We need a thread to share our history with consoles and PCs!
So I started this one! What's your history?
In what year did you have it, and what use do you still make of it today?
How much did it cost you? Etc., a kind of timeline!
<> 2004/2005 to 2012 - My First PC
This was technically the family PC, but I was definitely the one who used it the most.
Specs:
Intel Celeron D 320 (2.40 GHz)
2 GB DDR RAM (upgraded later to 3 GB)
Nvidia FX 5200
60 GB IDE HDD
Windows XP
I used it for all kinds of things, especially playing RTSs and RPG Maker games. I also learned to edit images and programing on this PC.
It still works, and I recently even upgraded the RAM to 3 GB, the fastest that was compatible with this motherboard
It’s funny to turn it on now and browse through the old folders and things I made back then.
<> 2012 until 2016 - Toshiba
This was a huge leap from my desktop, my first laptop, a Toshiba Satellite.
It was an entry-level laptop, I remember it cost around €500, but I probably used it far beyond its capabilities.
I played hundreds of hours of Minecraft on it often at 20 FPS!
I even tried to use Unreal Engine 3 on this computer.
Specs:
Windows 8
4 GB DDR3 RAM
500 GB HDD
AMD E1 1200
It still works today, I even used it at university for a Linux project. But I installed a 128GB SSD.
<> 2016 until 2019 - HP
Then I moved to another laptop, an HP, which was much more capable and it was my first experience with more capable hardware.
Specs:
Windows 10
8 GB RAM
i5 6200U
Radeon R5 M230
1 TB HDD
I gave this laptop to a relative who needed something for school and entertainment, and I know it’s still being used daily today.
I did upgrade it with an SSD, because it really needed it.
<> 2019 until 2021
I was in the middle of my first year of Software Engineering, and this time I wanted something more powerful.
So I bought a gaming laptop, insanely expensive for my means at the time 850 Euros, an HP Omen.
It was with this laptop that I fully entered the world of PC gaming, because before that I had always been limited when it came to newer AAA games and a lot of other things.
Specs:
GTX 1050
i5 8400H
8 GB RAM
256 GB SSD
It still works today, in fact, it's my laptop that I still use when I go somewhere.
It's my secondary computer.
Frankly, it's still quite fast even for today, a pretty decent CPU. But I need to add another 8GB.
<> 2021 ->
Finally, I got my first real job, and of course, my first salary was completely spent on a gaming PC, unfortunately, right when prices were at their highest.
Specs:
RX 6600 XT (later upgraded to RX 7800 XT, an absolutely fantastic GPU)
16 GB DDR4 (later upgraded to 32 GB)
i5 10400F (But I'm looking for a used i9 10900 (non-k))
3 SSDs (1× 1TB, 2× 500GB)
Total cost so far including upgrades 2401.80 Euros
#### Console ####
<> 2004 to 2011 - PS2
The console of my childhood, my first console.
I played a bit of everything here.
I spent really, really a lot of time on it.
I still play on it today — not very often, but sometimes I buy some used games at CEX.
Speaking of which, I recently bought an FPS called Urban Chaos that I still haven’t played, but it looks fantastic.
I played lots of FPS games like Call of Duty, Black, Medal of Honor, Killzone, etc., and adventure games like Jak, and of course FIFA!
My taste for RPGs came much later, and on the PS2 there’s one of my favorite RPGs ever, Rogue Galaxy! I recommend it!
<> 2011 to 2016 - PS3!
THE ONE, THE INCREDIBLE, THE TRIPLE! IT ONLY DOES EVERYTHING!
I remember perfectly when I bought it, I was 14 years old, for 199 euros in December at Christmas, with all the money I had saved during the whole year to buy it.
And along with the PS3, I bought a copy of Fallout 3 for 10 euros! WHAT TIMES, WHAT PRICES!
Maybe my favorite piece of hardware ever.
Endless hours, and if I combine the time I played on my friends’ PS3s during several summers in split-screen Modern Warfare 2, then I have double the endless hours.
The PS3 is the console that made me very interested in hardware and software and game development.
Actually, The Last of Us is the game that made me change my opinion about what a video game could be, and to this day, I still play it once a year. It was also thanks to this game that I started playing other genres.
I’m still very active on the PS3, I constantly buy games and generally prefer the PS3 ports over the PC versions of games from that era.
