How did you become a Nintendo Fan?

[Nakapol]

Switch is my first console in a decade from the PS2 era but I think I become Nintendo fan because of PS5. Sounds odd but it is true. I never think I love Nintendo these much until I played PS first party and realized the difference in the philosophy of their games.

 

[Red Monster]

Started with an N64 when I was five. Then I got a Gameboy Color for Christmas with Pokémon Yellow, and I was officially doomed. I’ve had every Nintendo console since then.

 

[Vanillalite]

Got a NES from my parents as a kid. I then followed that up with a Gameboy during the Tetris craze from my grandparents for a Christmas present one year. Been a fan ever since.

 

[randomengine]

Christmas Eve 1986

I was 5 years old.

I played Super Mario Bros. for the first time. I stayed up until 3 am.

1996 - I am playing Super Mario 64 on a Japanese N64 a week before it's release in America and there are tears running down my face.

1997 - For Christmas I get Goldeneye 007 and WCW vs. nWo: World Tour and it is one of the greatest Christmas gift pairings of all time.

1998 - I am playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time during Thanksgiving and I never leave my room while my family spends time together. While I love Nintendo, I will always regret that.

 

[TheQuietone]

First gaming system was an NES. I just remember playing Duck Hunt, SMB, and Zelda at a really young age. Beat Zelda when my mom and older brother couldn't beat Ganon because they didn't find the silver arrows but I did. Didn't really love Nintendo until N64 with OoT, Mario 64, and Mario Kart 64. Got into the handhelds with Pokemon.

 

[Lord Azrael]

Via Pokémon. My grandma brought me a Game Boy Color and Pokémon Yellow from the US, and the rest as you say is history

 

[A Delcat Switches]

Back in 1997, when I was 8, I got an N64 with Mario64 and Mario kart for Christmas. I was obsessed with it.
Aside from getting a ps1 a couple years later for things like Spyro the Dragon or the sims on PC, I didn't really play video games for 10-15 years and I got back in to gaming with Wii, 3DS and WiiU. I have been re-hooked ever since and although I'm a very casual gamer, I ONLY play on the switch. If I couldn't play on the switch, I wouldn't game at all. Nintendo is (and always has been) the only platform that really ticks every box for me.

 

[Josh5890]

My Dad brought home an NES when I was a baby. The rest is history.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

I was born in the early 80s.

 

[enempi]

First console I had was a SNES when I was 3. Then my parents got me an N64 later and that was basically it. I was always interested in PS1 and later PS2 but my parents would only let us have one console so Nintendo it remained! I was also in elementary school during the height of Pokémon mania so that was definitely super formative.

Even as I got older and had other consoles, I always found myself coming back to Nintendo because they seem more acutely aware than other developers that they are creating an entertainment product. Basically a toy. First and foremost, the game has to be fun, everything else is secondary.

 

[Hocot8]

Nintendo was all I had as a kid. My first game i think was Super Mario Bros 3. The reason why I say I think is because it's the earliest memory I have and I was like 5. I had an N64, NES, and a SNES.

I feel like if you grow up on Mario you just never turn your back on him haha.

 

[Fercho]

During the NES era really. My first console was the NES bundled with Super Mario/Duck Hunt, Ghostbusters and TMNT, i was 9 years old. I enjoyed the console very much , playing several of it's classics like SMB 2 and 3, Kirby , etc. The NES and Nintendo where the ones who made me a lifelong videogame enthusiast.

Like 1 year later i got the Genesis and then 1 year after that i got the SNES and that became one of my favorite consoles of all time.

I falled out in love with Nintendo during the N64 era, taking more interest in the PS1 and Dreamcast, still , i own all Nintendo consoles to this date , with the exception of the VB.

To be honest my opinion towards Nintendo as a company has been tarnished more and more as the years pass (but this is the same case with Sony and MS too), although the games continue to be top notch and very fun.

