OldBoy

Like what was the reasoning behind every system you owned...

Atari 2600...it was the first of its kind. Played, what I thought were great games and everyone had one. I'm sure I didn't get it at launch though.
Sega Genesis...I think maybe I liked Sonic.
Sega Genesis CD...just an extension, I believe, but played movie-type games. Thought it was pretty cool.
Sega Dreamcast...I guess by now, I was a Sega guy and stuck with it. Liked the Dreamcast a lot.
NES...I guess this was the new, best thing and I wanted it. Sega was shitting bed or something. Great system, but remember after a long while dealing with cartridge issues and blowing in them or something. Some great games from my childhood were brought back. Loved Bionic Commando.
SNES...I think I had this and returned it for some reason. Played the Super Star Wars or something, liked that, but again, for one reason or another, returned or sold system.
N64...I guess I was Nintendo guy by now and this brought new 3D models and stuff. It was cool, but don't remember it that well.
GameCube...well from the box design, to everything and again Nintendo, I thought this looked cool. Played and finished some great games. Especially Eternal Darkness, Metroid Prime, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Viewtiful Joe (really wanted to finish that one and then get sequel), others and especially Resident Evil 4. My absolute favorite game ever.
PS2...had this for like a minute. Played one of the Grand Theft Auto games, liked it. Hated no wireless controller. Bought an extension and cut holes in my carpet to not have wire showing. It worked, but something in me knew it was off. Sold system and all games, for decent price actually on eBay. Thus went to GameCube.
Xbox 360...just didn't like where Nintendo was going and didn't like idea or execution of Wii, so I went to Microsoft and never looked back. Played my first FPS (Halo), loved it and that was that.
Xbox One...I'm Xbox guy now. I like mostly only FPS games and others and this delivers for me consistently. Also, surprises me in games they remaster and whatnot. Love can digital download and it's just easy to use.

Sonic

My reasoning behind my support for the systems was addiction. I was immersed into worlds of great imagination. But the systems I owned are:

Atari 7800
Atari 2600
Nintendo
Genesis
Sega CD
Sega Nomad (handheld Genesis)
Super Nintendo
Playstation
Sega Saturn
Nintendo 64

Gideon68

Because I'm a gamer and will eventually buy every system to play every game I can.

Maxflier

This.

brayzie

NES-At the time saying you were playing Nintendo was synonymous with playing video games. There was no other system. I wasn't even aware of any other systems until a little later.

Sega Genesis-I wanted the next level, I had already been a fan of the Genesis and TG-16. SNES just came on the scene, but Genesis looked like the cooler and more adult system. Mortal Kombat and Sonic were big factors.

Gameboy-wanted a portable gaming system and this was the main one with the biggest game library.

32X-I didn't want to jump into the 32 bit realm because the price tag seemed so expensive even though my parents were still buying me these things. I felt like the 32X would extend the life of my Genesis. I thought it was a cheat to get arcade-like games at a fraction of the cost.

Sega Dreamcast-Being a Sega fan I was happy that Sega was back in the game with a solid system. I knew the PS2 was coming out but I didn't care. Shenmue and the exclusive RE: Code Veronica had me. The system and the VMUs were beautiful too. No regrets about this system even though it didn't last that long.

PS2-Sega was gone and the XBOX was ugly. I wanted to play Onimusha as well as the Capcom fighters. I only bought Onimusha 1 & 2, and Capcom vs SNK. Rented a bunch of games like Devil May Care and Castelvania and was very disappointed. Metal Gear was awesome but I no longer had the time to invest in playing these games.

BobO'Link

Because I'm a gamer - both board and video games. I'm almost always up for a game.

Pong - 4 player system. It was *pong* on your *TV* for crying out loud!