And lately, I’ve been interested in learning to program with the CELL.
I played practically everything at that time, it was here that many franchises that still release games today also began.
<> 2016 to 2023 - PS4 and its Stability
Finally, games started to run at really stable 30fps!
I bought it for 299 euros. Until that time, I was still playing on the PS3 and my PC was a low end Toshiba (but I was already about to buy an HP).
I was completely out of the AAA gaming world.
My first game was Horizon, and honestly, I was shocked by how advanced the graphics were.
During the first years, I barely turned on the PS3 and was really impressed by the PS4.
Bloodborne is my favorite PS4 game, not only from Sony but from the entire generation.
Currently, I don’t use it, I have it stored, all the games now run on the PS5.
<> 2023 to now - PS5
I bought it for 420 euros on sale, it’s the original model.
It’s the console I currently use and where I play most of the games that come out nowadays, and some games on PC like Stalker 2.
This is not a common opinion, but for me, the PS5 has been one of the best generations, I love the games that have come out.
From Forspoken to Stellar Blade, I’ve really enjoyed them.
<> 2025 to now - Switch OLED and Switch Lite
I bought a Switch Lite a few years ago, I honestly don’t remember when.
But this year, I bought an OLED. When the Switch 2 came out, the OLED started to get several discounts and good deals, so I bought one to be able to play Nintendo games on the TV.
I play on the Switch, but not much.
<> ??? to 2011
I had a Nintendo DS. I don’t remember when I got it, it was a gift, but I played a lot on it and took it everywhere with me.
I’ve already given it away.
Earliest gaming was on arcade cabinets at corner stores and at friend's houses - most had PCs, two had Intellivisions and one an Acorn Electron. Then I started getting my own systems:
Famicom
MegaDrive
MegaCD
PS1
Above consoles all Japanese models (with most titles in Japanese).
From this point on all European models:
PS2
N64
Xbox 360
GameCube
PS4
Wii U
PS4 Pro
PS5
PS5 Pro
Dabbled briefly with PC gaming since my work required a relatively powerful PC anyway and I wanted to play Half-Life. Can't remember the spec exactly, one of the first Pentium 4s with Rambus RDRAM. I bought 3 GPUs in the space of a year or so - a Voodoo 5, GeForce 2 Ultra and one who's name I can't remember for the life of me (I think it was a colour?). I did more benchmarking than gaming.
1987 - Tandy 1000 PC
Played mostly Sierra adventure games on this thing as a very young child.
1988 - NES
I was a bit late to the NES party but I was an absolute fanatic for it. This is the console that got me hooked on video games. I was mesmorized by the side scrolling action, music, and overall aesthetic of Super Mario Bros, Castlevania, and Mega Man, slammed my floor as I died repeatedly in Ninja Gaiden as well as getting KO'd by Bald Bull in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! Was a religious Nintendo Power reader and always wanted to rent and try the latest games.
1991 - SNES - I was well into my hardcore Nintendo fandom. Every first party game was a must have for me, as were most Capcom and Konami ones. I didn't connect much with RPGs yet in this generation though, and that caused me to miss out on Final Fantasy 2 and 3 when they originally came out. I was all about the fighting games when Mortal Kombat came out and I couldn't care less that the worse looking Genesis version had a blood code. Also was obsessed with Street Fighter 2, every version.
1992 - 386 PC
I was enamored by Wing Commander, Return to Zork, Under A Killing Moon, Gabriel Knight, and many other adventure games, but as the years went by, games became more demanding and I tried to run Wing Commander 3 on it only to be severely disappointed and that would be the end of my PC gaming love affair for a few years.
1994 - 3DO - Was shocked to get this as a gift. I wanted it so bad because I would finally be able to play Wing Commander 3 when it came out on it, and I was blown away by all the FMV at the time. Played the hell out of Samurai Shodown and Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, loved the FMV shooting games like Mad Dog McCree, the Digital Pictures games, the Crystal Dynamics bangers, Naughty Dog's Way of the Warrior... I enjoyed the hell out of this console. One of the later upcoming releases the magazines had me hyped to the heavens for was Policenauts, which of course never came. My obsession with the advancement in tech made me miss out on some later classic SNES releases though.
