Pifall man. It all started with pitfall and the pacman games in the local Pizza Hut. From then on I was hooked. I have owned the following systems since then: Atari 2600, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, Gameboy, Game Gear,Gameboy Color, Gameboy advance, PS1, PS2, Xbox, 360, PS3, PSP, and Vita.

I'm not as old as some of you, but my Dad was a teacher and in the mid 80s he used to bring home his department's BBC Micro (for the benefit of those of you in the States: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro) for the duration of each school holiday, so I 'learnt the trade' playing Frogger, JetPack, Chuckie Egg & more on that, In fact my school also had one on which I learnt BASIC (and quickly forgot once I discovered girls) and in 1988ish I actually chatted to some fellow school kids in the States via a contraption called a 'modem'. Occaisionallly Dad was able to pinch the art department's Apple Macintosh (yes, the original), not many games for that but we were able to draw pictures with this crazy device called a mouse, and you could use, like, FIVE* whole colours!

I had spells of going to freinds' houses to play their 2600s or Sinclair ZX81s, my first gaming machine of my very own was a second-hand Commodore 64 (RIP Jack Tramiel) bought by my mum one birthday, but my fondest gaming memory remains to this day the day I took six months-worth of saved-up paper-round money into town and bought a brand-new SNES with Super Mario World, the smell is what remains with me the most and is the memory node in my brain that is triggered every time I crack open the celophane on a new game or new peice of tech!

Since then I've had Sega Megadrive(Genesis), Gameboy, Commodore Amiga 500, Playstation, N64, PS2, PSP, Wii, PS3 and Vita. (plus various PCs but never really got into that as a gaming platform)

I'm not one for nostalgia and generally find fond memories of childhood are often best left as exactly that, that goes for TV shows as much as video games!

Bizarrely I did once have a week playing almost nothing but what I think was a CalicoVision in around 1994, I went on a school exchange trip to Germany and the family I stayed with had one in their basement, given I had the MegaDrive at that point I found the experience pretty hilarious but quite a lot of fun!

*That's a guess, I can't actually remember how many colours.

Much like others I started on an Atari 2600 then moved to a NES maybe a year after it came out and loved it. I think I was the first kid to get a NES in my group of friends so that was always fun. I had a GB too of course and seriously loved that thing, it was amazing to have my own game machine that I could play anywhere at anytime. I then stepped up to a Genesis and it was always the school yard debate which was better then Genesis or the SNES. My mother actually bought my Mortal Kombat launch day and I remember a friend at school had the blood code and I wrote it on my arm but of course had it memorized because I was sooo excited to get home and try it.

I really wanted a Lynx, TurboGrafx, TurboDuo, Jaguar and of course NeoGeo but never got those.

I wanted a Saturn pretty bad but skipped it and started to move to PC FPS gaming around that time. I had a Virtual Boy for a brief period and really wish I had held onto it. I later got a saturn just to have it and own a copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga which is pure minty. I got an N64 launch day and Mario64 blew me away and I would play that game for endless hours. I didn't get a PS1 until FF7 came out and that pushed me to get it and I played that an PC gaming together. I eventually got sick of FPS games and gave up on PC gaming. I got an import Dreamcast at launch and loved that thing, Sonic Adventure looked and played like nothing else at the time.

I didn't get a PS2 until I think whatever GTA game it was, san andres? I had an Xbox maybe a year before my ps2. My Gf at the time bought a GC at some point, not sure where that falls into the time line but we had that too. We had Nintendo DS's at launch but never got the updated models. I got a Wii at launch and a Ps3 maybe a year after launch and never had the urge to get a 360.

I did at some early point pick up a Sega Nomad for really cheap and I love that thing but it is a serious battery eater ha. I also got a NeoGeo Pocker color and that was a really solid handheld, I loved the clicky d-stick thing it had going on but just not very many games. I got a PSP star wars(White Vadar) somewhere around its launch. Then I got a 3DS Zelda limited whatever which I like well enough, I like having handhelds laying around. I really want a Vita but just can't justify the price, I want a price drop and a hardware update then I will pick one up.

I still have pretty much all my systems which is nice, I want to get them out on some shelfs one day instead of in boxes buried in closets. My ps2 and Dreamcast are hooked up to my old 32" trinitron though.

I am sure I am missing something though, so many systems and so much time overlap between them all.

My path is pretty well documented, but here it is anyway in chronological order:
- Atari 2600
- Atari 5200 (first console purchase with my own money)
- Apple //C (][C or 2C)
- Sega Genesis
- Sega CD Add-on
- Sega 32X Add-on
FU Sega for dropping all Genesis/CD/32X support two months later
- PS1
- PC Gaming (until about 99)
- PS2
- Dreamcast (about a year after they ceased production)
- PSP
- PS3
- XBox 360
- Wii
- Nintendo DS Lite
- Sega Saturn
- Atari 7800
- PS Vita
- NES
- Wii U
- Xbox

2600/NES games

Still have around a Sega master systems, Sega Genesis, Sega Game Gear, NES, SNES, N64, PS1, PS2, PS3, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advanced, GameBoy SP, Gameboy DS, GameBoy 3DS, and PSP.... Largest of my collection is about 50 NES games.