How did you become a Nintendo Fan?

[Chris Ticehurst]

Since we don't have a introduction thread this might be the next the best thing.

Back in the early 1990's I had a troubled childhood where I would wind up in hospital for a twisted bowl. I was about eight years old or so when I was there with a drip down my nose. I had a old Atari 2600 at home and there wasn't much to do sitting in bed all day. However there was a gaming room that introduced me to Nintendo with a old NES console. The first game I ever played was The Flintstones. I remembered it was a tough game to play but I enjoyed the graphics and would dash down the hallway with the drip stand on it's wheels towards the room when I was able to. I thought this Nintendo console was pretty cool and wished I owned one.

A few years later a neighbour of mine owned a SNES and remembered playing Killer Instant and seeing Super Mario World. I knew I wanted the console and soon enough over the years I would get my hands on a SNES console and late 1990's a N64 console where 3D gaming was the wow factor. As my late mum said "It's like watching a movie" - going from the Atari 2600 to the N64 was a big jump.

Now in 2021 and many Nintendo consoles later and hundreds of games brought I run my own Youtube channel about Nintendo and enjoy discussing about them - both the good and the bad about them. Being a gamer for 30 years has been a fun time, meeting people both in real life and online and seeing how the industry has changed.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

Liked their handhelds and sega shot themselves in ... Well, everywhere, so.

It's not like there's a huge other competitor for bright colourful games to go with

 

[Roger Rabbit]

I grew up as a handheld gamer, and when I was a kid, the only choice pretty much was Game And Watch. From that, I graduated to the Game Boy, as my allowance wouldn't stretch to a Lynx

 

[Yavga]

My parents had a NES at home and I don't really remember well but my parents made me and my brother rent a game during the weekends and I kept choosing Kirby. A few years forward my parents got me a gameboy and I got really attached to Link's Awakening even if I didn't really understand the game. I remember my preference got locked in with Pokemon Blue , Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time.

That never changed.

I will never forget the long roadtrips my parents took and me zoning out in the back of the car with my gameboy/colour/gba.

Oh and maybe it helped that everyone at school was addicted to Pokemon.

I'm 31 now and still prefer Nintendo games over anything although I don't always buy them at launch anymore (save for new Zelda and Mario)

 

[GamerJM]

I literally cannot remember a time where I was not a Nintendo fan. I grew up in a house that already had an NES and an SNES when I was born. Quite literally, my earliest memories are related to Nintendo. I remember my dad getting me to eat mushrooms as a toddler because Mario eats mushrooms. I remember when the original Pokemon games came out in the US in 1998 when I was in pre-K. I also apparently loved playing F-Zero SNES and intentionally crashing the vehicles as a toddler but I can't actually remember this. I never went through a phase where I thought Nintendo was uncool or lame or for children either, so I've been closely following everything related to Nintendo for my entire life.

 

[Twinsen]

SEGA died and all SEGA games were scattered around. We got a gamecube and an XBOX. Fell in love with Metroid Prime and windwaker. Also Halo in the xbox side. Good times.

Edit:

Liked their handhelds and sega shot themselves in ... Well, everywhere, so.

It's not like there's a huge other competitor for bright colourful games to go with

Heh

 

[Donnie]

I probably became a fan way later than most people here lol growing up in the early 90s, Sega definitely dominated where I come from. My very irst memories of gaming are on a ZX Spectrum but my first console was a Sega Master System, at school everyone had a Mega Drive, and after the Mega Drive, everyone pretty much had a PlayStation. I certainly didn't know anyone with a Nes or Snes and it was only really the N64 where at least some friends had one, in addition to their PlayStation. I had a Gameboy but it was very much a pokemon machine, I had maybe 2 or 3 other games and none of the classics. All of that to say, I was not born and bred on Nintendo lol

However, in my early 20s my parents passed along a Wii they had bought during the lightning storm surrounding launch. They had multiple controllers, a balance board, a bunch of games...and had practically never used it haha. And I quickly found I loved that thing! So many amazing first party games, you had access to so much back catalog availability I finally experienced classics like ALTTP and Super Metroid. I had just got my first apartment and friends would come over and throw themselves wholeheartedly into NSMB and Mario Kart. Just a brilliant time. So the Wii laid a big foundation but this was really all a lay up for...

