What was your starting point as a gamer? What console? What games? What year?

Share your origin story!

A TRS-80 at home, and Donkey Kong, Dig-Dug, and Ms. Pac-Man in the arcades (1981-1982).

The first system I remember was a NES at various friends and relatives' places. Random titles that were fun but I wasn't attached to, notably Duck Hunt. My own first system was a SNES that I mainly played Mario and Kirby on. I started getting passionate about games when I got a GameBoy and Pokemon Red at a local pawn shop. Then a N64 with Mario Kart and Smash Bros. By the time I got a PS2 with Tekken Tag for Christmas I was fully invested. 

Played a bit of arcade and atari, but didn't care much for gaming. Until my great aunt bought me a NES with Super Mario Bros. Feel in love, never looked back.

With a GameBoy and a copy of Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3. All of it belonged to my older sister. She played with me...

I think it was either Sea Wolf II or Depthcharge - they are both from 1977, they are both about submarine warfare (just from different angle, in one you're controlling sub, in other destroyer), I know I played both of them as a kid in late 70s, but I'm not sure which one first.

Then it was arcades, arcades, arcades, all throughout their Golden Age ('79-'82) and a friend of mine had Atari 2600, so I've played a bit of that.

Around '82 I got Nintendo's Game&Watch Mickey Mouse and then in '83 I was introduced to home computers via ZX Spectrum (friend's) and C64 (mine), which changed completely how I looked at games and gaming from that point onward.

Step by step.
First I had Nintendo Game&Watch Rain Shower ca. 1984 (and later another such game by Gakken).
Then I'd sometimes get to play with friends and relatives on C64, MSX and Videopac/Odyssey2.
Then I rented Nes few weekends (SMB2, Mega Man 1, Punch Out).
And the true beginning of regular gaming was getting Master System 1990.
Another major step being first PC 1994 (a 386SX).

The first console I remember playing was my cousins ps1. Crash bandicoot 2, tekken 3, Croc and the die hard trilogy are the main games we used to play on it back in the day. Eventually we got a ps1 of our own the first 2 games we got were goofys fun house and donald duck quack attack.

I was born in 1983, so I don’t have a lot of memories before 1986/1987. I know my dad and my older brother played on the ColecoVision in the early 1980s, but I never experienced it. My first direct experiences with video games came via the NES and an early Macintosh computer — Macintosh Plus maybe?

I distinctly remember playing Dark Castle (1986) on Mac. And being terrible at it :P

And I distinctly remember watching my older brother play on the NES. He would play Kung Fu a lot. Eventually, I tried the games myself. I recall playing Mario Bros., Bubble Bobble, The Legend of Kage, Top Gun, and several others.

But it was only in 1991, when I was 8, that I really achieved ownership and agency with regard to video games. That year I received an SNES (the right choice) and a Game Gear (the wrong choice).

The Mattel Intellivision, which was a hand-me-down from my father, as well as arcades and my father's Commodore 64 (and all the games he had released in '84) formed some of my earlier gaming memories back in the mid 80s. Didn't get an NES until Christmas of '88 (nearly ten months after my eighth birthday), so those other things are what I had to play before then.