What was your first home TV game ?

[Blanka]

Not really a TV game...
My dad bought it as serious machine, but off course we used it as console...


We played Fraxxon till the late hours. I think it is the best ever space-shooter after Galaga 88. Even though it had teletext 80x72 pixel graphics, it had ubercool gameplay.

[McVenco]

Ah, the Philips P2000, that was also the first computer that my father brought home one day. We didn't have much games for it, I believe we only had some Philips demo cassette with Othello and Hangman, amongst others. I even did my first Basic "programming" on this computer as well (mostly to print colored/blinking/double size texts on screen: PRINT CHR$(132) CHR$(128) "HELLO WORLD!", or something like that  )

I played my first games on our neighbour's Colecovision back in 1984 or so (when I was about 7 years old), which has been my favourite console ever since. Last year I bought a few Colecovision sets on Marktplaats.nl and I think I've got a nice collection now, I only need to buy some more games.

I took the whole set with me on the latest Dutch Commodore Users Group, last month:

[level42]

Not sure who we pittied most BITD, Spectrum or P2000 owners....I think it was the P2000. In my memory only old people had them...

Another Philips failure in this area. I mean, I still bought a Philips TV half a year ago (LED) because I always have had their TVs and never was disappointed by them, but Philips never really made it when it came to computers and game systems.
The Videopac lacked "free" prgrammable graphics which made every game look the same, although I am the first to admit that Happelaar (Munchkin) was a fun game.
The P2000 had ...uh......a built in mini tape drive that was fast and worked like a floppy including directory listings and automatic searching and loading of files!!! Graphics were none existent, it used a teletext chip, sound was some bleeping built in speaker...the keyboard was like one of a cash register and it cost way too much money IIRC....

I would love to play Fraxxon on it, or even see a video to let me change my mind about it

Later there was the G7400 which promissed better graphics, but that just turned out to be some background graphics while the game graphics were still G7000 like.

Much later the CD-I system.....a miss in every way. The games looked like 8 bit while STs and Amigas were the "standard" at the time.

And they had MSX of course, maybe the best of this series of failures. Such a shame because they have done a lot of innovative stuff like the compact cassette,  laserdisc and CD....

HOWEVER, it doesn't matter how much a first system sucked in the eyes of others it was YOUR first system. your first steps into the wold of computing and electronic gaming so these are still great machines now !!! Keep 'm coming !

[Luigi]

Very common story: first TV game was a Pong clone with two "spinner" devices. I have a picture in mind but I never found something similiar on the net.

Then I bought a used VCS 2600 with some games like Combat, Outlaw, etc.

Sweet memories

[Arch]

My entry into the world of consoles came very late. If Commodore 128 counts as a TV-console, I got one in 1985. I only used it in the C64 mode though.
I had a couple of Game & Watch'es before that. One called Pirate I think, and Snoopy from Nintendo.

Eventually my Commodore collection grew a bit bigger.

[Ronald Reagan]

I guess it's this one, on which I played copied games like Emerald's Mine, Thunderblade, Sidewinder, Giana Sisters (!) and PacMan.


and this one, at a friends house who's family imported it from Aruba or the USA. Playing Mario reminded me of Giana Sisters, but it was a great game with mushrooms and coins. Duckhunt was easy, you just pointed the gun on the tv and you always hit it.

[gyruss]

This was my first love, a philips msx....

[muddymusic]

My first proper computer was an MSX - this one -

I spent hours and hours on it, so much that the pins broke in the joystick ports, the big arrow keys stopped working and I had to replace it 

The Konami cartridges were superb and made the same versions on other computers look really poor in comparisson. The same can't be said for a lot of other games though 

[Muerto]

I have never owned a console before i bought my PS3 
Though, i jumped on the Amiga wagon in 1990 - and has owned 3-4 A500 and one A1200 with Blizzard 030 hardware installed (i still have it)
but the first game... afair there where 2 or 3 games in the "Amiga 500 Starter Kit": Miniature Golf, Super Cars, and Super Ski??, the first game i really liked was TwinWorld:


Then some years later Pirates from Microprose was released, and i just played the hell out of that one! heh - i reserved entire weekends so i could play the game!!:

I liked the game so much, that when i got my first PC, i was running WinUAE, playing Pirates, and "Print Screen´d" the entire world you where sailing around in, and stitched it together in Photo Shop...
Click on pic for full size image..:

[ataritoobin]

My entry into the world of consoles came very late. If Commodore 128 counts as a TV-console, I got one in 1985. I only used it in the C64 mode though.
I had a couple of Game & Watch'es before that. One called Pirate I think, and Snoopy from Nintendo.

Eventually my Commodore collection grew a bit bigger.

Whoa, Arch!  That's a great setup...everything rolls up into a cupboard?  Very nice!

My first machine was an Atari 800XL:

[Laschek]

Very common story: first TV game was a Pong clone with two "spinner" devices. I have a picture in mind but I never found something similiar on the net.

Maybe the one from Körting which had controllers that happend to look like microphones?  
Did you check http://www.console-picture-page.de/catalog/ ?

My first console was an Atari 4 switch woodgrain which I bought in 1982 or 1983 for I think 349.-- DM (roughly 175.-- EUR) as a special bundle (by the shop) including a set of paddle controllers and Air-Sea Battle.
Sold it and most of my games in 1984 to buy my first C64. That one died during a thunderstorm and was replaced with a C64II. An Amiga 2000 and later 4000 followed.
Didn't buy another console until I started collecting (classic) video games and home computers some time in (late?) 90s.

[level42]

Arch that is indeed an impressive and great looking collection !! Even I as an Atari man am impressed

Nice Barbarian poster, played that on the ST quite a bit. I was both shocked and amused when I chopped off the head of the opponent for the first time....it was the worst gore I had ever seen in a game till then. The little monster kicking the head away made it even "worse" but I couldn't help laughing either....

[level42]

I never bought a new console after the 2600 either. IMHO consoles were not a smart choice as you could -only- play games on them while homecomputers offered so much more and games were well....uhm...easier to get.

I also saw the NES a bit as a child's machine mainly caused by games like Kirby. I also thought the NES wasn't really much more powerful than my 600 XL at the time, which was probably true, but I did miss the Mario games on it because of that....

The only new console I bought after the 2600 was .....the Wii !!
I did buy a used SNES when it was just passed it's peak though, just to play SMW. I also got a Dreamcast when I started in this hobby...never used it enough.....gotta dig it up again to play some SC and Samba De Amigo !

[Blanka]

I also saw the NES a bit as a child's machine mainly caused by games like Kirby

Nothing bad about Kirby! He (or she) was way cooler than Mario!
BTW, Kirby could not have influenced your opinion about the NES. If it did, you got to know about the NES AFTER the SNES!
Kirby is from 1993, where the NES itself was celebrating its 10th anniversary already, and the SNES was out in the wild for 2 years as well. Kirby is the perfect showcase of what the NES was capable off, with maxing out every bit of power. It has the biggest ROM, and even a little bit of RAM for game saving and pushes the limits of graphic and sound possibilities.

[Arch]

Hehe, thanks guys. Yes, it all fits snugly into the cupboard. Very girlfriend-friendly. It makes my office look almost normal.

Barbarian ruled, and me and my friend played it all the time. We used to start each game with simultaneous head chops, and the guy who pulled it off just a millisecond ahead of the other did the kill. Good times, and I miss my mate.

Oh, and three thumbs up for Maria Whittaker!