The Wii U + 3ds combo. So cycle forward to the release of these consoles. I had spent a few years enjoying the Wii and building up a lot of enthusiasm for Nintendo's output myself and with friends but I now lived with my partner and we had a young kid and it was just a perfect match. My partner had been a big n64 gamer as a kid as it happens, but had basically never played a video game again and my kid was getting to that age that interacting with video games was viable but for all their strengths, (imo) the PlayStation and Xbox are just not that appealing as a family box. Games like Fantasy Life, Yokai Watch, Pokemon and ACNL were a joy to play alongside my partner, enough that we both ended up with a 3ds each so we could enjoy them side by side and interact and not just take turns. We would have a family Sunday gaming afternoon where we all playing Nintendo Land or Mario Kart 8 on the TV and yeah, just pure bliss. A lot of people remember the Wii U as a disaster and the 3ds as good but not as good as the ds but for me, these were formative years of our family unit and amazing bonding experiences.

So that's my Nintendo journey, I interacted with them intermittently growing up but very much had that experience of coming out of my teenage years and opening back up to fun instead of cool and found Nintendo. My kid sadly has been lost to Call of Duty Warzone because now he's in the cool zone but my partner and I are still massive Nintendo gamers and spend a lot of time together playing stuff. I have the other consoles, which I enjoy, but sometimes wonder why hah

 

[YolkFolk]

A friend who lived opposite me had a NES with SMB, Duck Hunt and Excitebike. Pretty much made me beg for my own since I thought SMB was amazing.

Ended up with a NES with SMB, Mega Man & TMNT at Christmas (shared with younger brother). It was my 2nd video game system after the ZX Spectrum.

Sadly there was a big fall out with this friend by the time of the N64. I didn’t really see him much anymore since we went to different high schools and I had moved house. One day we bumped into him and invited him round but he ended up stealing several of my N64 games including F Zero X. We politely asked for the games back but he became really abusive. Not spoke to him since.

This guy having a NES basically had a huge impact on my life. I’ve owned every Nintendo console (home and handheld) since and Nintendo games are my favourite form of any media.

 

[oni-link]

I grew up with friends who had Mega Drives, and really wanted one, however my parents picked up a NES (in 1995) from my babysitter for £30 and I ended up growing to love Nintendo games

Then I saw Mario 64 on Blue Peter back in 1996 and my mind was blown, I knew I had to get an 64 from that moment

Been a fan ever since. I actually only owned Nintendo consoles until I got a PS3 in 2011

 

[Clov]

Playing Duck Hunt on the NES at a friend's place was the first time I experienced a Nintendo game. Played all sorts of stuff on NES and SNES before I actually got my own Nintendo system, a Game Boy. From then on I was hooked!

 

[Donnie]

Then I saw Mario 64 on Blue Peter back in 1996 and my mind was blow, I knew I had to get an 64 from that moment

Haha this is such a quintessential experience for a certain age group from Britain

 

[Maronic03]

I played The Wind Waker.

That's it, that's all it took.

 

[oni-link]

Haha this is such a quintessential experience for a certain age group from Britain

I see Katy Hill, I see a video game my young brain doesn't believe is possible. It's hard for that not to make an impression heh

 

[Mbolibombo]

We moved from one part of the greater city to another sometime winter 1987/88

New neighbours where kids my age and they had a NES and their father got them.. all the games. Sort of.
Marios, Mega Mans, Castlevanias, Kid Icarus, Punchout, Metroid, Stadium Events (!) and much more more so an addiction was born before I got my very own NES a couple of years later - Had the NES, Brother and friends had the SNES.. and all was fine. But then we got a PC and the absolute dissapointment that was the N64 made me leave the console space until late Wii gen when I got some games for party. Later got a Wii U for the MK8 launch and then I was hooked on Nintendo again.

 

[marmoka]

An uncle gave me a NES when I was 9 and I fell in love with Mario games, specially with Super Mario Bros 3.

As years passed I could see some Mario 64 pictures in newspapers and I was impressed of seeing Mario in 3D. Unfortunately I never owned a N64 console.

