also have a ton of game developers based here and a lot of tech like havok developed here too.