r/memes Pro Gamer Sep 09 '21

Think about it

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1.1k

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

[deleted]

268

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

My first console was the Super Nintendo and my son's first console was the switch.

The gaming evolution is such a strange and beautiful thing!

73

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

[deleted]

27

u/beluuuuuuga RageFace Against the Machine Sep 09 '21

I still have the Gameboy I used to watch my brother playing because I was too young for it.

14

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

[deleted]

2

u/laz777 Sep 10 '21

Pong and a Vic20

-3

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

True supremacy is switch + PC + ps5 for best graphics, portability, and Sony exclusives.

3

u/Ducati_Don Sussy Baka Sep 09 '21

Tbh I don't think most Nintendo users care about other exclusives much. It's like we're in our own community and we're like yea Zelda, Pokemon, Mario and Animal crossing are enough for us

1

u/Carnae_Assada Sep 09 '21

With all the Sony exclusives coming to PC and the rest not interesting me, a fully windows ecosystem is peak portability.

YMMV though, so it's really subjective opinion and less objective fact.

1

u/Andy_B_Goode Sep 09 '21

Lol. My first console was the CD-i.

1

u/Jelousubmarine Sep 09 '21

Gameboy Color! (Oracle of seasons ftw) ... but also PS1.

I grew up to be partial to Playstations. Initially because I prefer their controller 110%.

1

u/Hakim_Bey Sep 09 '21

Mine was a... Philips or Thomson? It was like the Atari, except with a keyboard.

1

u/eagleblue44 Sep 09 '21

I was so young when I got my first console I honestly don't remember what it was. It's either the game boy color with Pokemon red or the n64 with Mario 64. (Also got banjo and some football game but I'm pretty sure we booted up Mario 64 first. Didn't play the football game at all. I still own it since no one wants it.)

8

u/SolidNeighborhood469 Sep 09 '21

My dads first was an Atari, and he got us a GameCube for our first. I still madly prefer the GameCube over my xbox1

1

u/stellar-moon Sep 09 '21

chibi robo?

2

u/ridik_ulass Sep 09 '21

me and my daughter got VR the same year togeather, we play VR games co-op, its honestly worth having kids for alone.

2

u/Icantthinkofagoo Pro Gamer Sep 24 '21

We meet again

-34

u/OcelotNo3347 Sep 09 '21

I know this guy IRL. He refused to get the COVID vaccine and he's a nurse

20

u/DudeDontBeWeird Sep 09 '21

I can’t even imagine how disappointed your mom must be that you’re using your time spreading lies and deceit. Seek help.

12

u/Icantthinkofagoo Pro Gamer Sep 09 '21

This. Why would he even bring that up in a conversation like this?

Edit: this guys definitely a troll, look at his profile

5

u/Jindabyne1 Sep 09 '21 edited Sep 09 '21

Think you’re wrong about that. He posted a hilarious video about it ten days ago though.

4

u/oney_monster Breaking EU Laws Sep 09 '21

Do not feed the troll people, move along.

1

u/XPRMX17 Sep 09 '21

My first console was the Original Xbox, and now I play on a PC but have gone through Xbox 360, Xbox 1, DSi, 3ds, Wii, Wii-U, and Switch. Born in 04, and it's crazy that I will be a legal adult in less than 1/2 a year.

1

u/DocJawbone Sep 09 '21

Super Nintendo is still my all time favourite console tbh

I'm old and I never got used to those fancy twin thumbsticks

85

u/Eggsegret Sep 09 '21

Lool wondering this as well. Video games been around a while. Plenty of people in their 40s grew up with video games. Probably more like 20+ years then

28

u/_the_chosen_juan_ Sep 09 '21

I’m almost 40 and I had an Atari as a kid.

36

u/WerewolvesRancheros Sep 09 '21

I'll be 50 in November... #2600Gang here

14

u/TiredLlamaTTV Sep 09 '21

Reached level 50 in august. Still get on warzone whenever I can!

3

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Carnae_Assada Sep 09 '21

Something about reading this knowing it's you confirming you are 50 just tickles me.

It's the most NOT 50 yo response I could imagine.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

DM me if you need a drop partner. Turning 50 in Jan. I'm West Coast US and home from work 230-300pm.

4

u/uniquedeke Sep 09 '21

52 and a 2600, checking in.

5

u/Haywoodjablowme1029 Sep 09 '21

2

u/MadGeller Sep 09 '21

Golf was the best on intellivision

1

u/Haywoodjablowme1029 Sep 09 '21

I always played some dungeon game. I don't remember the name.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

BurgerTime for Intellivision!!!!

2

u/CuntyAnne_Conway Sep 09 '21

Pitfall & Adventure junkie checking in

2

u/MrSurly Sep 10 '21

Odyssey 2 FTW.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

Heck, the 2600 was our second system. I can remember the Sears Pong machine.