Once I could get a job, and thus I could buy gaming consoles, I started informing myself about the consoles and games that were available. Those were the late 360/PS3 years, 3DS was already out and Wii U was about to get released. I wanted to play Mario Galaxy somehow, and after looking at the best games of each console, I finally decided that the games that better suited with me were found in Nintendo consoles. So I got a 3DS and a Wii U later (so I could also play Wii games). I loved my 3DS and its games, I hated my Wii U but loved its games, and I love my Switch and love its games.

I also own a PS4 because unfortunately not all games I'm interested in can be found in Switch. I'd like to get the PS5 or Series X to play 4K games in my 4K screen, but unfortunately there are not enough games there that get my interest.

 

[Fanto]

I was born that way.....

And by that, I mean there was already an NES in the house when I was born, and the first game I ever played was Mario 3, so yeah lol.

 

[Intoxicate]

For me, Nintendo was always the company who focused on fun and for me invented the best genres (at least they introduced them to me). It started with the best jump 'n runs, Tetris, Kart Racing etc. PC and competition often had better graphics, but for me I didn't get the appeal of more realistic games (gaming should be fun, I don't want to have a second life).

My journey so far:

​

NES / GameBoy​

A friend hat a NES and I watched playing him Super Mario Bros (actually we played 2 Players, but I died after 10s and he played the game almost through with 1up). Super Mario Bros 3 later was just more amazing.​

Another one had a GameBoy and Tetris was awesome.​

SNES​

Never got any of those systems and then the SNES launched. Super Mario World, F-Zero and Mario Kart. Playing those at my friends homes was an awesome time.​

Nintendo 64​

When I turned 16 I had saved enough money to buy my first own console. I saw the Playstation rising but waited for the Nintendo 64. Again Mario 64, Mario Kart, Wave Race were great. All my friends had Playstations but while I was impressed by some games (mainly racing) I was still having just fun jumping around in my Mario games or having Multiplayer sessions in Mario Kart, Smash, Diddy Kong Racing. I rented my N64 to friends who aimed to beat my Wave Race records, then I got the console back and beat them again. Great times.​

GameBoy Color / Advanced / Nintendo DS lite / 3DS​

Had them all and loved the handheld aspect.​

GameCube / Wii​

Being a student gaming was a bit less focus. Still Mario Kart, Mario Strikkers, Resident Evil 4 were great break outs.​

The Wii then brought everyone into casual games, Wii Sport was ending every party with Bowling or Golf.​

Wii U​

Focused on my career being abroad. The Wii stayed home (as my friends did). When the Wii U launched I was there day one. During home vacation I played Nintendo Land with friends and I thought I will love the Wii U. Mario Kart, Super Mario 3D World all were great, but I couldn't enjoy it. In some way I was missing that Multiplayer. The Wii U controller was a great idea, but it didn't even managed remote play in the next room.​

Switch​

Combined what I loved about the handhelds and the Nintendo focus on (multiplayer) fun in games. Together with the HD (good enough) graphics which makes playing the games on a larger screens nicely is a big bonus​

So I hope Switch continues to add games from older systems and built on that legacy with sequels. Then I'm good.

 

[Zellia]

I was lucky in that while I was more of a Mega Drive kid growing up (like many in the UK) I did get the chance to play a fair amount of NES, SNES and Gameboy.

Since then the only Nintendo console or handheld I totally skipped was the Wii U.

 

[Mekanos]

Not a terribly exciting story, but i was about 4 in the mid 90s and my brother and I would visit our neighbor and be enamored by their SNES, watching them play Super Mario World. One day my mom announced she bought us a SNES with SMW and the rest is history. My childhood (let's say pre-middle school years) was defined largely by playing SNES's library late in life and the N64 library as it came out. The only Nintendo consoles I've never owned are NES and Virtual Boy.

 

[Darth_Ghandi]

My older sibling talked me out of wishing for a electric train set for my 8th birthday and asking for a gameboy.

Took a while do get my first console (N64 Zelda bundle).

I’m pretty sure that ocarina of time was what made me a game enthusiast.

 

[Koren Lesthe]

I started playing when I was 5 on an Amstrad CPC 464 8-bit computer (yep, games were on a tape, took 4 to 10 minutes to load -when it loaded without any problem) with Manic Miner, probably my first introduction to platformers and maybe what helped me when I got the TMNT NES bundle for my birthday. What’s funny is that I don’t even remember liking the Turtles back then but damn, after playing hard to almost impossible games to finish on the Amstrad, the first game I get on the NES is Teenage Mutant HERO (sigh) Turtles !

