Genisis and SNES. I was the only kid on the block who owned a Genisis. GO Sonic!! Bring back the 2D sonic! No voice acting!

Now I have a PS3 and a Wii. I prefer my PS3 because of the games I have and will have. Not much of a Xbox fan, Mass Effect looks good but reminds me of shooter-type game more than an RPG IMO.

I joined in the SNES vs. Genesis era....problem?!

I was, I don't remember, 7 or so years old at the time? I do have a memory in which someone came over to my house, friend of my brother, 14 or so years old.

Me: Hey look, I just got an SNES! Final Fantasy 2 is so much fun!

Him: The SNES sucks, the Genesis is more powerful anyways.

Me: What's the Genesis?

Him: Sega's console.

Me: Who's Sega?

Him: You're dumb

And he walked off. That really hurt my feelings. The second I started gaming, I met my first fanboy. Of course, I went on to buy the Genesis, and even a bunch of other Sega consoles, even the freakin' Nomad. But that's my first experience with an irrational fanboy. I was very confused...

Hmm I am really surprised you guys didn't noticed the Genesis then.

If you walked in a store you saw games for Snes and Genesis.

On every magazine you read things like 'Sonic is better than Mario' or ' Mario is better than Sonic'.

April 06, I saw the Wii-commercial for the first time, I loved it...

Later, the same day, I was involve in a conversation with a dumb Sony fan boy, who was trying to convince me of the falling of Nintendo and the 1000 years of Sony domination...

I cant avoid taking sides, in the beginning I wanted a PS3 too, but since the "You wont need your PC anymore", the Dev cost, the price, the BR imposition, I doesn't love the PS3 anymore... I don't hate it either, I just don't like the product and the strategy behind it...

I remember being that big brother.  This is just reminding me of how close I am to turing 30 blah!

I hardly knew anything about videogames when I was 7. I was mostly into PC games, which are seen as incredibly obscure nowadays, like Sky Roads. That was one of my favorite games until I was 10 years old.

When I first heard about the Xbox I was the only one in my group of friends who was excited to see it. I had no qualms with Microsoft in anyway and I kinda felt the more the merrier in the gaming market. I was bummed to see sega die and even though when I was young i hated sega I loved the Dreamcast.

Plus I have been a fan of Microsoft Game Studios for a number of years. I think the first one of their games i played was Fury3 on my uncles old pc.

I was mostly on Nintendo's side when I was young, because to tell the truth I never heard of anything else that it.

In the PS/Nintendo 64 era I heard of the PS but still sticked to Nintendo because of their franchises.

At the GC/PS2/XBOX era, I had a GC but later, when the price dropped, I discovered FFX at someone's house and decided to get it with a PS2. I loved the games on it.

Now I have only have a DS Lite, (probably) plan on getting a Wii... I'm still not 100% sure. But one thing I know is that if I'm not getting a Wii, I won't be getting anything else. It will be my end of console gaming.

Last words, I think this time Nintendo made a wonderful handheld and console that both change the way of gaming.

The stuff we see nowadays between console loyalists is way beyond the stuff I noticed growing up.

But I noticed the difference in the Sega Genesis/Super Nintendo/and all johnny-come-latelies of the early 90's phase.

But even then at least in my area it wasn't all that hostile. Some people liked Sega more than Nintendo, some liked Nintendo more than Sega, some liked TurboGrafx-16 better than both, and then there were those poor Jaguar souls (Lord help 'em).

I used to live in an apartment complex in my teens. Upstairs I had NES and later a SNES. Downstairs my friend had a Genesis and later a Sega CD. We played often. He came up and played my Nintendos and I went down and played his Segas. He brought his Genesis upstairs to me at one time. I might have brought my Nintendo down to him at one time. There was no ego involved and all this hate. We enjoyed each other's systems.

I loved playing some baseball game I think it was 'Sports Talk Baseball' and stayed long hours playing it. Loved playing Flashback on his Genesis too. And I absolutely loved Sonic CD, the music and cartoon cutscenes were excellent. I felt some games may have been more suited controlwise for Genesis like Street Fighter II while some were controlwise better on SNES like Mortal Kombat.

He used to come up and play SMB3 & SMW along with other games of the NES/SNES like Double Dragon & Pro Wrestling. And man all the kids in the neighborhood came over to have endless SFII faceoffs at my house! For hours on end.

We just played what we enjoyed and let people like what they liked. That's how it was in my neighborhood anyway. I was 15 in 1991 when SNES & Genesis were out so maybe that had something to do with it. I didn't take it so seriously. It's just games.

Even when PS1 was out when I was an adult I went over to my friend across town's house and played Bushido Blade (LOVE that damn game) and the original GTA (totally dug that concept) along with other PS1 games of the day. I used to bring my N64 over every week and we'd play the hell out of Goldeneye and those THQ/Asmik/AKI wrestling games from World Tour to Revenge to WM2000 to No Mercy. A friend even brought over a Dreamcast and we played his system. Ahhh Shenmue...None of this hate going on.

I guess I didn't see the rift for real until I started talking about games online in 2005. It was strange to me how personal people took this thing and how much they'd fight about it. As far as I was concerned the word "fanboy" came from that old Freakazoid show from the 90's. I never understood how that got so commonplace.

As a matter of fact I'm STILL stranged out by some of the discussions people have about this gaming thing. They take it way too far.

John Lucas