When I was a child I felt I could only really support one console at a time, however since Gen 5 I have owned all consoles except GC. Just when I was young I had one at a time, because I couldn't afford games all the time

they all died a horrible death.

In all honesty, for me, I didn't move on to anything.

The N64 was the first console I had ever been able to buy myself, in late 1998, before OoT came out. I had had a 2600 in my very early childhood in the 80s, and later "grew up" with my NES, and got hand-me-down SNES by Xmas 1995. But the N64 was the first system I bought with my own money, saved up from a summer job.

I had given some thought to getting a Dreamcast in 2000 or so, because of games like Ecco, and MvC2, and Soul Calibur, and the sadly cancelled Castlevania game that I was interested in. But I never did get one. I eventually go a PS2 around 2004 or so, used for cheap from someone I knew, and gradually started getting a few games for it here or there. I never did actually buy a Gamecube for myself at all, as I had intended to when the GC version of Twilight Princess released, but then I figured "You know what, the Wii plays GC games anyway, so fuck it", and I waited to get a Wii (which I had to wait until Feb 2007 for one to even be available, because they were that in demand in my area).

All in all, that PS2 generation, I kind of "fell out" of gaming a bit. Which isn't to say I didn't still like games, or play them at all, I did. I just didn't really do much in the way of buying new ones for myself. I got Warcraft III and a couple other PC games in the early 2000s, but outside of that, I just wasn't as into gaming that gen, for various reasons. And any games that I was interested in, for PS2 or GC, I usually just checked out at one of my friend's houses. It wasn't until the Wii came out, honestly, that I really started buying games regularly again, though I had bought a DS Lite and a few games for that prior, earlier in 2006.



Overall, as of right now, I do own a pretty decent collection, with an NES (with the most games for that, near 100), a SNES, an N64, a Sega Genesis, a TG16, a PS2, a Wii, a PS3, my DS Lite, and the Wii U. The Wii U being the newest console I own, and only eighth gen one. I may eventually get a PS4 when it goes down in price considerably, and if there are several games for it I actually want, such as, say, if Elder Scrolls VI comes out and is actually good. But I don't know for certain that I'll get one, honestly, as I really don't like the mandatory "have to pay for PS Plus to play online" bullshit. That, alone, and the lack of backwards compatibility, really kind of turned me off to the PS4.

I would say, honestly, that a lot of it may well be that many gamers simply cannot afford to buy more than one console per generation. Or if they can, they get one as their "main", and then MABYE get a second console way down the road, when major price drops have happened.

I know I personally grew up pretty poor, so we simply couldn't afford to get more than one system. And even in my late teens, when I had jobs and money to finally buy my own, I still couldn't afford to have both an N64 and PS1 at the time. In my adult years, I did, as my prior post mentioned, get a PS2, but not till I found one used for a really good deal, and when I got myself a Wii, I didn't actually wind up buying a PS3 until 2009, when those suckers were STILL priced at $400 (still the old fax machine model).

So I dunno. A lot of gamers, especially ones with families and kids, but also many single peeps, just don't have the budget to support more than one console at a time, I guess.

For me, pc. The wii u was my first home console since the n64... not counting a second handle dreamcast with a load of games I grabbed for 10 quid.

Like I said, I grew up poor. My game collections were not large, and a lot of my current collection for most of the above named consoles was actually acquired in the past five or six years. During the days of the fifth and sixth generation though, game renting was still a thing, and I had both a Blockbuster and a Hollywood Video reasonably close to me. I must have rented Super Smash Bros over a dozen times for my N64. My family was still doing okay at that time though, so I actually had a reasonable collection of N64 and PS1 games as well.

With sixth gen though, I rented a lot. Xbox, Gamecube, and PS2. When Blockbuster hit the point where they'd let you buy rentals for X amount more, it was beautiful. It was how I got Animal Crossing and Tales of Symphonia, to name two noteworthy gets. I would go somewhere like Hollywood Video with $20 and buy three or four used games. I actually got Super Mario Sunshine and Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex for cheap back in the day and still have them. Gamecube was kind of my main system, if that wasn't obvious. :p I still rented tons of games for each system though, because swinging $7 a few times a month for a rental was far more feasible than swinging $40+ a few times a month to buy games. It was just a matter of being resourceful and taking advantage of whatever little extra money cropped up when it was there.

During seventh gen though, unfortunately game rentals died, and a lot of my game collecting was relegated to gifting holidays and the annual birthday. That was when I became a more intelligent game shopper and started heavily researching potential purchases.

This generation, I'm just a self supporting adult, and since my game tastes have narrowed quite a bit the past decade, it makes it easier to buy the four or five games a year I'm interested in. I only bought in on a PS4 as early as I have because I had the extra money and wanted to stay up to date on this generation more actively than I was able to last gen.

Edit: I should add, this generation, it really helps that I recently became a reviewer on a paid site. It doesn't get the big AAA games yet, but I still get my share of noteworthy releases for free while only having to do what I like to anyways (play games and write about them).

gamecube but also picked up ps2 and xbox

I grew up playing Nintendo games. I love their franchise, but eventually I had to give in and buy more than one console per generation in order to play all the games that were skipping Nintendo's ones.

N64 -> Gamecube -> Wii/Xbox360 ->WiiU/PS4

I went from N64 > PS2>Gamecube

After that went to 360 > PS3 (around 2010 as main console) > PS4 (Day One even if it gathered dust for a year) > Xbox One (May 2015) and currently own PS4/Xbox One.

I really hope the NX will be the console to bring me back to Nintendo.

Ps2