After this lovely introduction to pain, I got Mario Bros. 1 and loved it very fast. My brother bought the Game Boy with Tetris and also loved. I got Mario Land 1 and started to recognize the character and loving every game that was like Super Mario Bros.

I think the real moment I became a « Nintendo fan » is because of Link’s Awakening. I was very young back then and I saw a guide for the game that used letters and numbers to each room of the game and it was like « To get the Sword, get to case Z-6 » or « Use the bombs on E-21 » and I thought « That’s stupid, what is this game, Battleship ? »

Then a friend proposed to exchange my Mercenary Force for his Link’s Awakening cartdrige, allowing us sometime to confirm our decision. I thought that I’ll very soon send his game back and ask for my Mercenary Force but then I started the game and my maw dropped.

My brother became hooked too. A few months later, when my bro got the SNES, he offered me A Link To The Past and I cried.

 

[Lukus99]

I got a Gameboy pocket when I was around 11, I'd only ever had Sega consoles before so it was all new to me. I think it came with Tetris, a Jurassic Park game and Wario Land 2. Obviously being a dumb kid I went straight to the Jurassic Park game which was good, but eventually I got bored and tried Wario Land 2 - and that game blew my mind when I discovered the secret exits!

I got an N64 a few years later and with that came Zelda Ocarina of time, I'm a bit unsure if I played this or Links Awakening on my GameBoy but I was hooked on Zelda from the start.

Then the dreaded late teens early 20's started and I ended up skipping a lot of Nintendo things in favour of Xbox and Xbox 360, but in general I stopped gaming as much as I'd always preferred playing handheld but the DS/ 3DS didn't really speak to me.

Then came the Switch and BOTW at a time in my life when it was changing a lot and I never looked back. The way my life works and the way I like to play games fits the Switch very well, I've completed more games than ever and enjoyed them more than ever since the Switch came out. This is why I can get a bit irritated when people say 'Just get an Xbox/Ps4 to play it'. I have a PS4, but sitting in front of the TV to play games doesn't really fit in to my life and the way I can play games, so yeah I want everything possible on Switch and I'm a Nintendo fan because I enjoy their games and they have the only console that allows me to actually play games to completion

 

[Fuffelpups]

My mother somehow got her hands on a NES, with a premium selection of games when i was a school kid: Super Mario Bros. 1/3, Duck Tales, Rad Racer, Excite Bikes and more. I think someone sold their stuff for a SNES. My mother sadly does not know how/why she bought the NES. It was to long ago but she probably kick started one of the bigest changes in my life, very close to giving birth to me.

Maybe we played games before by some friends of her, because i had also a class mate that my mother was friends with their parents and she had also a NES. Why do i know this little bit but not the important stuff... stupid monkey brain...

Later i jumped from the NES straight to the N64. When i got the NES first it musst be 1995-ish. This musst be the reason why i "hate" most of SNES games look and feel. I prefere the more clean 8-bit look. And i adore the early 3D N64/PSX graphics. When someone says that they can't stand early 3D games, it breaks my little heart. As an expample i have never finished Super Metroid, because it bores me to death. It was Metroid Prime that finally won me over. And Fusion that released on the same day-ish..?

 

[Imitatio]

I was born tha....

I was born that way.....

... ah, god damn! ;p

Seriously though, it's pretty simple. When I was a kid, my parents gifted me a GameBoy and Pokemon. That's it. From that point on I had become a fan, getting a GBC, GBA, GBASP, etc. in the following years and decades. Back then and up until the DS, it was Pokemon that was mainly driving my interest in the platforms and Nintendo. Since the latter half of the DS days though, I've become increasingly invested in other Nintendo games and franchises. And that basically holds true to this day.

I will say though, my interest definitely started to expand with the PSP entering the scene. That's when I turned from Nintendo only to Nintendo + another platform (mostly PS, now PC).

 

[Polyh3dron]

First console was a NES, second a SNES. Mine was a Nintendo household for sure. Branched off to the 3DO before returning to the fold with the N64. Only got a PlayStation when everyone was playing Final Fantasy 7 and I was jealous.

Didn't have a Sega home console until the Dreamcast and at that point I was basically getting every console.

