Ok, I won't be able to say when I got some of my hardware, and in other cases it can be a bit off, but let's see...
Sega Megadrive/Genesis, with Sonic the Hedgehog bundled_ 1992_ I remember the year because it was the same year the SNES launched here.
My first PC_ Around 1994 or 1995_ I don't remember much of it, to be honest, only that it had an Intel Pentium 200MMX and 2GB of hard drive that broke (Maxtor) and was replaced by anothe one of 4GB.
Second hand SNES, with 3 games including Super Mario World and Final Fight_ around 1996, maybe.
My second PC_ I think I got it in the late 90s_ I remember it had an Intel Pentium IV 2.4GHz and that after a few years we upgraded the GPU to an ATI Radeon 9250 with 256MB.
PSOne, the revision of the original Playstation_ I don't know when it happened, to be honest.
Playstation 2_ again, I don't know when I got it, but I remember that the first games we bought were Crash and Gran Turismo 3
A second hand Nintendo Game Cube_ Yet again, I don't know when it happened_ it came with Metroid Prime and Rogue Leader.
Nintendo Wii_ I got it in 2006, the year it launched
Microsoft Xbox360_ I got it around 2008, when Gear of War 2 launched with a bundle that included both Gears of War games.
My third PC, and the first one where I choosed all its components and build it myself_ Around February of 2010_ It featured an Intel i5 750 and an AMD HD 5850. Years later, around 2013, the mobo failed and I had to replace both the mobo and the CPU with the ones I still have, an Asus Z87-Pro and an Intel i5-4670K.
Nintendo Wii U_ Bought probably around 2013_ It's probably the only console I regret purchasing.
Not really a new PC but an upgrade of sorts of the one I had in late 2016. The main change was the replacement of the failing AMD HD 5850 with an Nvidia GTX 1070.
... Yeah, that's mostly my gaming history, at least when it comes to my consoles and PCs.
Please excuse my bad English.
Currently gaming on a PC with an i5-4670k@stock (for now), 16Gb RAM 1600 MHz and a GTX 1070
Steam / Live / NNID : jonxiquet Add me if you want, but I'm a single player gamer.
I didn't like video games when I was still a young child. I wanted to play outside most of the times, but my two younger cousin who lived just a short street away from me, liked 'playing Nintendo'. My aunt was an avid gamer at the time and she was really into the NES and SNES, dragging my cousin into the same interest. Her second child was still too young, but he would suffer the same fate soon enough, around the release of the N64. Whenever I came over asked for him to come play outside, they were playing Super Mario Bros, and I left with disappoint.
One day though, my cousin asked me to come and 'play Nintendo' with him instead. I didn't know the difference, I was 5, but my aunt actually had two; the NES, and the just released SNES. She wouldn't let us play on that shiny new console, and she set up the NES for us in a room upstairs. My one year younger cousin picked an orange gun from a box and popped in a game. It was Duck Hunt. This game was easy to play, and I liked the dog who laughs at you for failing to shoot any ducks. The game proved to be extremely addicting. And over time when I came around asked for him to come play outside changed into asking for me to come up, and play Duck Hunt. As a kid though, time feels slow, and things seem like a long time, but change in my behavior probably wasn't longer that mere days.
One fateful day, I'd come down the stairs into the living room and my aunt was playing something on the SNES that caught my eye. A game where she was fighting enemies in bright fields, tall mountains and dark dungeons. Her character was a boy clad in green holding a sword and shield, and the enemies were monsters, one bigger than the next. She said I'd like this game, and reset the SNES to start a new file. She handed me the controller, and the game started with the most awesome thing I'd ever seen. As I stepped outside the house to unexpectedly witness the pouring rain and hear the ominous music my mind was blown and since that moment Zelda has remained my favorite series in all of gaming.