 

[Illucio]

Mom bought my dad a N64 for Christmas alongside a Hockey Game and Star Wars Episode 1 Racing.
We ended up slowly getting games for the console overtime, was probably Banjo Kazooie, Pokemon Stadium, Mario Kart, Mario Party 1-3, Pokemon Snap and Zelda Majoras Mask. Then again I got a gameboy with all the gen 1 Pokemon games used and a new copy of Pokemon Silver. Since then I've been hooked.

 

[Aniki]

Game Boy was my first game system and Super Mario Land my first Nintendo game, but it wasn't before A Link to the Past that i became a Nintendo fan.

 

[Mondo]

My neighbor had a SNES with Kirby Superstar and I thought Kirby was cool as fuck for being able to have so many different moves by copying his enemies. Pink blob thus became my childhood hero and even to the present day I get hype about every new Kirby game announced.

 

[kimbo99]

Gameboy Color and N64. To be more specific Pokemon and Mario Kart. I loved the Pokemon anime and Mario Kart 64 was just the best game to play at my cousin's house when we were all little kids.

 

[Furisu]

I watched the Pokémon anime a lot when I was a kid, and that led to the games, which were naturally released on a Nintendo Platform. Since then, their games have appealed to me the most.

 

[KilgoreWolfe]

While I have some vague memories of playing a NES when I was about four or so, my first real Nintendo experience was getting a SNES for Christmas when I was five. I was absolutely ecstatic and once I started playing Super Mario World, I was hooked. I played A Link to the Past about a year later and there was no going back.

That said, I've always loved video games in general. I got a Genesis a few years later and loved it, had a PS1 in addition to an N64 too. But I've owned every Nintendo console (got a NES in like 1994, the newer top-loader with the dog bone controller), and almost every handheld they've made (never had a Virtual Boy, although I kinda wanted one just for the Warioland game). I remember coordinating with a complete stranger I ran into while trying to secure a Wii, we checked different stores to no luck. Basically, as much as I love video games, nothing quite replicates the feel of a good Nintendo game or experience.

 

[BGBW]

Well, the funny thing is I was a Sonic fan when I was young, a Sonic fan without a console. So I watched the cartoons, collected toys and even had some books. However, if the opportunity did arise, I did try play the Sonic games as much as possible, such as visiting a friend with a Sega console or even finding a playcentre had some consoles (one quirky titbit is that it was the lesser known Master System Sonic games that I mostly played). Eventually my parents said they would get me a console for Christmas, so obviously I was asking for a Sega MegaDrive.

But then I met a new kid in my class and he showed me his SNES with Super Mario World. For reasons I certainly cannot remember, I was taken aback by this experience and I instantly changed my mind and I decided I wanted a SNES for Christmas rather than a MegaDrive. And, thus, as they say, the rest is history.

Well, to add a little extra, one of my first games for the SNES was A Link to the Past. I think that pretty much cemented it for me.

And thank heavens too. Imagine if I'd continued to be a Sonic fan growing up.

 

[Lukus99]

I just want to say this is an excellent thread, I'm having a great time reading everyone's Nintendo history.

 

[Lucifer]

Becoming a Nintendo fan is weirdly one of my earliest memories. I remember really loving the Super Mario Bos. Super Show cartoon, and then one day saw one of my uncles playing SMB, then my mum bout me the NES with SMB.

 

[WellManNRD]

My love for Nintendo goes hand-in-hand with my love for gaming in general.

In the mid-80s my dad & brother owned an Atari. I couldn't understand why they would prefer to play black & white Pong over playing outside.
Fast forward a couple years and my family now owned an NES and everything clicked into place for me with the original TLoZ. I could hardly comprehend how such a vast world was squeezed inside my TV. I searched for secrets in that game like I explored the neighborhood around my home.
SMB3 was another game that helped me fall in love with the hobby. I played games like TMNT 1 & 2 with friends. I bopped along to the music of Mega Man & Ducktales. I fearfully explored the world tree of Faxanadu.