 

[Chaotic Neutral]

 

[Ninjadom]

Showing my age here…

1983 (I think). I was little and tried playing a Donkey Kong arcade machine. My friend also got a ‘Donkey Kong II’ Game & Watch. That was it. Nintendo did-hard ever since. And I still am.

 

[sky25]

Started gaming when I was given a PS2 as a Christmas gift. I then brought the wii as my first console before branching to handhelds.
Ironically it was third party games that made me interested in Nintendo consoles. Fragile dreams, Tatsunoko vs capcom, Trauma Center, SMT, Twewy, Professor Layton and more.
I eventually got into Nintendo first party games through fire emblem, style savvy, animal crossing and xenoblade

 

[Mazzle]

Friend of mine had a SNES so i got my first experiences with Mario World.
I also wanted a Game Boy, because what else was there and then there came
Pokémon, and with that later a N64 with Mario and my sister wanted Majora's Mask and the rest is history

 

[meatbag]

Well my first gaming device was a Gameboy, with a copy of Pokemon Red. Cemented me as a handheld gamer, and Nintendo always had excellent offerings in that regard.

 

[Ramune]

Switched from Amiga to SNES in the early '90s with the All Stars+SMW bundle, picked up a Gameboy a few years later with Yoshi, Zelda and Metroid. I've loved handheld and Nintendo since.

I don't think we were considered a Nintendo country at that point, but oddly most people I knew subsequently went with the N64. I didn't move to being a Nintendo+Sony person until the very end of the decade when I was playing catch-up, and that was largely fuelled by playing FF7/8 on PC and wanting more JRPGs.

 

[Hyrulean]

Showing my age here…

1983 (I think). I was little and tried playing a Donkey Kong arcade machine. My friend also got a ‘Donkey Kong II’ Game & Watch. That was it. Nintendo did-hard ever since. And I still am.

Showing my age here too...

Switch your DK for mine :

But all really began with this :

When you are 7-8 and you play The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Super Mario, Kid Icarus, Punch-Out, Castlevania, Mega Man, Ghosts n' Goblins...

Is becoming a die-hard Nintendo fan since then to this very day something that surprising ?!

PS : and yes, to me Castlevania and Mega Man ARE Nintendo franchises (so are Goemon and Ghosts n' Goblins) !!

 

[Alent]

Despite having every handheld that Nintendo made i always considered myself a Playstaion kid because the first Ninty console i got as the Gamecube. Once we hit the HD era with the PS3 and Sony started shifting away from platformers i fell more and more in with Nintendo. I would consider it a mixture of the DS, the Wii and Sony's shift to realism which made me into a core Nintendo fan.

 

[Linkie3]

Playing Pokémon as a 5/6 year old and then playing Wind Waker as a 8 year old.

 

[9-Volt]

I was five years old when I and my brother played Popeye on our cousins NES. I got my hands on my own Nintendo platform, SNES in 1992, just a few months after it launched in Europe. Mario World and Super Street Fighter II are my first two Nintendo games.

 

[Guaraná]

I probably became a fan way later than most people here lol growing up in the early 90s, Sega definitely dominated where I come from. My very irst memories of gaming are on a ZX Spectrum but my first console was a Sega Master System, at school everyone had a Mega Drive, and after the Mega Drive, everyone pretty much had a PlayStation. I certainly didn't know anyone with a Nes or Snes and it was only really the N64 where at least some friends had one, in addition to their PlayStation. I had a Gameboy but it was very much a pokemon machine, I had maybe 2 or 3 other games and none of the classics. All of that to say, I was not born and bred on Nintendo lol

However, in my early 20s my parents passed along a Wii they had bought during the lightning storm surrounding launch. They had multiple controllers, a balance board, a bunch of games...and had practically never used it haha. And I quickly found I loved that thing! So many amazing first party games, you had access to so much back catalog availability I finally experienced classics like ALTTP and Super Metroid. I had just got my first apartment and friends would come over and throw themselves wholeheartedly into NSMB and Mario Kart. Just a brilliant time. So the Wii laid a big foundation but this was really all a lay up for...

