My earliest gaming was before x86 PCs, at least for home use and gaming, really were a thing yet. But my gaming was always veered towards "home computers" which at least in theory had other uses besides just gaming, I just always felt it makes more sense to have a more versatile gaming machine than a mere console where you can do nothing else besides inserting a cartridge and start playing. Heck, I even programmed many games of my own!

After Commodore Amiga 500, PC (a 486DX) was a logical next step. I wasn't really interested into PC gaming that much until VGA graphics became a thing and PC games started supporting sound cards. CGA PC gaming with PC beeper sounds, blech...

Playstation was the first gaming console I really owned, I bought it for some PS exclusives that I was interested to play (Gran Turismo, Xenogears etc.). When it later broke down, I bought a PS2. After that I haven't bought any gaming consoles, mainly I don't see the point because console games don't differ that much from PC games, as they used to back in PS/PS2 times, and before.

Ok we did have some handheld LCD gaming devices when I was a small kid, but not sure if they are considered as consoles...

Yeah, I've been pretty much pc exclusive since childhood, not through my own choice however, but because my parents never ended up buying up a console - out of a combination of my not actually insisting on them doing so (I end up not buying stuff I want all too often...), and them thinking that since the pc they got me played games as well, why get a separate appliance (that wasn't exactly cheap either) for that.
Only console I own is a Wii, and that because I insisted there, because I wanted to play with them motion controls. I hardly use it anymore though, because I got all fed up with my parents always wanting to watch the news when I wanted to play on the Wii... When I get a home on my own, I'll get a separate TV for consoles, and I'm planning to hook up my Wii, and buy a used PS2 and PS3 and hook those there too, and thus somewhat catch up on all the juicy console gaming I've missed...
Seriously, I often think I should have rather been a console gamer, as I oftentimes get really annoyed with the newest games greedily asking for more and more RAM, while a console plays the games made for it and that's all...

P.S. I only got handhelds (Dsi and PSP) 4 years ago from a clearance sale for cheap - I ended up playing with the Dsi more, even though the PSP could be homebrewed and I used that oftentimes as an emulator, but I don't play on handhelds much either because I don't feel like charging them the whole time...

As a child I had an Atari 2600. Later a Sega Master System and a SNES after that.

The last console I owned was a PS1. In 1996 my father got me my first PC and, after a few years between it and the PS1, I finally became PC only, around the time the PS2 was released. So the PS1 was my last console.

Atari 2600
NES
GameBoy
Commodore 128
Amiga 600
PSX

...and my actually first Windows PC followed only afterwards. :)

Commodore 64 for me. I remember playing Loadrunner, Boulder Dash, Paper Boy, International Karate and Bubble Bobble. I have great memories of sharing games with my friends and playing games with my older brother. Just sitting down with a whole bunch of disks and discovering games you never heard of before. None of this was probably legal though.

All of my friends in Sweden, those into gaming, were using the C64, I don't remember anyone having an Atari or Apple, maybe they were too expensive in Sweden ?! I don't know, never saw one anyway.

What followed for me was the original NES, then PC gaming, then PS2 and the Original XBox, then back into PC gaming. Now I mix the two, I use consoles for the triple-a titles I'm interested in and for exclusives, and the PC for classic games, simulation games and Indie games.

80% of my gaming time is spent on PC though, thanks to GOG and some fantastic PC racing sims. In general I prefer slower-paced games (adventure, strategy, managerial etc) over action games. Most of my console gaming is limited to racing games like Forza and Gran Turismo.

For me 'gaming' is about the games and not the physical platforms, I don't give a damn about what other people play their games on, people who do should learn to mind their own f-n business, that's my view.

I grew up with a black and white monitor Atari STF 1040 and public domain games, but at my friends' houses I also played on Commodore 64, Amiga 500 and PC. As far as I remember, noone I knew had any kind of console. Well, unless you count the Gameboy, that one was very popular among my schoolmates back then. And it's possible that some borrowed or rent a NES or SNES from time to time, for a few days, like you would rent VHS. ;)

In my later teenage years we shared a family PC that I also played games on, but I only got one of my own when I was done with school and moving out of my parents' (at age 20, more or less?). I'm at my third PC now and my second laptop. (This post is starting to sound more and more like a math text problem. :D) Anyway, I also own a used PS2 now but I hardly use it these days.

