Your favourite new console memory

[hudson]

It was leading up to Christmas 1990 and I had asked my parents to get me an imported Sega Megadrive. I was reading a lot of Mean Machines, CVG and was always reading their Complete Guide to Console books. The hype was huge! Even better, it was happening. My parents had received it from the mail order import store (ordered via a magazine ad back then ) many weeks in advance. Understandably, I had to wait until Christmas Day to play it. Frustratingly, leading up to the Christmas holidays, there were several occasions where I would get home from school, head upstairs to get changed, only to notice my parents bedroom would be locked and the dull sounds of "48, 39, 26 - hut, hut, hut!" could be heard. !!! My dad would shout "Just testing that it's all working!". "What? Again?", I replied - told my mum.

Also, in the build up to Christmas, I lent my friend from up the road, who already had a Megadrive, a game every now and then, as I knew where they were hidden. Not John Madden though I told him not to tell me what he thought of them. In return, I borrowed his new copy of Tongue of Fatman just after Christmas as payback. Oh my goodness, it was so sh*t .

It was the Japanese console with Altered Beast, John Madden's Football, Strider, Budokan , Castle of Illusion and Golden Axe. Wow. Best new console memory.

Probably second best memory, would be when I got a PS1. All funded by me. I saved up loads of money to make sure I had all the launch games and peripherals I would need. Bought from HMV. Ridge Racer was wedged into my machine. So good.

[Neon Ignition]

Even though I'd seen it before, it has to be the Nintendo 64. The system just looks so damned good, the hype had been insane and sitting down and properly delving into Mario 64 was an experience no console had or has since delivered to the senses... probably never will again

[cutmymilk]

Either Mega Drive, Dreamcast or Saturn for me. I was such a fanboy!

For the Saturn, SEGA Rally and Virtua Fighter 2 had me hooked for months. For Dreamcast, I had Sonic Adventure, SEGA Rally 2 and Incoming. Sonic is the gem there, of course. Soul Calibur shortly afterwards really, really gave me the feeliing that the future had arrived.

[Arashikage]

While I never had one on launch just looking at the previews for the SFC made it look like a piece of future tech. Even now when I look at the same previews it still feels next gen.

As for a best launch memory it was undoubtedly the Dreamcast, that thing was hyyype when I got it and I still have my original machine working flawlessly even now.

[QualityChimp]

Love these threads!

One Christmas I really wanted a Game Boy, but they'd only just come out and Father Christmas left me empty handed.
Then there was ring at the door and he'd left me a late surprise!
There was a brand new Game Boy!

Still not too old for a treat, though.
I went out the optician's near my 40th birthday and my wife told me to get Subways for everyone.
Little did I know it was a stalling tactic because when I got back I had the family waiting for me and they'd had installed a projector, a screen and a PS4!

I'm still buzzing about that!

[CMcK]

I have very fond memories of buying a Saturn. I couldn’t afford one until a while after launch but by then it came with VF2, Virtua Cop and Sega Rally! Talk about a golden age of gaming. I bought it in my local branch of EB (might still have been a Virgin games at that point) and scurried home. I set it up, with the supplied scart cable naturally, plugging into the 21” Sharp TV which I had bought for the 3DO specifically because it had S-Video inputs. Wow! It looked pin sharp compared to the interlaced output from the 3DO.
It really did feel like the arcade had come home that year. Shame the future wasn’t so rosy...

[Leon Retro]

Getting a Super Famicom for Xmas 1991 is my favourite gaming memory. ActRaiser felt like it had been made by gods from another dimension. The music was nothing less than incredible. Then you had the action stages that felt like a top quality arcade game. So playing ActRaiser on Christmas day is my best gaming memory.

I also got F-Zero(another astonishingly good game), Super Formation Soccer(a bit clunky but fun to play), Pilotwings(a stunning unique game), and Super Mario World(the best 2D platformer ever made).

What an unforgettable Christmas that was. And then I got a copy of Castlevania IV just after New Year's.

[hudson]

I can't remember getting my SNES, but I do remember playing Super Mario World in Comet and thinking that it was already one of the best games I've ever played. Need! I think I had to wait a while before I got my very own.

[Atticus]

My go-to answer to this has always been Jp Saturn + Virtua Fighter + extra controller. It was a really exciting time but thinking back there was no discovery. I was anticipating something special and it was. Maybe the SNES was the best ever new console. I liked videogames back then ... wasn't fanatical, I just liked them. And the SNES was an impulse buy at launch (I had no intention of buying one as I already had a Mega Drive) driven by seeing F-Zero's attract mode running in a shop window. I just had to have it. And after playing F-Zero half to death I dug out the free pack-in cart in the box ... the rather kiddified and obligatory Mario game. So I gave it a go ... and I honestly don't think it came out of the console until it was complete. A pure discovery of something really special. That will never happen again I don't think. I'm different now ... information is everywhere ... there are very few surprises ... and that's why this particular new console memory is so treasured.