The Wii U + 3ds combo. So cycle forward to the release of these consoles. I had spent a few years enjoying the Wii and building up a lot of enthusiasm for Nintendo's output myself and with friends but I now lived with my partner and we had a young kid and it was just a perfect match. My partner had been a big n64 gamer as a kid as it happens, but had basically never played a video game again and my kid was getting to that age that interacting with video games was viable but for all their strengths, (imo) the PlayStation and Xbox are just not that appealing as a family box. Games like Fantasy Life, Yokai Watch, Pokemon and ACNL were a joy to play alongside my partner, enough that we both ended up with a 3ds each so we could enjoy them side by side and interact and not just take turns. We would have a family Sunday gaming afternoon where we all playing Nintendo Land or Mario Kart 8 on the TV and yeah, just pure bliss. A lot of people remember the Wii U as a disaster and the 3ds as good but not as good as the ds but for me, these were formative years of our family unit and amazing bonding experiences.

So that's my Nintendo journey, I interacted with them intermittently growing up but very much had that experience of coming out of my teenage years and opening back up to fun instead of cool and found Nintendo. My kid sadly has been lost to Call of Duty Warzone because now he's in the cool zone but my partner and I are still massive Nintendo gamers and spend a lot of time together playing stuff. I have the other consoles, which I enjoy, but sometimes wonder why hah

nice story.

 

[Gashead]

Having the NES with duck hunt and Mario, along with all sorts of other games. I think Chip and Dale was the first game I ever completed. I didn't have Zelda, but a mate did. I actually went down the Sega route up to the Dreamcast excluding the Saturn which a mate of my Brother had. It was my Bro who had the SNES and N64, so I got to play them all the time with none of the cost of buying the games I don't get how you can't be a fan after playing things like Super Metroid, DKC2, Ocarina, and Metroid Prime over the years but I just love games, Red Alert 2 is a PC game, Soul Calibur for DC, and Burnout 3 I had for PS2 and they'd all probably fight for my Top 5.

 

[Nintendianajones64]

I always enjoyed their arcade games and got an NES for Christmas as soon as I could but I became a Nintendo fan after The Legend of Zelda came out in 1987. That game was everything I loved about gaming distilled into one game. There was nothing else like it.

 

[Nintendianajones64]

Double post. Sorry.

 

[Guaraná]

My dad got me an Atari 2600 when I was 5 back in 1990. 2 years later I got an NES and in 1995 SNES.
Sega in Nintendo was very strong in Brazil during the 90s with Sega being represented by TecToy and Nintendo by Gradiente. So there was a 50% split in the market between those two companies and I guess I just got lucky because everyone in my neighborhood had a Nintendo, so it was only Natural that I would also wanna get one.

When the N64 launched I was already a Nintendo fan so I saved all my allowance during a fucking whole year (like every single penny) to get a Nintendo 64 during Christmas in 1997, and the rest is history.

The only Nintendo console I didn't buy was the Wii U because I was in getting my Master's degree and literally had no time for anything but books.

Being a Nintendo fan, for me was just like being a Palmeiras supporter (local soccer team). It just happened.

 

[Irene]

Grew up with the N64. Earliest childhood memory is tossing myself into a wall in pre-school because I was playing Super Mario 64.

 

[Seik]

The moment I had my first controller in-hand, a NES one, on Christmas when I was 4 years old. Being able to interact with what was going on on TV was mindblowing for my little basic self. :lol

 

[Hyrulean]

I probably became a fan way later than most people here lol growing up in the early 90s, Sega definitely dominated where I come from. My very irst memories of gaming are on a ZX Spectrum but my first console was a Sega Master System, at school everyone had a Mega Drive, and after the Mega Drive, everyone pretty much had a PlayStation. I certainly didn't know anyone with a Nes or Snes and it was only really the N64 where at least some friends had one, in addition to their PlayStation. I had a Gameboy but it was very much a pokemon machine, I had maybe 2 or 3 other games and none of the classics. All of that to say, I was not born and bred on Nintendo lol

However, in my early 20s my parents passed along a Wii they had bought during the lightning storm surrounding launch. They had multiple controllers, a balance board, a bunch of games...and had practically never used it haha. And I quickly found I loved that thing! So many amazing first party games, you had access to so much back catalog availability I finally experienced classics like ALTTP and Super Metroid. I had just got my first apartment and friends would come over and throw themselves wholeheartedly into NSMB and Mario Kart. Just a brilliant time. So the Wii laid a big foundation but this was really all a lay up for...