When I saw SMW on the SNES in 1991 I believed I was watching a controllable cartoon. I could not conceive of video games looking better than that game.
During the lifespan of the SNES my love of video games in general and Nintendo specifically became set in stone. FF Mystic Quest was the first RPG I finished without help from my dad. Chrono Trigger was the first RPG I finished before my dad. Earthbound, E.V.O., MMX, Ogre Battle, FFVI, Yoshi's Island all became entrenched in my heart & mind as archetypal gaming experiences. Browsing the selection at Blockbuster was a Friday tradition - as was renting a c-tier game because the best games were already checked out.

When news of the N64 began to circulate I could hardly believe that exploring a 3D world was possible. SM64 blew my mind as wide open as SMW had done a few years earlier.

Pokemon released in the US when I was in junior high school and I was addicted to the point of buying my own copy of Red to play on my buddy's Gameboy before I could purchase my own GB Color.

I purchased a Gamecube with my own high school job money.

In college I skipped the Wii (& later the Wii U) because I couldn't afford it. Instead I played the games I'd collected through childhood.

Finally with the reveal of the Switch I knew I wanted back in on the Nintendo ecosystem and was there Day 1 to pick up a console along with BotW.
That game felt just like the original TLoZ did to my childhood self -- a grand adventure full of limitless possibilities. With that renewed child-like awe & curiosity I felt my admiration for Nintendo's IPs return.

It feels very special to me that I've grown up nearly in-sync with the birth & development on video games as a hobby, medium, and expression of human ingenuity and art. People my age will literally live out our lives watching video games evolve from black & white pixels to color to simulated 3D to true 3D to god-knows-what by the end of it.

I don't know if there is any other medium of art that has progressed in lock-step with a single human's lifespan. The closest analogous medium might be motion pictures but even then developments were much slower than video games has experienced.

Ultimately I do feel honored and blessed to watch this unfold and am excited for the future ahead.

 

[The Captain]

Madre bought my bro and I a SNES bundled with Mario All stars + Super Mario World. We all played religiously together.

 

[xsquiddox]

My mom got me a gameboy advance when i was 5 or 6 i also had a gameboy color if i remember correctly with warioland. On the advance i played pokemon silver and crystal. It was amazing and i loved it. Even had a fake pokerom game from funfare marketstall, where you literally could buy gun items xD it was so weird but i loved it. I traded it in for crystal back then.

Also got into mario, castlevania and metroid through the gba lifespan wich was awesome. After the gba i got a gamecube and going from minish cap to windwaker was magical zelda wise. (Minish cap was my first zelds game wind waker second) after that i got the ds + wii and the rest was history.

Became a lifelong fan since.

 

[Mitch]

All of my friends owned Nintendo consoles growing up while I was the PlayStation kid. Once I got my first GameBoy Color with Pokemon Silver, I think the seed was planted. The GBA really cemented my interest in Nintendo, but it wasn't until the DS came out that I became a true fan. Funny enough, my first Nintendo home console was the Wii, so I got to dive into a lot of older games I missed out on from the SNES, 64 and GC.

 

[lightning16]

Growing up I had a Gameboy as well as a Sega Saturn and Playstation so I wouldn't really say I was a "Nintendo fan" at the time and I was really too young to care. I think the period after that is where I developed a particular fondness for Nintendo games, since the vast majority of my video games were on the Gamecube and GBA after that. Pokemon and Smash Bros in particular were huge to me growing up.

 

[sir_AnGer]

My cousin had a SNES and one day a VHS that promoted the upcoming N64 fell into my lap. A few weeks after my first communion, I took the money and bought the console alongside a copy of Pilotwings 64. Stuck with Nintendo ever since and the only console of theirs I didn't buy between then and now was the Wii U.

 

[puddleths]

My cousins had N64s. I remember starting up a new file of Mario 64 every time I visited and getting irrationally nervous fighting King Bob-omb. Something about the music and his slow, foreboding movement...

Anyway, 3D Mario has been what keeps me coming back to Nintendo. I wanted a GC to play Sunshine, a Wii for Galaxy... then I skipped the Wii U. But Odyssey looked so spectacular, I knew I needed a Switch.