1996 - N64 - I came back to Nintendo with the N64 and traded in my 3DO console and games for just a credit towards the console. (those damn greedy video game stores offering peanuts for used games and consoles) SM64 blew me away, and then there was that launch drought where I even got Automobili Lamborghini and pretended it was a good game. That was my choice of console, and I eventually became jealous of PlayStation owners when Final Fantasy VII came out, and all my school friends were talking about it. So eventually...
Late 1997 - PlayStation - This overtook the N64 as my main console and from Final Fantasy VII to Resident Evil 2 and beyond, I was floored. Tekken 3 and Gran Turismo were both watershed moments for me as well. This console made me a hardcore RPG fan and I played almost every Square game released on the console. Metal Gear Solid introduced me to the world of Hideo Kojima that I missed out on when Policenauts failed to release in the west and I was a fan of his work from then on.
1998 - PC - I finally got back into PC gaming with a Compaq prebuilt featuring a Pentium 2 450 CPU and a 3DFX Voodoo2. Played Quake II, Quake 3 Arena, Unreal... was blown away by the 60 FPS 3D graphics of the Voodoo2, and had a CD-R drive I would use to make... "backups" of PlayStation games that would work on my modified console. I also really got into emulation, going back and playing SNES titles I missed like Chrono Trigger, the SNES Final Fantasies, the fan translation of Seiken Densetsu 3... The PC gaming love affair didn't last too long for me though, because in September...
1999 - Dreamcast - I picked this up in launch month. I never had a Sega console but my cousin was a Sega guy and I always respected Sega's first party titles. As soon as I put in Soul Calibur, Sega had me hook, line, and sinker. I was Dreamcast obsessed. I didn't care about the PS2 that was round the corner, I had mindblowing games RIGHT NOW. I fiended for every single first party release, loved the Sega 2K sports games, the Sonic Adventures, Phantasy Star Online, Skies of Arcadia, Power Stone 1 & 2, Marvel vs Capcom 2, Jet Grind Radio, Street Fighter 3, Samba De Amigo, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, and SHENMUE. OMG SHENMUE. That game clicked for me and none of my friends understood it. I was a Dreamcast Official Magazine subscriber and furiously sought out any bit of new about upcoming Dreamcast games. When Sega announced their exit from the console business and they were going third party, I was shocked and saddened.
I'll edit this and continue later because damn I'm old.
Around 1998 we had a Pentium 2 with 333mhz but not a clue of anything else in there
Upgraded to a Dell system around 2005 which was a Pentium 4
Then onto some windows vista machine
Then I went years without a PC at all.
Bought my gaming PC in 2018 - Ryzen 2700 with an RX 580 GPU - I can't quite remember the RAM but I think it was 16gb. Upgraded to 32gb RAM, Ryzen 7 5800X + an RTX 2070s which was later sold for insane money during the Covid chip shortages and it allowed me to buy a RTX 3080 at RRP from Nvidia directly.
Stayed on the RTX 3080 + system above until 2023.
Then I bought my current PC. Ryzen 9 7950X3d, 64GB RAM 5200, A boat load of drives (16tb total) for video editing and back-ups, paired initially with my 3080. I sold the 3080 and put that towards a RTX 4090. Money well spent. Not looking to change systems for a while.
Consoles: NES (1993), DC (1999), PS2 (2000), Xbox (2001), Wii (2006), 360 (2009), PS3 (2010), 3DS (2013), PS4 Pro (2018), Switch (2020).
I don't think I'll buy any more consoles at this point, the last two in the list were gifts. Once I discovered emulation my console interest steadily waned.
PCs:
Pentium MMX, Voodoo 2 (1998)
Pentium 4, GeForce 3 (2003)
Q6600, 8800GTX (2007), HD4870 (2008) <- Emulation station
2500K, HD6950 (2011)
3950X, 1660Ti (2019)
5950X, 3080 (2022), 4080 (2023)
I'll probably upgrade to 9800X3D but keep the 4080 for the forseeable future.
4th to 7th: 486 in shareware heaven playing Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Rise of the Triad, Descent, Heretic.
Middle School & High School: N64, SNES Emulators, Gameboy Advance, Dreamcast
College: Xbox & Xbox 360
20s to Mid 30s: PS3, Xbox One, PS4 and 4X games on PC
Late 30s to present: PC. 7800X3D+4080
I can't see myself going back to consoles. "$500 console, $70 games, we won't even make one current gen game per quarter for the first three years. When we finally do, we're talking about 'y'all need to upgrade to PS5 Pro and PS6 coming soon.'" Gamers made it the best selling PlayStation since the PS2. 3rd best selling one was the PS4, where they ripped out BC and sold it you for $40 per title. Console gaming is too confusing for me at my age. I don't understand what it is. PC makes more sense.