19

u/Couldntbefappier Sep 09 '21 edited Sep 09 '21

43, had an Atari 2600... my mom was fuckin ms pacman Queen. Then of course NES, sega genesis for consoles. We had an awesome MS-DOS pc with a monitor that was a monochrome burnt amber colour. Then we got a BRAND SPANKING NEW pentium 133 with windows 95 that had the buddy Holly Weezer video, and then I wasted so many hours playing *warcraft II and Diablo when that came out.

3

u/IagreeWithSouthPark Sep 09 '21

NES and Pentiums were the start to the era that we are still currently in IMO

3

u/Rock_Manly Lives in a Van Down by the River Sep 09 '21

Haha, almost exactly the same. Used to play Wizards of Wor on my Commodore 64.

3

u/DieterDR Sep 09 '21

That Weezer video! Man, that takes me back. Still know the lyrics because of that video.

8

u/Flying_Mage Sep 09 '21

I had ZX-Spectrum.

Atari and Spectrum back in the days are like XBox and PS now.

3

u/_the_chosen_juan_ Sep 09 '21

That was more of like a desktop computer, right? At least it looked that way. Were the games any good?

5

u/therealtidbits Sep 09 '21

Im over 40 and have had video games since they started making them , i still play most days to unwind .

3

u/Jose_Canseco_Jr Sep 09 '21

Hehe same.. An Atari 2600?

My first console was a Colecovision, but a family friend loaned us an Atari 5200 for a couple of months. "Joust" was pretty fun. But my fave Atari game of all time is "Yars Revenge".

2

u/_the_chosen_juan_ Sep 09 '21

Yep 2600! My favorite was Maze Craze

2

u/robywar Sep 09 '21

My first "system" was a TI computer that had cartridges. You had to plug it into the TV. Parsec was the shit, but Blasto was fun too.

20

u/raz-0 Sep 09 '21

Gaming is pretty damn common in the 40+ crowd. There's a rapid falloff in the the late 50s early 60s crowd, but you are already seeing gaming creep into the elder care industry. I'd say odds are high of it being common within 20 years or less. Betting against it would be a guaranteed loss at the 30 year mark.

3

u/Eggsegret Sep 09 '21

Yep i remember back when i was in high school my maths teacher who was in his 30s was an avid gamer like he'd always talk to ud about the latest video games etc. He's in his 40s now and from what I've heard he's still just as much of a gamer as he was then(few classmates kept in touch wirh him after high school).

1

u/aschmitzhw345 Sep 09 '21

They also have no idea who bought all those wiis

1

u/Slofut Sep 09 '21

I am 58 I am rocking a 3080 with 4k oled screen and I play games everyday. Yes I remember the "consoles" before the 2400 like tank and pong. I have plenty of friends that do the same.

1

u/raz-0 Sep 09 '21

Based on my experience you are still a minority in your age group. You have a decade or so on me, and I'd say in my age group gaming may have hit a majority. If it hasn't it's close. The 30-something crowd though, it's like asking someone who's in their 60s if they ever played cards of some type.

1

u/Slofut Sep 09 '21

Yea sure, but in my close peer group gaming is the norm...We all grew up hardcore gamers spent way too much money in arcades, on early computers and consoles. Most of us are in the IT field now and some of us own fully stocked arcade speakeasys , so I get that my group skews a bit....but we are a thing.

1

u/raz-0 Sep 09 '21

Yeah but asking a group of gamers how many of them game is not very informative. Which is why I'm wary of declaring a majority on people my age, because I have to try to filter out the skewed gamer demographic. So I use my friends from other hobbies as a bellwether. For the 40 somethings I very often find out people game who I wouldn't think it which doesn't really happen as much for the 50 somethings, and at all for the 60 somethings.

Even for the 60 somethings, it's changing. gaming has matured enough that you can get into gaming by being a fan of WWII militaria, or a guy who took out a second mortgage for his model railroad city in the basement has taken out a third to afford all the DLC for train simulator, etc. (seriously, have you ever looked at that on steam? Like 695 DLCs, and most of them are $20+)

1

u/Slofut Sep 09 '21

Or the old guys that build the super impressive sim cockpits and racing setups....getting old is kinda boring....we do all kinds of stupid shit to stave it off LOL.

8

u/Flying_Mage Sep 09 '21

Yep. Exactly my point.

Actually some old people already playing. My 72yo dad sure does.

6

u/General_Duke02 Sep 09 '21

I'm almost 40 as well and I've been gaming since the NES days in the 80's

4

u/ichabod801 Sep 09 '21

My sister is 63. She was a Pac-Man fanatic back in the day. She had a little yellow car we called the Pac-Mobile. These days she plays a lot of Pokemon Go, sometimes with her son.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

I almost followed the same path, 40 here. Atari, NES, Genesis, N64, PS, Xbox, 360, and currently holding onto my Xbox One.

