As many of us had the Atari for our first gaming system, do you think you asked for it or did your parents just buy it figuring you would enjoy it and let them have some quiet time?

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Colossus-of-Roads@reddit

I remember I played one on a holiday we went on to a family friends' place and my dad really liked it so at some point one appeared. I didn't ask.

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Silly_Sherbet5543@reddit

It was my dad’s. My sister and I played it until it quit working, then mom got us an NES

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ZeroLithium576@reddit

My dad bought it for all of us to play, and we did. I have lots of great memories of playing it with my entire family.

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I know I asked for it! But I really didn't expect to get it. It was pretty expensive for my family. Come Christmas morning, my siblings were opening all their presents, and I only had a couple of presents. I was confused by this, but didn't say anything, was playing with what I had when my father told me to go look under their bed. I pulled out an Atari box!

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LeftOn4ya@reddit

I got a hand me down Atari 5200 with 2600 And 5200 games after I got a NES (gift from my uncle). But my first system (after my dad’s off-brand pong console) was ColecoVision.

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Mrpeewee982001@reddit

I inherited it from my older sibling.

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crzytech1@reddit

Same gen of console more or less, my parents bought a ColecoVision when I was born. It was our only machine until I bought a TG16 when I was 9 with allowance money.

No mistake, my parents bought that because they went to arcades all the time before me, so it was their machine.

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UnderH20giraffe@reddit

We ASKED for this brand new Nintendo thing we heard about. What we GOT was a used Atari with 100 games in it from a yard sale. Loved the shit out of it.

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JungleBoyJeremy@reddit

Mine was found on the top shelf in the closet of a house we were renting

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emptybeetoo@reddit

I absolutely begged for an Atari before I got one for Christmas. Actually, I begged for a NES but got an Atari 2600 because it was cheaper.

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Far-Pie-6226@reddit

Same. Asked for an NES, got an Atari 7800 instead. I played the hell out that thing but I'm not sure I actually enjoyed it.

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Ineedavodka2019@reddit

My grandparents gave it to us when the older grandkids stopped using it.

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Spartan04@reddit

My first console was the NES. I first played it at a neighbor’s house and then started asking my mom for one. She obviously told my grandma since she got it for me and my brother for Christmas.

Pretty sure my mom didn’t think it would get her quiet time, at least not initially, lol. We hooked it up to the living room TV, the only one we had at the time, and me and my brother wanted to play all the time and my mom had to kick us off the TV for a bit so she could watch something. Only took a week of that before she went out and bought a 13” TV which she set up in basement with the NES. Then she did get some quiet time.

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loves_spain@reddit

The first gaming system I vaguely remember was pong. I was so young though, like 3 years old maybe, so I don't remember much of it The Atari was most definitely bought by my dad for my dad for Christmas. We played it together, especially Combat. Blasting that tank and watching it spin never hesitated to crack me up. My mom was never really into video games EXCEPT for Adventure Island on the Nintendo. I have no idea why she liked that one in particular (chubby native guy eats fruit and throws tomahawks), but she was an absolute beast at it.

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Chunklob@reddit

My mom took a Polaroid of her high score on river run. That Atari was not for us.

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Few_Improvement_6357@reddit

It was my dad's and I was allowed to play it. He had first dibs though. No way mom would allow him to buy anything like that for the kids.

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Spitecrawler@reddit

My dad had an Intellivision. I got an Atari 7800 for my seventh birthday, but I always knew that it was secretly for him.

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HuckleberryHappy6524@reddit

My step dad was 32 when he married my mom in 1985. He had an Intellivision and liked sports games. That was what I got started on. After that we got an NES and he played that with us as well. He stopped playing video games by the time we got the SNES. Then one day I walked into their house and he was jamming ncaa or madden on the Xbox one. He quit playing again recently.

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Not_a_werecat@reddit

My first was an original NES from my cousin when she upgraded to Super NES.

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unethicalposter@reddit

I recall having an Atari when I was very young. I also recall having zero interest in it. So not sure if my parents bought it for themselves or for me but I don't think I ever wanted anything to do with it. The nes on the other hand.

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BadConscious1358@reddit

We had a Commodore 64 before the Atari 2600. Both of them my parents bought without us asking because we were too young to even know that stuff existed. I learned typing on the C64 playing that caterpillar game where you had to type the letter before the caterpillar ate it. I still hunt and peck to this day, never learning how to touch type. The NES was the first system we actually begged my parents for.