I was born in 1984, and some of the earliest photos I’ve seen of myself are with an NES controller in my hand, so I believe I started playing video games around 2 or 3. We also had the ColecoVision, Atari and Commodore 64.
Come to think of it, I’m not really sure how we managed to have all that, because my family didn’t have a bunch of money. They must have collected it over time before I was born.
My earliest memories are playing Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel’s Castle on the ColecoVision and Popeye on the NES.
I was mostly a Nintendo guy, getting every new console when I could manage. I had a laptop at one time that was mostly used to play Starcraft. When the Xbox and Halo got popular, I started getting more into that, and became primarily an Xbox guy until recently.
I’ve currently got the Xbox Series X, Sony PS5 Pro, Nintendo Switch, Meta Quest 3, and a Lenovo Legion laptop with a 4060 GPU. Most of my gaming this year has been on the PC or the PS5.
Not a clue on the actual dates, but I have a pretty good time frame for everything I've owned over the years. With everything technically starting with the family computer running some old version of flight sim, Need for Speed, and various online games including Runescape of course. Not a clue what hardware was in that old PC, and pretty sure it has long been scrapped.
Started off with the Gameboy Advanced SP as my first console I owned myself, played mainly Mario and Pokemon. Still sitting in my closet at the moment, untouched in probably a decade+ now.
And followed it up with the Gamecube, which got sold off at some point. Or maybe I traded it in for some Wii games at Gamestop.
Wii was the next and the natural upgrade from the Gamecube. Ended up in the living room at some point, and now in the closet with all the natural family group games that console had.
PS3 showed up at some point around here, ended up being sold to a friend for probably less than I should have. In retrospect this was a terrible purchase because I ended up playing PC far more than the PS3.
First gaming PC was around this was well, Had a Phenom II and a 650ti boost. Killed that PC trying to overclock the CPU. Swapped to an AMD FX 6300 after that and stuck with the 650ti boost. Sold the 6300 at some point, and 650ti boost ended up in a friends computer.
New 3DS XL was purchased around this point, was going to catch up on some DS games I never played. Ended up honestly not using it that much. And still sitting in the closet essentially brand new.
Finally got a major PC upgrade to a 10700k and a 980ti that I got a great deal on off craigslist. Which is what seriously got me into PC gaming since I finally had a good enough PC to truly enjoy various games that came up. Without having to make major compromises. Ended up sticking a CPU AIO on the GPU to keep it cool and stuck a 360mm AIO on the CPU to try and OC everything the best I could. But eventually had to upgrade.
So swapped out the old 980ti for a 3080FE that I got lucky with in Covid. Spent days just refreshing the BestBuy app to get lucky on that purchase. Was an incredible card that let me finally make the massive upgrade from a cheap 1080p display to a 4k OLED, LG 48CX which is still going strong now.
Got a Meta Quest 2 as a present, and put plenty of time in Beat Saber with it. But just got frustrated with various issues, mainly around just how tedious it ends up being to set up to start playing. Between moving furniture and various software/wifi issue I always seemed to have. And poor tracking that made me frustrated at missing notes. I haven't touched it much at all this year.
Picked up a PS5 to play a couple Playstation exclusives. Which than in typical fashion ended up getting PC releases shortly after I bought them. So in the end I bought a PS5 for pretty much no reason at all, and should have just held out a couple more months and had a better experience on PC. But oh well, who doesn't want another console.
Grabbed a Steam Deck because I thought it was super cool, and sure it still is. But haven't really used it al that much, doubt I have more than 30hrs total spent playing games on it. Another console that in retrospect, I shouldn't have bought at all.
Finally reaching my current upgraded computer, finally had to make the upgrade from the 10700k and 3080 to a 9800X3D and a 5070ti. As the 3080 just couldn't push good enough FPS at 4k even with upscaling at this point for me, just far too many comprises there. Which I've already rebuilt in the 6 months since I built it to swap from a massive ATX case to a compact MATX case, got tired of the ATX taking so much space and being hard to take to LANs. Don't remember the costs of anything I've bought in the past, but I know I'm well into the $3k range at this point between various purchases for this current iteration of my computer.