As we grew older we were allowed to play my aunt's SNES more and more often, and the NES fell into disuse. It was moved to my grandmother's house where it served many more years with us playing more Duck Hunt, but also Super Mario Bros. 3 and the blackbox Soccer game whenever we were there. My own mother took notice of my growing interest and dug up her own old console from the 1970's, a Videopac G7000 (Odyssey2 in the US), and dusted it off for me to play at home. This opened my mind to fact that there were other manufacturers than Nintendo who made video games. The one game I loved to play was a shooting game, the first shooting game I ever played, where two players are cowboys in a duel. Such an old game even then felt extremely simplistic, and I understood it was far less advanced than something like Zelda, but it still very fun to play.
My new stepfather was interested in technology, and halfway through the '90's, he bought us our first home computer. A Macintosh Performa, and the keyboard and mouse brought with it whole new possibilities. He bought a single game along with it; Star Wars Rebel Assault II. It was my first game on a computer and my introduction to Star Wars. I loved it, I loved the live-action cutscenes, loved the gameplay, loved the action and loved the fact that it came on a disc which was very interesting to someone who was used to the fact that games were large plastic cartridges. More games would follow, SimCity, SimTower, an obscure but great puzzle-platforming game called Step-On-It! and slew of educational games and my interest in PC gaming began to grow. My parents had a bunch of more mature games for themselves which I wasn't allowed to play. Among them Dark Forces, Duke Nukem, Shadow Warrior and Wolfenstein 3D. I wanted to watch them play Wolfenstein though, and at some point they allowed me to play it and Dark Forces.
When on vacation though, I had nothing to play, and I didn't really feel like making friends just for a vacation of a week or two, so at some point my parents bought me a GameBoy with a stack of games. Gaming on the go, that was amazing. The games were simple however; the Mario game wasn't much like Super Mario Bros. 3, and the rest were basically break-out clones (though fun ones like Alleyway) and of course Tetris. There was also a game starring a pair of apes collecting bananas and fighting crocodiles which was good, but it was too hard for me. Meanwhile, the SNES generation came to a close and my aunt talked about how she pre-ordered the new advanced gaming system where you could play games in 3D, as if it were real life. Pre-ordering was a new new thing at the time, and as it turned out it was a better idea to wait and just go to the store. One day, my stepfather came home with the N64, which he managed to snag up on release while my aunt who pre-ordered had to wait a week more because supply couldn't fulfill demand.
We had two games; Super Mario 64 and Star Wars Shadows of the Empire, obviously catering to my liking of Nintendo and my newfound love for Star Wars. Both were great, and Mario 64 felt like revelation. The game was so sharp and bright, you had unparalleled freedom and each level was unique and lively. Everyone in my family played it to no end. The N64 would grow into the most popular console in my family, and the collection of games I have for it is still the biggest of all my consoles. GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Mario Kart, they all added to it's greatness. Mario Kart 64 in particular was a popular game to play together. At this point this was probably the happiest time of my family, when everyone was together. The game has a high feeling of nostalgia for me, and it's irreplaceable as the game we all played together the very last time everyone in my family was together, although this was already well into the GameCube era.
One series though, even though I hadn't played it in a while, was still on my mind and news came that it was finally about to get a new game. I was never and have never been as hyped for anything in my entire life. As the internet was still in it's baby-shoes, I had to rely on hearsay and the occasional glimpse in magazines I was unable to have. I needed this game, and after learned the title I drew pictures of it's logo showing it to everyone in the hope someone would buy it for me. I didn't know what an 'Ocarina' was when someone asked me, but I didn't care. Finally the game released, and I begged my mother. She had already gotten the hint, and a month later when it was Sinterklaas (a Dutch holiday like Christmas for children), I unpacked a present that was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The game did not disappoint. On the contrary, it was perfect. Absolutely perfect. It still is, perfect. And that same box with it's perfect contents is on a shelf in my bedroom right now.
We started branching out. Because the Mac didn't get many new games we got a Windows PC, and more or less simultaneously a PlayStation. On PC I started trying every game could get my hands on and found a whole bunch of new favorites like Anno 1602 and Theme Hospital. On loved the games where you could build stuff, any stuff. On PlayStation we got more adventure games like MediEvil and puzzle-games like Kula World where you're a beachball navigating floating platforms looking for a key to the exit. This was the Golden Age of Gaming. Everything was good, everything was inspired, everything was a new experience and aimed for new frontiers in technology. There has never been such a time before, and never been such a time after. Those of my generation and older will understand.