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AccountantMelodic862@reddit

My parents played it all night Christmas Eve, reboxed it and then overslept Christmas morning. We didn’t find this out til years later.

I think it was mostly for them, honestly.

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Cool_Dark_Place@reddit

I can't remember exactly when we got our Atari, but it was my first gaming system. I do, however, remember almost the exact same thing happening when I got my first NES for Christmas of '87! I remember playing Super Mario Bros. for the first time, and my dad somehow magically knowing where lots of the secret coin blocks were.🤔

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VaselineHabits@reddit

My dad bought the Nintendo for me (I think it was my 8th birthday) and my pregnant aunt came over to see me play the system.

Well, then she asked if she could play... of course, but assuming this was also her first time playing. It was not and I learned then I had a long way to go to even be "decent" 😅

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Top-Wolverine-8684@reddit

My ex-husband's family tells stories about how their mom became so obsessed that she stopped taking care of them and their dad threw it out in a fit of fury after coming home from a long hospital shift to find them unfed and the house a mess. She is a suuuuuuuper uptight religious matriarch, so I was never able to reconcile this image of her in my brain. 😂

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VaselineHabits@reddit

"Super uptight religious matriarch" are usually the biggest hypocrites and tend to have "selective amnesia" over the shit they did.

My Step Monster is one such creature.

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AccountantMelodic862@reddit

This EXACT thing happened between my step dad and his first wife but with their first PC and AOL. CPS got involved, it ended in divorce. Wild shit.

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graveybrains@reddit

I have a very distinct memory of going to be one night when my parents were playing Pac Man.

I woke up the next morning to find my parents playing Pac Man, but the screen was weird colors and the ghosts were flying around at warp speed.

Pretty sure they didn't just pull an all nighter, I think it was the same fucking game somehow.

My parents, of course, denied this vehemently.

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Final_Comparison9727@reddit

Hahaha, that's pretty funny. Seems like you had cool parents.

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RanklesTheOtter@reddit

My dad was super into getting drunk and playing arcade games at the bar. So he was the one that wanted it. 😂

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ihatecatboys@reddit

My parents bought it for themselves, my dad was obsessed with new tech. This led to the wildest flex when the NES came out, because they bought two of them, one for themselves and one for their kids so they didn't have to share with us.

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gesis@reddit

Our first gaming system was an Odyssey^2. Same gen, different hardware.

My parents were in their late teens and early twenties when I was born, and they bought it for themselves because Sears ran out of 2600s.

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Itchy-Noise341@reddit

LOL Im fairly certain my Dad got it for himself and I just happened to be there.

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lorienne22@reddit

Ha! My dad loved space invaders! Mom? Combat and slug racers. I think they bought it for him and we just got lucky enough to use it.

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red286@reddit

I guess maybe it was my first gaming system? It was my first console, that's for sure. I had a C64 before that though. Wasn't from my parents though, it was from my uncle. He gave it to us in I think it was '87 or '88, he no longer had any use for it, so he just dumped it off on my sister and I. He had about 30 games for it, but tossed ALL the manuals, and you couldn't just look that shit up on the internet back then. I dunno if E.T. would have made more sense with the manuals or not, judging by reviews around it, probably not.

I remember being super disappointed by Pac-Man though. The C64 version was miles better than the insane shit game Atari released on the 2600.

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Cisru711@reddit

My dad got it for himself. He just had to go to work most of the day or had chores, so I got to play it more. My parents wouldn't buy me the nes, but my grandparents finally got it as a joint gift for me and my sisters around 1990.

My kids have gotten every console they've asked for, but spend most of their time still in roblox. We have an unopened switch 2 from Christmas even.

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refuz04@reddit

It was a Christmas present but I think I was just the excuse to get it. Everyone in the family played.

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Affectionate-Cut4828@reddit

It was my dad's. My mom jokes that my first words were "pew pew pew" from sitting on his lap while he played Defender.

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WoodyLewis87@reddit

Mine got it for me thinking I would stop going to the arcade.

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NemeanMiniLion@reddit

NES was my first.

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BlueBomber13@reddit

My first console was the Intellevision. The controller looked like the numbers would on a phone and it had a little circle d-pad at the bottom. The games all came with little overlays you’d slide into the controller to show you what buttons did what for that particular game.