Atari 2600 - Games on a cartridge?!? Plug in a new one when you get bored with the one you're playing. And you can get Pong for it too?! Heck yeah! I'm in! (Sold the Pong console to help finance the purchase)

From there it was straight to computer games:
Atari 800 - Plays great games, full color built-in, sprites (overlapping, moving images/items), games come on cartridge, tape, and disk, good audio built-in, and you can program on it.

Atari XE-GS - When my son asked for a NES I got him a Atari XE-GS instead as it was superior, but it didn't play the games he wanted to play and he wasn't interested in its computing ability.

NES - Under pressure from my wife he got the NES the next Christmas. Of course I had to purchase games only I was interested in playing as it was connected to my TV.

SNES - He later asked for a SNES so I got him one of those. Yep... I bought games for myself for that one too. Why not?

My personal next "gaming" system was a Intel based PC - Atari went down the crapper as a computer company leaving me with little choice but it's proven to be a good one.

Nintendo Wii - We were at a cousin's house with the grandkids and they were playing "Guitar Hero" on a Wii. My grandson (then 5) though it was the best thing ever. I amazed everyone by picking up the controller and kicking everyone's collective asses playing the "game" even though I'd never seen, or played, one before. (I'm a gamer *and* a musician - it's a easy "game" even on the harder difficulty settings) My wife insists we get one for the grandkids to play at our house. I resist for a few months but finally cave.

X-Box 360 - My grandson (now 13) got a X-Box One to replace his 360 and brought the 360 to my house for us to play games.

RichC2

Because they were new.

mugwump

Sega Genesis -- Best console of that generation -- shut up NES fanboys
PS1 -- Won one at Circuit City during some promo
PS2 -- Still the best console ever and bought it to use as a DVD player
Xbox -- Bought it for Elder Scrolls games and not much else
Xbox 360 -- Held off for a long time but wife worked for M$ and got lots of free games
PS3 -- Blu-Ray player and streaming media. Still used almost every day
Xbox One -- Xmas gift for the kids. Still not sure if I prefer this over the PS4
PS4 -- Bought exclusively to play MLB The Show, my youngest son's most played video game, but I quickly got hooked on the Uncharted series and now split about 50/50 between this and the Xbone. I imagine being that now being able to add an external HD might push the PS4 to the forefront.

SmackDaddy

Pong: Parents Bought it for the family
Odyssey 2: Christmas Present, and I really wanted to play Quest for the Rings
Atari 2600: Wanted to play all the popular games
Colecovision: Christmas Present, had to have the best home version of Donkey Kong
Sega Master System: Christmas present from my girlfriend
Sega Genesis: Liked the SMS so this was the next step up.
Sega Saturn: Was all in for Sega at this point. Panzer Dragoon!
Sega Dreamcast: Still my favorite console. Gone way too soon!
N64: Friend of mine gave it to me along with Goldeneye, Banjo Kazooie, Mario 64
Xbox: Seemed like a cool console and Halo drew me right in.
PS2: Picked this up to catch up on all the games I missed over the years.
Xbox 360: Xbox was great, how could I go wrong...oh yeah RROD.
PS3: Abandoned Microsoft after 3 RROD and never looked back.
Wii: Picked this up on a whim on release day.
PS4: Natural progression.
WiiU: Though it was a neat idea, they just had to come out with Metroid...oh...maybe not...
Xbox One: Guess I looked back. Picked it up for $249 with a bunch of extras over Christmas to play exclusives.
Switch: Impulse buy at Target. Breath of the Wild is fantastic!

mndtrp

I didn't have any gaming systems growing up. Some games on the home Mac computer, but very little.

PS1 - My roommate first year of college had one. When he graduated, he sold it to me with a bunch of games for cheap.
PS2 - Could play the PS1 games, and I was familiar with the controller.
PS3 - Could play PS2 games, and I didn't like much about the Xbox systems at the time.
PS4 - Didn't see any point in changing. Exclusives for the Xbox don't interest me, PS+ was giving me games for both systems.