Yet everything comes to an end, after the N64 got a bunch more excellent games, it became apparent that PlayStation became the go-to console. My playtime on GameBoy was revived though with the release of Pokémon, which I got addicted to for quite some time. For the purpose, I got a GameBoy Pocket and not long after a GameBoy Color when it got a Zelda game (I didn't know it was actually a rerelease of a Zelda game that already existed on GameBoy itself). A generation dawned once more, and the first screens of the SEGA Dreamcast were unlike anything on N64 or PlayStation yet. It was the first SEGA console I had, though I did know of the company's existence because a friend from school had a Mega Drive. For a brief time, a handful of classics were released on it, and the greatness of SoulCalibur made it so nobody in my family was really interested in getting a PlayStation 2, because it didn't seem like it could do anything better than Dreamcast could. Nintendo revealed their next console, the GameCube, but something was off.
The Golden Age was over.
I waited with the GameCube, I didn't ask for it to my parents, and I didn't want to spend my saved money on it. The reveal of the Zelda game for it also disappointed me a bit. The Wind Waker didn't look like it would be as great as Ocarina of Time was, or Majora's Mask for that matter. When it released, my aunt, who interest in gaming had greatly diminished as well by now, bought it and a GameCube for my youngest cousin. My oldest, who I had played so many hours of Duck Hunt with, didn't care anymore, his gaming days were done. My aunt also bought the new Mario Kart, but it wasn't Mario Kart 64, and the nostalgic family-time wouldn't return with this game. The Wind Waker was still fun enough though, and when the GameCube was slashed in price mere weeks later I bought one from the money I saved up, with The Wind Waker, Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario Sunshine and Mario Kart. Super Mario Sunshine didn't live up to Super Mario 64 like Mario Kart and Zelda didn't to their predecessors either. This generation it seemed like the drive for new experiences and innovation was gone and my interest faded.
Attention turned to PC, which got bigger and bigger games at the start of the new millennium. New SimCity games, Call of Duty, which was the best representation of World War II, a new interest of mine, I had yet seen, personal evergreen Rollercoaster Tycoon and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. That game turned me off consoles for some years, it was so great, I couldn't imagine anything so epic being possible on console. It was also perfect, but Ocarina of Time would still remain at the top in my head, and hope hadn't been lost yet for something that was as great as it. Late into the game I got a GameBoy Advance for the SNES remasters it got like Yoshi's Island (which I had briefly played with my aunt years earlier) and A Link to the Past. I used to think Ganon in that game was impossible to beat, but on GameBoy Advance I could finally do it. Because I missed out on much on the system though, I did go down in history as a disappointing offering by Nintendo, like the GameCube.
Just when started to forget all about console gaming for good, news came of new systems. the Wii by Nintendo which would feature motion control and the PlayStation 3 which would be in HD. My stepfather was intrigued by the latter, while I was by the former. Nonetheless, it's reveal also revealed the next Zelda game, looking like a real successor to Ocarina of Time. Soon after release my stepfather bought the PS3, while the Wii was nowhere to be found. I dusted off my GameCube however, and got Twilight Princess. The game was great, and rekindled a part of my love for console gaming. The games on PS3 looked awesome and were almost like movies. A new gem we found was Uncharted, with lighthearted humor and fun action sequences. The real new addiction though came in the form of a bunch of plastic peripherals and yearly releases of Guitar Hero. I could play those games game every day. Finally Wii was readily available and I got it, Twilight Princess again and Mario Party 8 along with the packaged Wii Sports. Wii Sports was fun to play and seduced people who wouldn't normally play video games to play something with me. Mario Party 8 would briefly become a new game I played with my cousin and a new Golden Age seemed imminent, but it wasn't meant to be. Not everyone was there.