[gamelife]

defo the build up to the Nintendo 64, I was hyped for months prior to it's release...I remember buying the first issue of Nintendo 64 magazine (silver cover with Mario 64 on the front which I must have looked through a million times) then going out to buy one on release day but they'd sold out (we couldn't pre-order from my local store) so I had to wait for 3 days before getting my hands on one. playing Mario 64 for the first time was the best gaming moment ever I reckon

[Colin]

Had to give this one a fair bit of thought, as at the age I am now I've experienced a worrying amount of new console releases so it's hard to choose there's been so many.

I've come to the conclusion though that the biggest 'experience' was probably buying my import Japanese Mega Drive. At that point like many I'd dabbled with Importing from the mail order shops in the back of magazines, but with the MD it was the first import machine I actually went to a bricks'n'mortar shop to buy. I was probably in the first year of my apprenticeship and maybe earning around £35 a week without overtime, and I picked it up from a little shop in Edinburgh. I can't for the life of me remember how much it cost, but I do remember Rambo III was the game I settled on to have with it, having stared in awe at the screenshot of Rambo shooting the helicopter in C&VG. I must've played every game in the shop that day before deciding though.

So I bought it and remember walking out the shop on a high, carrying my prized new MD by the carry handle on its little box. The entire two hours before I got back home I must have almost stared the ink off of the box, feeling like an absolute boss walking down the street with it. "Yeah, that's right ****ers, I've got a ****ing Japanese Mega Drive!". In reality of course no one walking past me had the first clue what it was.

Absolutely rinsed Rambo III for the entire weekend and loved it. Absolutely awesome at the time. I then worked out that if I just did some overtime every week that my meagre £35 weekly wage could be increased enough that I could make the same pilgrimage to that little shop almost every week for another game while still leaving enough to give my mum the £10 contribution for my keep. Ah the days before the boozing took over. Bliss.

[wakka]

I've posted about my favourite memories before in other threads I'm sure, but the day I got my PSP is up there. I was in Geography when my Dad texted me to tell me it had arrived (and had been marked down as requested to $20 by Audiocubes, meaning no import tax).

I was so frigging excited I think I broke out in a sweat. I got home and opened the crumpled brown box - pleasingly covered in Japanese postal stickers and stamps - it came in, only to find the PSP box itself badly bashed around. A real heart in mouth moment as it opened it up, but the system and accessories inside were flawless!

Popped the figure of eight cable out of the back of my PS2 and hooked that bad boy up to the mains to give it a charge. Booting up Ridge Racers for the first time was a transcendent experience. It felt like something from the future, this lush, glossy, weighty piece of Japanese technology that used these cyberpunkish little minidiscs and sported slick design touches like the aluminium ring on the rear.

The graphics on RRs absolutely blew me away, but the game was also an absolutely blinder to play. I love all the RRs, but that first taste of what would become the series' final evolution was really special. It just played so damn well and it was packed to the rafters with content. Even the menus were amazing - so far ahead of anything I'd seen before in a portable.

And I had Lumines to go with it, too. Still one of the best puzzle games I've ever played and, like RRs, just a sublime experience on the machine.

I was in love. The next day I took it to school and people lost their minds. They'd never seen anything like it. I had a gang of kids about three deep around me watching me slam around Greenpeak Highlands.

I don't know if any console will be quite as cool as the PSP was on its Japanese release. It was ****ing awesome.

[DeathAdder]

Probably the Wii - it is the only console I've queued up all night for, and even though it was freezing, we had a good time. Some of the other people were really organized, and brought picnic tables, even going so far as to put a box of tissues on the table. They then had a sit-down meal. During the night I chatted with other people using DS Pictochat.

[Colin]

@wakka the PSP’s arrival was amazing for sure, I remember using mine at Edinburgh airport and ending up with a crowd too.

My choice of MD was due to the whole experience, but for sheer mind blowing arrivals I think my PCE with R-Type, PS with ridge racer, Xbox with Halo, PSP with ridge racers and DC with house of the dead were all real jaw dropping moments.

[Team Andromeda]

While it's hard to overlook the wonderful memories of getting my Zx Spectrum 128+, Master System, or the MD on Christmas day (having a big gaming system for Christmas day always seems more special), My fav new console memory and experience that was the SEGA Saturn in November 1994.

It was the 1st console I didn't have to wait for Christmas Day to get or for it to hit Pal land. It was the 1st time I was able to buy a system out of my own money, the day it hit the import shop. I was so buzzing with excitement and counting down the days until launch, still remember phoning Lee then @DreamMachines 2 to check if the stock had come in and he confirmed it did, and the only issue was over getting enough Saturn 2nd pads

Just powering on the Saturn was totally amazing with Japanese Saturn boot screen, never mind being impressed with the Saturn option screen and being floored at the Space ship flying around the screen, when one hide the background. But it was seeing and hearing VF for the 1st time that was the standout and where no amount of screen shots in EDGE or SEGA mags could do justice. For the 1st time there was a home game, that had the animation and movement one expected to see in a Hong Kong Kung-Fu movie and it was so amazing to see that on a home system in November 1994, one really felt you were in the next gen. The sound too was totally next gen too, with bone crushing sound effects and a totally brilliant CD-DA sound track.

Everything about that day felt next gen and so special, even down to the message on the Box. How it was a new leap into a new age of entertainment and 'let’s go forward together'