And technically as it is something I play games on, I'll through in the Lenovo Legion Tab and abxylute S9 controller. Purchased it as I wanted an all around tablet that I could take on trips and do everything with. And honestly it shocks me how good it is. Can emulate anything I want, can play steam games via Gamehub, plays my Gachas no issue. And of course is great for just reading and watching content. Honestly it probably one of the better purchasing I've ever made, and better than the Steam Deck for my needs.
Looking into the future. I'm considering the Steam Frame as a way to get back into VR and Beat Saber, assuming the software and general experience is better than the Quest 2. And will need to replace this OLED at some point, but it hasn't gotten any burn in yet and just some dead pixels on the edges that I don't notice. So I'll wait for whatever the next major upgrade is. But honestly I think this is the first point in a long time that I haven't felt I need to upgrade anything else soon, so hopefully the next PC upgrade is for a RTX 70xx card or whatever AMD is doing at that time.
We weren't allowed to have a living room console as kids, so it was PC games (mostly RTS and FPS), handhelds (GBA and later DS) until I got get my first console, a GameCube, late in the generation. Then I got a PS2 slim as well after a friend let me borrow his with copies if Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and a Katamari game. Good taste, and won me over!
Since, I've been keeping up, getting all the Nintendo and Sony consoles and handhelds during their generations, and I eventually did catch up on the older generations, previous-generation Xbox consoles, and eventually the Series X too (mainly to play with friends)
So while I wouldn't call myself a collector, I have a good library of games and consoles now and love playing them all. I do look at the digital-only future with some trepidation - even some games on "good guy" DRM platform Steam have become unplayable legally for me (they only support hardware Steam no longer does).
Here is my gaming evolution: Amiga 500 -> Mac Quadra 700 -> Pentium II 400Mhz Pc -> Pentium 4 (3Ghz, HOT!!!) Laptop with Mobile Geforce FX 5600 -> Self-Build PC with Intel Core2 Duo 6600 and Geforce 8800GTS 640MB -> Self-Build PC with Intel Core 2500k with GTX 5600Ti 448 Cores (later upgraded to GTX970) -> Self-Build PC with 8700k and GTX970 upgraded to RTX 2080 -> Self-Build PC with 13700k and RTX 4080 (still rocking that one).
Atari 2600 > Master System > PS1 > Dreamcast > PS2 > PS3 > Vita > PS4 > PS5 > PS5 Pro. All throughout I've had access to gaming on PC as well, from Prince of Persia, Street Rod and Doom on MS-DOS to emulating most of Nintendo systems and including more recent stuff too (although it's been a while since I was able to upgrade my PC, so I've been stuck with an i5 2500K and a 970).
First purchase with my own money as an older teen was the 360, along with an Insignia 27” 1080i/720p CRT. I the accumulated 6 or 7 faulty 360’s over the span of a couple years, mostly RRoD, and basically swore off XBOX from that point on.
Since then I’ve owned every major console from Sony and Nintendo, starting with the PS3 and Wii.
On the PC side, I always had a toe in the water as a kid. In the late to mid 90s I got really into a few games that I could run on whatever PC I could talk my parents into upgrading to at the time. I remember Myst and Half Life early on as well as Red Alert, Sim City, and EAs NHL games.
In the early aughts I started scraping together enough birthday money and what not to get an actual dGPU every couple of years or so. I remember the first purchase was specifically to run Max Payne properly. There were also a few years there where I got way too into Counter Strike… but I came out mostly unscathed.
I was more or less a console bro during the PS3/PS4 generation, but started dabbling in PC again at the end of last gen, and now at this point I’m almost exclusively a PC player. Still have the consoles around for the wife and kids, but aside from the odd game here or there, I mostly only play those if I’m needed for game help… Which is happening less and less these days, lol.
We didn't have enough money to have a PC when I was a kid but we did get one as part of a settlement agreement from my mum leaving a job. I think it was just the old PC the company was getting rid of. It was around 1998 and I remember it running Windows 95 but that's the end of what I remember about it.
I bought my first PC for gaming in 2008, it was a self build and I did it around the 9800 GX2 so I could play Crysis. Turns out I didn't even really like Crysis and mostly played WoW on it. Good used of the GPU...
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Topic: What is your historical timeline of PCs and consoles that you've had?
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