The Wii U + 3ds combo. So cycle forward to the release of these consoles. I had spent a few years enjoying the Wii and building up a lot of enthusiasm for Nintendo's output myself and with friends but I now lived with my partner and we had a young kid and it was just a perfect match. My partner had been a big n64 gamer as a kid as it happens, but had basically never played a video game again and my kid was getting to that age that interacting with video games was viable but for all their strengths, (imo) the PlayStation and Xbox are just not that appealing as a family box. Games like Fantasy Life, Yokai Watch, Pokemon and ACNL were a joy to play alongside my partner, enough that we both ended up with a 3ds each so we could enjoy them side by side and interact and not just take turns. We would have a family Sunday gaming afternoon where we all playing Nintendo Land or Mario Kart 8 on the TV and yeah, just pure bliss. A lot of people remember the Wii U as a disaster and the 3ds as good but not as good as the ds but for me, these were formative years of our family unit and amazing bonding experiences.

So that's my Nintendo journey, I interacted with them intermittently growing up but very much had that experience of coming out of my teenage years and opening back up to fun instead of cool and found Nintendo. My kid sadly has been lost to Call of Duty Warzone because now he's in the cool zone but my partner and I are still massive Nintendo gamers and spend a lot of time together playing stuff. I have the other consoles, which I enjoy, but sometimes wonder why hah

nice story.

Not a "console wars" post at all, but I sincerely can't think you can feel such an emotional attachement to Sony or Microsoft.

And it's the same emotion I feel behind every Nintendo love story I read.

I always enjoyed their arcade games and got an NES for Christmas as soon as I could but I became a Nintendo fan after The Legend of Zelda came out in 1987. That game was everything I loved about gaming distilled into one game. There was nothing else like it.

You're my friend.

This game shaped my imagination.

It's hard for people to understand what it was to play this game in 1987...

To me, it will always be the best video game ever made.

 

[Guaraná]

Not a "console wars" post at all, but I sincerely can't think you can feel such an emotional attachement to Sony or Microsoft.

And it's the same emotion I feel behind every Nintendo love story I read.

this kind of story happens when you're young so I believe that those who are in their early 20s and grew up playing Sony's console have something similar.

On the other hand, I think the kind of feel-good and party games Nintendo develops helps a lot to have these fond memories with friends and family playing together and sharing those moments that will stick in our memory forever.

for example, I remember almost everything about TLoU2, but I don't remember playing it. but I remember when I was in college and we and my friends used to play Mario Kart on Wii during the weekends. I remember those moments and the laughs, who were there. So they provide are different sensations.

 

[Hyrulean]

this kind of story happens when you're young so I believe that those who are in their early 20s and grew up playing Sony's console have something similar.

On the other hand, I think the kind of feel-good and party games Nintendo develops helps a lot to have these fond memories with friends and family playing together and sharing those moments that will stick in our memory forever.

for example, I remember almost everything about TLoU2, but I don't remember playing it. but I remember when I was in college and we and my friends used to play Mario Kart on Wii during the weekends. I remember those moments and the laughs, who were there. So they provide are different sensations.

What you say is entirely true.

But I humbly think it's not only a case of playing with friends and family.

Thanks to their inimitable characters and franchises, single-player experiences Nintendo offers are also able to generate an incomparable emotional bond.

One can feel something sincere for Sony for example, but my point is rather that if you take stories of those people who grew up with Sony and compare them with stories of the same kind of people that grew up with Nintendo, the intensity is really not same, at all...

A good example, I think, of that intensity is the Nintendo Communities on the Forums.

And the thing that happened on Era and led to the creation of Fami, do you really think an exodus of the Playstation or Microsoft Communities could have happened ?

Not the same intensity...

 

[A Boy Named Susano]

I think we cycled through pretty much every console and Nintendo hand held growing up, and I have fond memories of playing Mario and Pokemon on my OG Gameboy. I remember when the GB Pocket came out with the black and white screen I was blown away by the clarity of the image after peering into that pea-soup coloured, dinky screen for years.

I think I really began to appreciate Ninty's approach to game dev when the Gamecube released, tho. I was just out of school and had gotten a job, so it was the first time I had enough disposable cash to buy pretty much any game I wanted. I picked up Wind Waker on a whim - Zelda being a series I was vaguely familiar with but never really interested in - and was absolutely blown away. That sweeping sense of adventure, the mix of combat, puzzles and exploration were unlike anything I'd experienced up until that point. Nintendo have been my favourite publisher and Zelda my favourites series ever since.