My interest shifted back from PC to consoles, and interest in the handhelds was restored with the DS, which had a good Mario Kart, interesting Zelda games and Professor Layton, which was surprisingly challenging in a fun way. I started trying out new things again, and widened my gaming interests. I started looking back to past systems and tried to rebuy games and systems I used to play, like the NES, of which my aunt's original had been lost to time and try out older systems I never had such as the Atari 2600 and the Mega Drive. Following the Wii, DS and PS3 it was natural to proceed to WiiU, PS4 and 3DS and I did when time felt right. WiiU was a disappointment, but the quality of the 3DS kept my faith this time, and PS4 is a natural evolution of PS3. Today there's plenty of games to play, and a lot I like, though the current generation has become a bit stale like the 6th generation did after innovations in the 5th. The WiiU and 3DS have since been upgraded to the Switch with the greatest launch-title since Super Mario 64 in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, in anticipation of what the future brings.
Early '90s: Played on my aunt's NES and SNES 1995: Got our first home computer; a Mac Performa 1995-1998: Interest grew in PC games and mother dusts off her 1970s G7000 (Odyssey2), for me to play 1997: Got N64 and GameBoy 1998: Got Windows PC and PlayStation 1999: Got Dreamcast, GameBoy Pocket and GameBoy Color 2003: Got GameCube and GameBoy Advance 2003-2007: Interest in console gaming waned and shifted towards PC 2007: Got PS3, Wii and DS 2011: Got 3DS 2011-present: As interest in console gaming restored, started rebuying past systems I used to play or owned 2012: Got WiiU 2015: Got PS4 2018: Got Switch
(thinks)..... saw the wheel invented.... then we just got electricity... i kid.
it was the late 80s when i had an atari 2600, and was hooked from then on, especially when i got my first NES.
feeling lazy today to list each one by each year, but i have had every nintendo console and handheld since the late 80s, early 90s. and sega console and handheld, even the 6 battery gamegear, what a nightmare if you had no ac adapter. same with sony playstations, and xboxes.
early 90s, first pc had dos and win 3.1, played wolfenstein a bunch then, and other BBS games i could get for free. later on used heat.net and played tons of quake 2 multiplayer and CTF.
1989: PC (i80286, VGA Graphics card, 2MB RAM, 40MB HDD, MS-DOS 6.0 with DosShell 1990: NES 1991: Gameboy 1991: Sega Master System 1993: 2nd PC (Am486 DX40, S3 Trio SVGA Graphics card, 16MB RAM (later expanded to 92), 400MB HDD, Windows 3.0 (later upgraded to 3.11 and finally Win 95SE)) Still working btw 1997: 3rd PC (166 Pentium MMX, Matrox Millenium GPU, 128MB RAM, 15 GB HDD, Win98 (later upgraded to Win98SE) 1997: Gameboy Color (used by my dad at work during downtimes, didn't know he had one until 3 years later) 1999: 4th PC (Pentium III 450Mhz (those are actually just rebranded Pentium II 450), NVidia Riva TNT (later replaced with a TNT2 M64), 256MB RAM, 100GB HDD, Win98SE) 2000: 5th PC (233 Pentium MMX, Matrox Millenium coupled to a 3DFX Voodoo 2, 192 MB RAM, 40GB HDD, Win98SE) Bought from a friend to finance his marriage 2002: Gameboy Advance (same story as with the Gameboy Color) 2004: 6th PC (Athlon64 3000+ (Socket 754 sadly), GeForce FX 5500, 1GB RAM, 400GB HDD, WinXP) 2004: Gamecube 2005: SNES (bought with 30 games for 40€) 2005: PSOne (given for helping moving out a friend) 2006: N64 (My mother's second husband's old console) 2007: Wii 2008: PS2 (same story as the N64. He actually hated both because he only likes 2D Jump&Run, so I basically traded it with my old NES) 2008: DS Lite 2009: EEEPC Netbook (for work - and retrogaming)
2009: Sega Megadrive
2011: 7th PC (Athlon 2 X4 635, ATi Radeon HD 5770, 4GB RAM, 1TB HDD, Windows 7 Ultimate 2014: Wii U 2017: Switch 2018: 2nd Laptop (Core i7 7700HQ, NVidia GeForce 1050Ti, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD+1TB HDD, Win10)
All the handhelds I had twice
Edit: Forgot the Megadrive
Last edited by Bofferbrauer2 - on 08 September 2018
Besides that I frequently played on some arcade machines (f.e. 1942 + Outrun) and a lot of pinball machines. At my best friend's we were often allowed to play with his Atari VCS (Pong, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Q*Bert, Atlantis, Frogger, Jungle Hunt, Defender, Pitfall, Moon Patrol and Pole Position) when the weather was bad... otherwise we had more fun playing outside without electronic gadgets.