PCs didn't exist when I was a kid, and they weren't used for gaming for the most part when I was a teenager. Sure, they did have games but they were CGA/EGA and not many people had PCs at the time except for businesses or rich people. The Commodore 64 was the dominant home computer then, later replaced by the Amiga until the PC took over in the early mid-90s.

On the console side of things I started out with an Atari 2600 in 1983, then around 1991 or so got an NES which I used for a couple of years. PCs were not really that common or popular mostly due to affordability for a few years. I bought my first PC for around $2200 in 1994 for college and started my PC gaming from then onward. I've never owned any console since, nor had any interest or desire for consoles since the NES in the early 90s.

PC Gaming Master Race(TM)

Started gaming on an Apple //e with Brickout being my first game after that my brother bought an 486 and it was PC from then on.
Only bought a PS2 a few years back but it didn't saw a lot of use, can't really put my finger on it but console game don't tickle the x-factor for me.

Growing up the only console we had - besides the TV set, har har - was Pong. Had a friend or two with the Atari 2600, and my brother got the handheld Mattel Football game for Christmas one year. that's as close as we got to console gaming.

The computer games started for me around, erm, 1980? Sounds about right. TRS-80 with Moon Lander or Lunar Lander or whatever it was called, at the middle school. High school brought me to Apple ][ PCs and games like Akalabeth, Castle Wolfenstein, Karateka, that sort of thing. A couple years later it was Lode Runner, Choplifter, Raid on Bungeling Bay (C64, I think), Racing Construction Set, and maybe Ultima or Wizardry - or both. I didn't play the last two but a friend showed me a little of one of them.

Got my own Apple ][e in 1986 after getting a small inheritance, and that really kicked into gear the game hobby. Only for a year, though. Navy interrupted for a couple years and then I discovered x86 gaming. Been on that ever since in one form or another.

Got a Nintendo Gameboy around 1992. Didn't get an actual console until around 1993, a Sega Genesis. Still have that one but it hasn't seen the light of day in a long time. A few years later picked up a PS1, to take on the road with me for hotel gaming - also have that unit yet. That ended when I finally got a hand-me-down laptop for work, and could play low power games with me on the road.

GOG users must be older on average than steam users or something. Most of you guys are talking about PC's and apples that were around before I was even born. A lot of you guys have first PC experiences with commodore 64's and I'm sitting here talking about first computer experience with windows 2000. I can barely remember windows 95 and most of you guys remember ms dos

Another 20-something here. I also barely remember Win95 -I think I used my father's Win98 more, and my 1st pc of my own had XP on. So, well, just saying you aren't alone. :-) Maybe the older audience has something to do with the fact this site was initially for older games mainly, while most youngsters like the AAA games more, and shy away from lower graphics (my own shying away limit is the Atari 2600 era-I don't see myself ever playing those- but anything after that is fair game), and I'm kind of unusual in that I actually like older games just fine...

p.s. Even though in my previous post in this thread I expressed regrets over not becoming a console gamer, being a pc gamer isn't all that bad -after all, there's just no way to play a point-and-click on a console...

Probably right though I suspect the average age has shifted down a bit over the years as more new (and new-ish) titles show up. FWIW, I'm a childish 48 years old.

I'm 38, and I probably first got into PC gaming aged around 8 or 9. I had friends with Commodores and Amstrads and so on, but my Dad insisted that if we were going to get a computer it would be a 'proper' one, i.e. an IBM-compatible, as was the phrase at the time.

Our first computer was a 10MHz 286, with 640K of RAM and a whopping 30MB hard disk.

Had a few since then. ;) Basically got my first job in IT support based on the knowledge I built up in the 'good' old days just from getting games to run, back when you had to edit your startup files manually to balance amounts of available base memory, upper memory, extended memory, expanded memory, and so on. You youngsters don't even know you're born... :p

That first job, incidentally, involved supporting everything from DOS 6.1 through to WinME, with a bit of UNIX, Pascal Workstation and more thrown in to the mix. I learned a *lot* in that year... :D

Even today with GOG having newer titles, Steam still aims at younger audiences with games like CSGO/TF2 and a bazillion free to plays released every damn week. I like steam more then gog for its interface but steam is really bad now when you go to the front page and look through a crap ton of free to plays, mobas, mmos, and *shivers* early access..
Although Galaxy client is like linux next to Steam being windows...

The only console I had is Atari.... I'm a pc gamer mostly, I started with commodore 64 :P