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atlmobs@reddit

My parents got it as the “big gift” for Christmas when I turned 6. I lived in Midwest farm country so my only source of information was Saturday morning cartoon commercials.

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Over_Importance1882@reddit

Didn’t ask for it and it was rather alien to us. Graphics were way behind what we were seeing in arcades and the sounds were beeps / bops and like hearing electric rubber bands. The game’s were also tough to figure out what mode to choose to even start the game and hard to figure out how to play. When the NES came around it was like… oh this is what games should be like.

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Moons_of_Moons@reddit

My older sisters probably asked for it. I was so young I could barely play. I would crash on pole position on purpose cause I liked the explosions.

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DrJJStroganoff@reddit

Same. I just remember the 2600 being there. I never asked for it.

That E.T. game sucked balls

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MrTigerEyes@reddit

I had an older stepsister who played it, and my dad played it, but I wasn't really interested in games at that age either. I didn't really care about video games until I went to a friend's house that had the NES.

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YarnBunny@reddit

Hello fellow younger sibling with the same story as me

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Rebel9788@reddit

Same. My parents have a picture of me playing it in diapers.

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lmstr@reddit

I'm a Nintendo kid, Atari was for the older kids. It came out before most of us were born.

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HopelessMagic@reddit

My first system was an ActionMaxx! It worked on VHS tapes.

We had Pops Ghostly and it's the best game ever.

https://youtu.be/2-4ZsA8G4vc?si=-QinzGQQNt2SE7Cg

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North_Hawk958@reddit

Paid for it myself somehow. Remember going to the store with my mom, picking it out, then unloading a giant bag of change I saved up onto the poor checkout lady. Think it was my parents’ way of teaching me to save. I think my mom then just gave them actual cash and took the change for herself since she didn’t want to hang out in checkout just as much as the cashier didn’t want to actually count it all. Had a ton of fun playing it and my dad put a ton of hours into asteroids. First two games were jungle hunt and moon patrol.

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Arkumsrazor@reddit

My first system was an Intellivision. It just magically showed up one day. No idea from where.

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Original_Ad8991@reddit

My first system was the NES. While it was mostly for us, my dad would play Duck Hunt, Tetris, and Dr. Mario quite a bit. When they divorced, he got one and only got those games for it.

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FockersJustSleeping@reddit

I grew up semi-rural and would try to invent things when I was bored. My Dad was gone a lot and my mother worked.

The Atari and Nintendo were definitely "keep the house in one piece" ingredients along with VHS, comic books, legos, etc. After that I was hooked and sought them out.

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BraveLittleToaster8@reddit

We got Colecovision for Christmas when I was really young and it came with Donkey Kong. My mom thought buying new games was too expensive so we never had another game for it. We played a LOT of Donkey Kong until my mom realized the game was burning images onto the family TV. Then we were relegated to only playing on the small black and white "spare" TV that my dad got at a yard sale, and that wasn't quite as fun.

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tgold77@reddit

My parents bought it for themselves.

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Fun-Preparation-4253@reddit

That's a solid question. The only Atari I owned was the Stunt Cycle, but did have the NES and SNES. I never remember asking for it, though.

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thejunkmanadv@reddit

I have a Stunt Cycle too!

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konfuzedmonkee@reddit

My dad bought one for himself and I was allowed to touch it.

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thejunkmanadv@reddit

Actually my folks played it a bit, so it was kind of a "family" purchase. I still have it and all the stuff I bought shortly after the crash for deep discounts.

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thejunkmanadv@reddit

I have the original box too.

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Specialist_Action_85@reddit

Lol my parents bought for themselves

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soulsteela@reddit

I had a ZX81 then a ZX Spectrum, my mate over the road had the Atari. Best of all worlds.

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Kitchen-Fisherman280@reddit

My Atari was my dad's. The NES was the first new in box system we got. Had to save up for a year for it with my 3 siblings. It was a shared system

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dirtybeefz@reddit

I was given my 2600 from my uncle around 1980/81 because he had moved out of my grandmothers. I Spent hours and hours playing combat, pinball, pitfall, dig dug etc etc.

the year of the game market crash in 83 I remember receiving dozens of games.

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HookersForJebus@reddit

Inherited the Atari from my older cousins. Nintendo was the first system we actually bought for real.