 

[Hosermess]

I had an Atari when I was really young with a decent selection of games. Then I remember one day I was over at a friend*'s place (*ie. their mom was friends with my mom) and they had a NES with Super Mario Bros. I still distinctly recall being amazed by the music, graphics and controls (especially because by that point I had to wrench on my Atari joystick to get it to move). Parents bought my brother and I a NES at some point later.

Then they bought us a SNES for Christmas '92. Pretty sure that's the year because I remember getting my mom to go back to the store to trade in FF2 for Bulls vs Blazers (which in retrospect was likely a mistake lol).

Saved up and bought myself an N64, and have done the same for every system since (apart from Wii U...and Game Boys not included).

(also remember trying out the Virtual Boy in Toys 'R Us a lot, but that's uh, off topic cause I can't say I was a fan of it, ha)

 

[Aostia82]

The Dreamcast died.

 

[Scrawnton]

I was 5 when A Link to the Past came out. It was all downhill from there.

 

[Thorakai]

I started gaming as a Genesis kid and then jumped on the Playstation train the next generation. My dad gifted me and my brother a N64 console one Christmas which included Donkey Kong 64 + we eventually picked-up Perfect Dark. Those were the first Nintendo games I ever owned, but I didn't really consider myself a Nintendo fan at that time. It wasn't until Pokemon blew-up that I asked for a Gameboy Color to get Pokemon Silver and Pokemon Blue. Of course, that led us to picking up both Pokemon Stadiums. Still not enough for me to call myself a Nintendo fan, but you can see the ever-growing exposure here.

Eventually I came across commercials for Smash 64 online sometime well after it released (must have been early in the PS2 generation). We picked it up and had a blast. So much so we got a Gamecube just to play Melee. The characters all appealed to me and I got curious about who they were...it must have led me to NeoGAF where I then got exposed to online gaming discussions for the first time and larger number of properties available. Then the Wii was unveiled and the whole motion control idea instantly captivated me...along with everyone else with how hard it was to find one. My dad finally managed to pick-up a Wii with Twilight Princess (my first Zelda) and Brawl. The Virtual Console allow me to play classics for the first time, plus with my exposure to NeoGAF this was the first console where I actively followed new releases and picked up the "heavy-hitters" once they hit an affordable price. I'd say from then on I finally became a Nintendo fan.

So in short, I'd attribute Pokemon Silver > Super Smash Bros 64 > Nintendo Wii as the catalysts to becoming a Nintendo fan.

 

[Gengar]

I grew up playing all their handheld stuff starting with a bit of GBC early on but mostly GBA. Games like pokemon gen 3, metroid fusion, zelda minish cap, kirby and the amazing mirror, and more were big for me.

I didn't actually have a console until the Wii, and that gave me access to gamecube games, so that kept me hooked.

For a few years in high school I stopped playing games very often, but decided to get a 3ds because it had a lot of games by then (it was 2015 I think). That kind of reeled me back in, but the switch is what really got me into following directs, forums, and the overall gaming community.

So, the answer to the question is that Nintendo games were all I played as a kid. That's probably why the 3ds was my first choice when I got back into gaming and why the switch appealed to me so much (and still does). Since then I've started playing other platforms, but for me nothing beats the hype of long awaited Nintendo games like Smash Ultimate, Breath of the Wild, or Metroid Dread, to name a few.

 

[AquaWateria]

Getting the N64 as a kid is what led me to be a Nintendo fan.

Mario 64 back in the day just hit different.

 

[NarohDethan]

It was what s given to me as a kid so l just kinda stuck with it, and I'm glad I did because I don't like Sony's stuff that much, or Microsoft's

 

[AndroidOS]

My dad owned an N64, and so that was what I also used. Some of my earliest gaming memories are Mario Kart 64 and Beetle Adventure Racing, though I think the game that cemented my love for Nintendo would be Ocarina of Time. My dad and I played through it together (I was too young to manage some of the later bits by myself at the time), and ever since we've both loved everything Nintendo.

For a long time we both only ever bought Nintendo consoles, though that changed around halfway through the PS4/Xbox One era (most likely due to the lack of third party games coming out on the Wii U).

 

[dpt120]

Been a fan since I was a kid. My first "console" was the GBA.