 

[shoptroll]

Grandparents got me a NES when I was 5 (Sept. 1988) I think. It was the Action Set (not sure if that's the correct name) which came with two controllers, the zapper, and the combo Super Mario + Dunk Hunt cart. Between those two games I was hooked.

However, I have gone through a couple periods of falling out with Nintendo's consoles. The first was the PS1 era when Square, Capcom, and others went to Playstation. During the SNES era I discovered my love for JRPGs (namely the Squaresoft ones with Earthbound a close second) so when I learned that Final Fantasy wasn't going to be on N64 I was a bit crestfallen since I knew it wasn't going to be possible to have both a PS1 and N64 for a while. My family ended up getting a PS1 around the time of Tekken 3 and then an N64 a couple years later when Episode 1: Racer was bundled with the hardware. Needless to say I have a lot more memories of Final Fantasy VII - IX and their brethren than I do things like Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, and Ocarina of Time.

The second phase followed the first where I fell off the console gaming wagon hard in college in favor of PC and leaned hard into the Unreal Tournament games on the college LAN. I think being able to play with a large number of friends and exploring all the custom content was a huge draw for me, plus I didn't need to lug around as much hardware to/from school (and the tiny TV I had was not conducive to games anyways). So I largely missed out on the PS2 and GameCube libraries which is something I feel like I'm still making up for not having played touchstones like Wind Waker, MGS3, Final Fantasy X, etc.

However, during both periods I still rocked Nintendo's handhelds which kept my toes in the Nintendo waters with games like Pokemon on the GB and then eventually acquiring a GBA and DS and loving the hell out of those libraries. (If I'm being honest with myself, and library supports this, I think I'm a bigger fan in general of Nintendo's handhelds than the home consoles, I have a lot of fond memories of the Mario Lands, Link's Awakening, DK 94, Pokemon Blue, probably more so than their console counterparts)

I finally came back into the fold proper with the Wii, even going so far as to wait in line outside a local Target in the wee hours of the morning to secure my sytem. Which I then promptly hid until Thanksgiving break since it was midterms season. But man, I think I played nothing but Wii Sports for a month straight before Twilight Princess finally arrived which was just an epic adventure and felt so good to just run around having only dabbled a little bit with OoT prior to that point. Then Brawl and Galaxy and yeah, that was it. I was back and haven't looked back since.

 

[CyberWolfJV]

That question is more tough than I thought, actually! Because, excluding the brief Tetris experience with one of those bootleg handheld mini-games, my very first video game experience was with SEGA! I got a Master System when I was 5, and it was very, very easy to just flow with everything Sonic related at the time, between the cartoon shows and many merchandise products!

I first experienced a Nintendo game in a neighbor's house; They got a NES with Super Mario Bros. 3 and I was fascinated, but wouldn't be until the SNES I actually got to own a Nintendo system myself.

From there on, I started following Nintendo more closely, but I never was much of a "supporter" of their side on the console wars in the 90's; I loved their games, but I thought the discussion was stupid and I wished we could just play Sonic and Mario games on the same console!

Even though I was still very much attached to the Nintendo IPs, my parents never got me the Nintendo systems I asked and I ended with PS1 (I asked for a N64 lol) and later a PS2 (I asked for a GameCube! lmao); I also was very frustrated I wanted a GBA but never got a handheld until I purchased a 3DS down the line with my own money

I guess I was a Nintendo fan trapped with other systems for a long while, reading Nintendo magazines and websites religiously; When I got a Wii I finally felt I was where I wanted all along!

 

[dkeane]

Grew up with Nintendo starting with the NES and all the great peripherals.
Mostly stuck with their home consoles and didn't get into the handhelds which is strange because I ended up getting a Game Gear, Lynx and eventually Neo-Geo Pocket.

 

[ngpdrew]

I was more of a Genesis kid than an SNES kid because we had a Genesis for several more years. I generally preferred the 64 to the PlayStation, but I wasn’t really a “fan”.

BUT the Gamecube. Owning that made a fan out of me. It was the first console that was “mine” and I defended it thusly.