LOL! I remember those days. I had the Genesis and my buddy had the SNES. His Mortal Kombat had no blood and gore and mine did.

Golden age isn't about sales. It's about how good the generation was from a gamers POV - 7th is probably the worst generation since the 3rd gen.

Gotta go with the 4th gen, but it probably shows my age more than anything else.

If you weren't there you won't understand, but this was a huge jump in game quality/visuals/everything/etc.

The Genesis and SNES were miles ahead of the last generation. The TG16 was this quirky system that never got as much love in the US, but had some great exclusives. The Lynx was amazing at the time, but the game selection was definitely Atari. The Gameboy didn't look nearly as good as the Lynx or TGExpress, but it had a bunch of decent games.

We even had the ultimate powerhouse gaming system with the Neo Geo. You could actually play the exact same game at home that was in the arcade. Incredible for the time, but the price was astronomical! A ~$700 system and games that cost ~$150-300! That is insane even in today's prices.

Your favorite gen is probably the one you the one that occurred when you were a hooked gamer. You saw that system and/or game and it was incredible, something you had to own.

the age before the shooter parade. Then we got a wide variety games and genres

For me it was the 6th gen. Let me explain a little. It started (in North America) in 1999 with Sega Dreamcast. Even though it only lived about 2 years, it had great JRPGs and that Sega magic. Then in 2000, to kick off the first turn of the melinium in gaming... PS2 was released and took storm in gaming to become the most successful. Had a built in DVD player and online was pretty good. In late 2001, Xbox and GameCube were released to the scene. They both had amazing games. i just thought also that GBA was awesome and the generation as a whole

Gen 7 was the best in my opinion. The industry was breaking records and we were still getting amazing games throughout the generation.

Oh good, I'm not the only old guy on here!

Oh God!  Remember all the hysteria about Mortal Kombat?  "This is going to turn our sweet, innocent babies into murderous deviants!  Won't somebody think of the children?"  Funny thing is, despite that generation growing up and turning out fine, the hysteria still hasn't stopped. :-/

Anyway... oh yeah, the topic!

For me, it was the fourth generation, and to a lesser extent the fifth.  I was a Sega kid.  Yes, that's right!  I'm one of THOSE people!  Sega does what Nintendon't, bitches!  Ok, ok... relax... put down the pitchforks - I'm just kidding!

In all honesty, I never got into the whole rivalry thing - I just happened to have a Mega Drive (Genesis), but Nintendo was awesome too.  In fact, the N64 is one of my all time favourites.

But my personal golden age was definitely the fourth gen.  Back when they couldn't just rely on visuals and dazzle you with graphics; games had to be fun!  I think this is why they have such lasting appeal.  The charm of graphics fades with time but fun gameplay stays fun.  I still play some of those old games to this day.

4th gen, with partial 5th gen coming in 2nd.

While the 3rd generation wasn't bad from where I was born around that era, the 4th through the 6th generations (including Arcade games/Pinball games) outshines it easily (as well as outshining the 7th gen).