BasementArt2

NES - I begged my parents, grandparents, and any relative I could for this.
Genesis - Oddly, I wanted the super, was excited about Super Mario World, and F-Zero, and then...SONIC, so I got this for Xmas that year.
SNES - I got into RPG's hard during the 16 bit era, and after the limited amount of Genesis ones, I pawned my Genesis, and used the money to buy my friends SNES, and immediately started getting JRPG's.
N64, Xmas the year it came out, I got this from family with the 3 launch titles.
I then skipped a generation.

Wii - I got a 250 Best Buy Gift card from my Mom and bought one.
X360 - I wanted Mass Effect, it sounded awesome, I got it.
DS - My daughter's broke, we got her a new one, ran to Nintendo in Redmond,and they swapped it out, and got all the RPG's I could for it.
Wii U, I wanted it, and Nintendo had them cheap refurbished.
Xbox One - Microsoft had them cheap refurbished.


Dreamcast - started collecting Vintage consoles, got this one again, along with a a refurb SNES and a refurb Genesis from my wife.

PS4 - We just got my son a PS4 for his birthday, he is still addicted to Minecraft on Xbox One, and hasn't gotten into it yet.

davidh777

Xbox: Had only played PC games and wanted to play Halo
360: New games and HD DVD
PS3: New games and BD
X1: New games
PS4 Pro: Uncharted 4

cleaver

I've bought every system I didn't think was garbage since SNES, which when I bought I realized a new system doesn't cost that much more than a game and it's more exciting to buy a new system than 2 games. I didn't buy the 32X, Atari Jaguar, Virtual Boy, Saturn, and Wii U because they all had

fumanstan

Answer to all the consoles i've bought have been simply... there are games on the system that I want to play.

JuryDuty

Pong - Because the idea of playing a game on your TV was mind-blowing.

Atari 2600 - A Christmas gift because Pac-man fever!

Intellivision - Was on sale and seemed like the next big thing. Kept going back to the Atari.

Commodore 64 - My first computer that changed everything. I could now "hack" games and change stuff like character colors, walls, etc. Super fun.

MS-DOS PC - Because I needed a productivity computer...but I could still play Zork!

Windows 3.1/95/98/ME/XP/7 PC - Because I needed to upgrade and everyone said Windows was where it was at. Introduced me to MMORPG gaming and FP shooters. I was hooked and custom-built every one of them myself.

Sega Genesis - Latecomer, found it cheap and could play Soul Calibur and Crazy Taxi--two games not on the PC.

Nintendo Gamecube - Latecomer, found it cheap and--holy cow--the whole family could use this. Super Smash Bros and Mario Racing FTW!

XBox 360 - Bought it because gaming with a mouse was giving me carpel tunnel...ended up buying three of these just so the whole family could play Destiny together.

Mac - Because I finally had it with Windows 8. Switched over my entire household. Use it for one game: Rocksmith.

iPads/iPhone - Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes and Plants vs Zombies. 'Nuff said.

XBox One - Bought mainly because of Destiny and Tomb Raider. Once Backward Compatibility was announced, this was the only way to go.

mzupeman2

Over the years I've purchased NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, N64, Genesis, Turbo Grafix 16, 3D0, Gamecube, Wii, Wii-U, Switch, Playstation, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Slim Gears of War 3 edition, Xbox One, Xbox One S, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS XL, New Nintendo 3DS XL... not sure if I'm leaving something out.

Basically, I started with the NES because the games were incredible compared to what came before it. Zelda, Mario, Contra... it was awesome. SNES was the next big thing and Super Mario World seemed like such a major improvement and refinement over what the NES brought to the table. From there it was just me being a gaming fan for life, and I wanted it all.

Unfortunately I traded away most of it over the years like many do when they want to upgrade, but I've spent the last couple of years re-buying old consoles and the games I love for them. Have a 27" CRT right next to my computer desk for the sole purpose of old school gaming.

OldBoy

Remember Coleco Vision system? I used to love that one. Wasn't that first sign of Donkey Kong?