Late 1980s:
At 14 I had saved enough money for a Commodore 128 + 1571 floppy drive + Commodere 1702 color monitor + an Epson dot matrix printer (of course I needed it for school!).
Additional to the color monitor (much clearer picture than the old TVs) i bought a TV-receiver so I got independant to the family TV.
Here is a ~30 year old "blast from the past": two pictures of the desk in my old room in 1989 (the photos aren't well preserved unfortunately):
The C128 ran mostly in C64 mode, but I loved to program in Basic 7.0 these days, so the additional expense wasn't a waste. Numerous text adventures and especially Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken had sparked my love for the adventure genre (still my favorite genre) and since most games didn't have a German translation, my English skills improved quite fast.
While reading the test of "Indy 3" in the PowerPlay 10/89, I made the decision to save money for my next computer: an Amiga 500. I couldn't even think of a sinfully expensive PC at that time. I didn't had a sponsor in my family for home entertainment, so I had to buy all my electronics myself (including my stereo, walkman, discman, VCR, TV...), but that's okay.
Early 1990s:
When I finally had the money together, Monkey Island and Loom were already released. So I bought an Amiga 500 + 1 MB memory expansion + Commodore monitor 1084 S. Later I "pimped" my A500 with further upgrades (f.e. two external floppy drives, a turbo card, another 8 MB RAM, a Kickstart-Switch for different ROMS were added)... perhaps I should have started with an A2000 in the first place
I often played Super Nintendo and Mega Drive with my friend and was even allowed to lend these systems and all his games for weeks... my favorites were the Donkey Kong Country games.
Mid 1990s to present (PC):
The next impulse for a new computer was given again by a LucasArts adventure: Day of the Tentacle (and Wing Commander, which was playable on the Amiga thanks to the turbo card, but not really fluid). My first PC was a 486 with 33 MHz + high-quality 15" monitor (the image quality was always very important to me), later the CPU was upgraded to 486 DX4/100 MHz.
This was the beginning of the hardware spiral, especially with the graphics cards I was always up-to-date: I bought the first 3dfx card (Orchid Righteous 3D) right at launch, then Riva 128, Riva TNT, Riva TNT 2, GeForce 256 DDR, GeForce 3, GeForce 4 Ti 4600, Radeon 9800, Geforce 7800 GTX, the almighty 8800 GTX, GTX 275, GTX 460, GTX 580, GTX 970 and GTX 1070.
Due to smaller performance gains I don't change my CPUs that often since my first dual-core, also the bottleneck shifted from CPUs to GPUs decades ago: 486/33, DX4/100, AMD K6-266, Celeron 400, Celeron II 875, Athlon XP 2000+, Athlon 64 3400+, Core2Duo E6600, Core2Quad 9550 and i5 4670K.
Monitor replacements got even fewer: after a 17" monitor, the Iiyama VisionMasterPro 501 (21") had served me well from 1999 to 2007. From mid 2007 to early 2018, the Dell 2407WFP (24" with S-PVA panel, 1920x1200), supported with a 120-Hz Acer-monitor from early 2011 to early 2018. My new main monitor is a HP Omen 27 (G-Sync, 2560x1440 @ 165 Hz), my good old Dell was downgraded to secondary monitor and the Acer was an upgrade for my brother's PC.
Here is another ~20 year old "blast from the past": a picture of my PC room in 1999:
And another 10 year old "blast from the past": a picture of my PC room in 2008:
And another 6 year old "blast from the past": a picture of my PC room in 2012:
Mid 1990s (consoles):
Parallel to PC, I had and still have a lot of fun with all the consoles and handhelds. I played Atari VCS and SNES before (see above), but my first own home consoles were the PlayStation (1) and the Nintendo 64... actually I bought both together with two friends and everyone got his turn. Eventually, both systems and all their games ended in my place, because both friends focused on PC gaming and lost interest in the consoles.