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TheJokersWild53@reddit

My older cousins had an Atari, my first system was ColecoVision

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Shakarix@reddit

I trash-picked mine. Worked great too!!

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AndrewInMN@reddit

We already had it at my earliest memories, but I have older siblings so I assume it was bought for them. I’m not sure what year it was purchased. But it slowly became mine and that’s what I had until I got an NES for my birthday. I do remember getting Atari games for Xmas.

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hanshotfirst2233@reddit

For whatever reason we had an Intellivision. My cousins had an Atari so we played both. I remember Ioved three games. Burgertime. MLB baseball(looked like stick figures in 2D) and Pitfall.

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BlinkerPhluid@reddit

I got one for my birthday and Christmas but my brother got the games. If I wanted to play I went to a friends house.

In reality it was my brother's and I just got screwed that year on gifts.

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Sodamyte@reddit

My dad bought it for himself to play on the aircraft carrier.. the navy made him leave it at home

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phaeolus97@reddit

Literally same! USS Nimitz

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Sodamyte@reddit

USS John F Kennedy

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madaDra_5000@reddit

I believe my dad thought it was neat and that my brothers and I would like it. We did!

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New_Stats@reddit

My dad was a gamer, that was his Atari that he let me play with

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SensitiveArtist@reddit

My parents got it for them, but once we got a little older it became for us. All the other game systems we got after that (NES, SNES, N64) were for the kids from the get go.

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redditydothis@reddit

Neighbors had an Atari 7800 or whatever. I got a nes in 85 or 86. Only had about 8 games for it over the years and never got another system. Parents were poor though so I don’t blame them. Got a pc in 92 and never looked at consoles again.

Now I use a pc in my living room and have all the consoles emulated.

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aconsul73@reddit

Computers were new enough then that I don't know if it was intended to be an electronic babysitter but that's what it mostly ended up being. My father loved gadgets and novelty so I think that was a huge part of his motivation as well.

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AmanitaAwakening@reddit

Yep, me and my bro got the atari ste as our first ever computer/console. I'm pretty sure we asked for it and our parents also wanted to get it for us. We were about 8,6 years old respectively. I remember games such as wizz kid, James pond and a car racing game.

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Top-Wolverine-8684@reddit

It was my grandma's, and we played with her for hours, sometimes all night on the weekends. She was obsessed. When my kids were little, she would play the Wii with them. ❤️

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Spitecrawler@reddit

Old lady gamer is adorable.

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nvmls@reddit

I didn't know what a video game was when my mom brought home the Atari. I was like seven maybe?

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Lucky-Remote-5842@reddit

My parents bought it and I didn't even know what it was when I opened it. I think it was mostly for them.

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Basic-Biscotti-2375@reddit

My grandparents had one and I was mesmerized with the pinball game on it

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teriKatty@reddit

I think they bought it for themselves at first. We just used it.

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PlagueDrWily@reddit

I had a second-hand 2600 and a huge pile of games that ended up being an early Christmas gift (I think my parents wanted to play it); I don’t recall asking for it but I enjoyed it all the same.

But when the kid across the street got an NES on Christmas morning and I got that first hit of Super Mario Bros, I begged and pleaded for an NES and eventually they caved many months later.

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SpaceAdventures3D@reddit

It was aomething that intrgued my dad. Though he probably thought it would something I would be into when I got a little older to appreciate it, which I did.

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HuckleberryLogical63@reddit

I didn't actually have an Atari, I Had a Colecovision with the Atari Module. It was a birthday gift from my mom's boyfriend at the time, he was upgrading to an NES. Pretty sure I didn't ask for a Coleco or an Atari, I can't complain though, he gave me over 100 games for both systems and that kept me well entertained, played it on a fairly regular basis up until all the way through Middle School.

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Daytonewheel@reddit

Parents bought it for my older brother and sister.

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JamesMattDillon@reddit

We got the Atari first, it was mainly for my parents to play. Then I came along and of course played when I was a little older

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Reasonable-Wave8093@reddit

never had an atari, just arcade games & air hockey

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dreadpiratemyk@reddit

Never had one, but I still have my original working NES.

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16Shells@reddit

my parents had one before i was born, i don’t remember them ever using it and i think it was broken by the time i was old enough to know what it was. i assume my dad got it because it was a hot new gadget at the time, they were never gamers at all when i was growing up.

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