My earliest memory of playing a console would be playing on an Atari 2600 sometime in the early to mid-1980’s. Playing video games in the 1980’s for most of the time consisted of either playing on my own Acorn Electron or playing on other peoples C64’s, Spectrum’s or Amstrad home microcomputers. That very quickly changed in 1990.
Taking Over From the Home Micros
Now if you are reading this in North America you have probably been playing on some type of gaming console since you started gaming. Over here in the UK in the 1980s the home microcomputers ruled. The Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum were the most popular systems and those who were really lucky might have got their hands on a 16-bit computer like the Commodore Amiga or Atari ST.
More Gaming Memories:
This dominance from the 8-bit computers wasn’t a bad thing. Budget game titles were cheap and even the more expensive games were usually around the £10 mark. Most people also used cassettes, so piracy was also very easy if you were ever tempted to make copies of games that you had borrowed from a friend.
Consoles Turn the Tide
But come 1990 the tide started to turn toward consoles. In Japan magical 16-bit consoles were being written about in gaming magazines which would be heading towards the UK soon. The future of home gaming was very exciting.
It was in the autumn of 1990 having been back at school for a short while that I first experienced playing a Nintendo Entertainment System properly. One of my class mates had got an NES for his Birthday and he had Super Mario Bros and WWF Wrestlemania Challenge with his new console. This gaming experience seemed new and exciting to me and cartridges that loaded instantly was a lot better than the cassette load times I was used to with my C64.
This was the beginning of Consoles taking over my gaming life as well as all my mates. I would go on to get a Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo in the coming years before the Sony PlayStation arrived and pretty much took over.
My First 90s Console
On the local high street my local Dixons store has an NES demo unit and having had a good few goes this system that was already very well established in North America was winning me over. It would take a simple trip to my town’s newsagents to buy a new gaming magazine called Mean Machines that would help me decide what my goals were for Christmas 1990.
In issue 1 of Mean Machine the NES Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles console bundle had a full-page advertisement and you could get the console and game for £79.99. Having previously paid a lot more for my Commodore 64 my parents happily agreed to get me one for Christmas and I was also allowed to get an extra game too. I ended up getting Super Mario Bros 2 after very nearly getting Batman.
These new consoles seemed different. The original 8-bit systems were fairly cheap and offered a new experience compared to the 8-bit micros we were used to, but it was the 16-bit systems that they were warming us up for which were the real game changers. We moved away from Commodore, Sinclair and Amstrad to Sega and Nintendo and didn’t really look back. I would always go back to my C64 and at one point I was still buying games for it at 50 pence a game, but its time was quickly coming to an end.
16-Bit Console Gaming
My first experience of a 16-bit console was from 1991 and spending £10 at an independent video store that was renting out a few Sega Mega Drives. For my ten pounds I got the standard Mega Drive and Altered Beast game bundle. It blew me away, it felt like arcade gaming had finally arrived in my house. Being a kid that grew up in a small town with no arcades nearby and who only got to play arcade games when I went to the coast this felt massive. Looking back Altered Beast isn’t the greatest game but back then it felt amazing to be playing it the living room of our house.
Come the Autumn of 1991 and then the lead up to Christmas a blue hedgehog was making waves and the price of the Mega Drive was coming down. That Christmas I got my Mega Drive with Altered Beast and Sonic the Hedgehog from the very same store I got my NES from. The standard of gaming had changed very quickly for myself and my friends.
Street Fighter II Hits 90s Home Consoles
The next big event would be Street Fighter 2 coming out on the Super Nintendo with so much build up to the game being released being hyped up in so many gaming magazines (and quite rightly deserved too). In the space of a few years my circle of friends was all now gaming on Sega Mega Drives and Super Nintendo’s. The home computers had disappeared.
This new Console dominance did have an obvious downfall which was the price of the games. At around £40 for a new game it wasn’t easy to build a big games library but that didn’t stop us from enjoying these systems. The cost of new games was quickly taken advantage of by video rental stores who would happily let us rent a variety of games although sometimes the quality of the Super Nintendo games was questionable. My mates and I would also swap games or more often than not when one of us got a new game we would all gather round that person’s house to try out the new addition.
The Sony Playstation Dominates
From the mid-90s on wards Sony pretty much took over with the PS1 and I was now heading into my late teens. Again, most of my friends at the time got a PS1 and gaming started taking a bit more of a backseat to socializing in pubs and nightclubs but the PS1 was always there after a night out and the system seemed more grown up compared to what came before.
PC gaming was still very expensive and the N64 made an appearance in our house when my younger brother got one and the DreamCast and PS2 would follow the N64 into his bedroom over the years. A new console habit had clearly been formed among my friends and family and it would stay that way for some time.
As I grew older I eventually I got married and had children and as they grew up, they wanted and got Wii U’s, PS4’s and Nintendo Switch consoles. The dominance of the consoles has continued for many years now in my life. My kids have carried on console gaming and I have gone back to the old consoles to revisit them, celebrate them and continue collecting games for them.
When Consoles Took Over Gaming
In 1990 I never realized at the time how important getting that Nintendo Entertainment System would be and how dominant Nintendo, Sega and then later Sony would be in gaming lives of so many people I knew (Microsoft would of course also join the party in the early 00’s). 1990 was nearly thirty years ago which make you wonder for how much longer can consoles rule the gaming world?
Streaming and digital downloads are becoming more prominent in our lives now which will clearly shape the future of gaming. How that might affect gaming consoles as we know them, we will have to wait and see in the years to come.
Thanks for reading this article you can find my previous article here.
Daz
About The Author