My PS1 is still connected to my good old "black trinitron" Sony CRT in my retro room and ready to go (alongside all my other "pre-HDMI consoles"):
But nowadays I prefer playing PS1 games on a much smaller screen: my Vita.
Late 1990s/ Early 2000s (consoles):
I have to admit that after the 5th gen I wasn't very interested in console gaming for a while... I had more than enough great games to play on PC.
I never bought and played a Dreamcast (I'm playing Shenmue 1 for the first time right now). I never bought a PS2... but I borrowed another friend's PS2 months (I have such great friends when I think about it!).
In April 2003 Nintendo brought me back: I bought a "GameBoy Advance SP Silver" for a planned long vaction (my USA West coast trip). It included a €50-coupon for buying a GameCube:
The GC was already cheap at that point, but thanks to the coupon I got the black "Metroid Prime" bundle for only €144 (including the console, the game, shipping and taxes).
In March 2004 the original Xbox followed... I bought the pretty "Crystal Edition":
Mid 2000s to present (consoles):
After that I bought all handhelds and home consoles, beginning with the awesome PlayStation Portable in April 2005. Similar to the GBA SP, I bought it for my second USA trip (the East coast this time). Since it was region free, I imported the "PSP Value Pack 32 MB" for a very good price (€150 instead of €249) from Canada and got it months before the European launch.
In November 2005 the Xbox 360 was my first console I bought on launch day and IMHO it had the best selection of launch games in console history. I preordered it in the next "Saturn" market and waited together with a big crowd in front of the store until it opened.
In November 2006 the Wii was my second console I bought on launch day. Since i didn't enjoy the "experience" of waiting in the cold the previous year, I preordered the Wii and "TLoZ: Twilight Princess" in a small toy store in my home town and picked it up after work... much better! All hardware after 2006 was ordered online and delivered to my home... even better!
When the PS3 launched in Europe in March 2007, I was going to wait for a long time... too few exclusive games, since I already had the Xbox 360 and a good gaming PC. But just three months later, I got it as a free bonus to a very attractive mobile phone contract. Over the years it has replaced the Xbox 360 as my favorite 7th gen console.
In December 2008 I bought a black Nintendo DS Lite to catch up on the best DS games and fell in love with two third party series: Professor Layton and Ace Attorney. Wasn't impressed by the hardware compared to my good old PSP, but the games were fun nonetheless.
In the summer of '69 2010 I got another great mobile companion: my first iPad. I love that form factor, it is great for point & click adventures (my favorite genre, see above). A lot of good games were ported to it, especially in the first years, and the software prices were wonderful (in-app purchases weren't a thing back then. The Infinity Blade series and some other games were technically impressive and well suited for touchscreen input. Over the years I added a few other tablets (Windows, Kindle Fire, Android), but the iPad series is still my favorite.
2012 was another handheld year for me: i bought my first PS Vita (OLED, 3G) in February and the 3DS XL at its launch in July. The original 3DS had a lot of design choices I didn't like and I'm glad that I waited for the XL-version.
In the last week of January 2014 both the Wii U Premium (Nintendo Land bundle) and the PS4 (Killzone bundle) arrived at my home.
In 2015 I added a PS Vita Slim and an Xbox One to my collection.
In October 2016 the PlayStation VR opened my eyes to a new dimension of gaming, one month later my PS4 was replaced with a PS4 Pro.
As a new VR fan, in 2017 I bought an "Oculus Rift + Touch controller" bundle in the "Summer of Rift" (first big price cut)... also a PS Aim controller together with Farpoint.
Last October I finally bought a Nintendo Switch... I was planning to get the red "Mario Odyssey" bundle, but then got a good deal for the normal red/blue version and the pinkish Xenoblade Pro controller. This year a LAN-adapter, a 200 GB microSD card and a Zelda controller for guests completed my Switch setup.