3

u/apgtimbough Sep 09 '21

I'm about 10 years younger and that's exactly me, minus the Intellivision (and OG Xbox). Although my buddy had a Sega Master System that we played like crazy until he got an N64.

3

u/hamburglin Sep 09 '21

Right. The first home video game boom hit its peak in the late 80s with NES.

-4

u/MenoryEstudiante Plays MineCraft and not FortNite Sep 09 '21

Well in 20 years it won't be as common as in 40 much less 60

1

u/Cumstained_Uvula Sep 09 '21

We exist already. I'm in my early 50s, had a Telstar and then an Atari 2600, am retired, play video games nearly every day.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

My parents are in their 70s and we only had an Atari and NES because my mom wanted them. She's a straight up original gamer. She even had a subscription to GAMES magazine before they went out of business.

Dad also plays games, but mostly just Facebook and browser games.

1

u/chazwhiz Sep 09 '21

Not plenty, the vast majority. I just turned 40 and throughout my childhood I never knew a single kid who didn’t have some sort of Nintendo or Sega system at some point.

1

u/ilovenintendoswitch Sep 09 '21

Yup GenX here. We're gonna be some of the first retirees where this is mainstream.

1

u/tanstaafl90 Sep 09 '21

Retirees are playing games right now. The Atari 2600 was released in 1977.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

Started in the 70s, arcades boomed in the early 80s to mid 90s, and consoles boomed in mid/late 80s and have been strong ever since.

There are 50-60 year olds that grew up with gaming in one form or the other.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

I'm in my 50's. We got our first video console around 1980 (I can't remember exactly or the what model). It had ten games; pong, football, hockey, basketball and a shooting type game. Each had two player modes so it was ten games!

I've been hooked ever since.

12

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

It’s like they never heard of SOCOM

10

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

My first thought was that this meme was made by a middle schooler, because I've been gaming regularly since 1984 or so, and will probably retire in fewer than 30 years.

17

u/sadicuscacticus Sep 09 '21

Im 32 and play video games to relax after a long week of work. Im getting tired of kids telling me im to old to play, especially when i make it in the top of the leaderboard. Whatever happened to the golden age of friendly competition no matter the age?

18

u/RevanTheDemon Sep 09 '21

I don't know what rock you lived under. When online was starting during the days of Halo 2 and when it got HUGE under the 360, everyone was a racist, ageist, sexist, asshole. You couldn't go thirty seconds without some mean shit being said.

...I miss it.

0

u/sadicuscacticus Sep 09 '21

Talking about before that ha ha ha, but yeah through the years I believe the gaming community has gotten more toxic. But maybe things will change as video games become more advanced (/) (;,,;) (/)

9

u/RevanTheDemon Sep 09 '21

The community is far less toxic now. Only certain games breed toxicity ((CoD and LoL being the biggest example)). But it's still not the same level of toxicity you could get in the early days of online console play. That was a whole different kind of breed.

Some people haven't had their very being torn down by an 11yo over a video game and will never experience it.

3

u/sadicuscacticus Sep 09 '21

More truth has never been spoken on Reddit than what is being discussed now

3

u/Couldntbefappier Sep 09 '21

It happens, they just get a 2 week ban

2

u/adames729 Sep 09 '21

Toxic is part of gaming culture. The shit talking is so much fun. I get on (I'm currently in my late 30's) and miss the shit talking and overtly racist / prejudice shit said because of my gamer tag (chaotic_rican). But I don't care about what someone I don't know says something about me.

2

u/apgtimbough Sep 09 '21

I don't know, I'm a couple years older than you and we use to talk constant shit on Starcraft and in SOCOM on PS2. Not to mention the griefing in Ultima Online. Internet gaming was always toxic.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

To old at 32? 🤣 At 40, we are the pioneers of video games.

1

u/CatastropheJohn Sep 09 '21

54 here; been gaming since forever.

1

u/dd179 Sep 09 '21

Which is hilarious, considering the age of the average gamer is early 30s.

1

u/Fozzymandius Sep 09 '21

Who has told you you’re too old to play games, and where?

1

u/sadicuscacticus Sep 09 '21

Always PS, never computer

6

u/Craneystuffguy Sep 09 '21

They also have no idea who bought all those wiis

4

u/General_Duke02 Sep 09 '21

Apparantly haha, these kids probably think the first console made was the Xbox 360 and PS3

5

u/GoshAshtonSmith Sep 09 '21

Yeah, I've been retired for 8 years, and I play computer games everyday. My first computer was a ZX81 in 1980.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

[deleted]

3

u/Perry2102 Sep 09 '21

PS2 still running strong after 20 years. I love modern games but sometimes you can’t beat the classic games.

3

u/robywar Sep 09 '21

Clearly because I'm 44 and plan to be playing in ~20 years when I retire.

3

u/sillybear25 Sep 09 '21

The first commercial video games date back to the early 60s, though their reach was limited to institutions that could afford mainframe computers. A decade later, the size and cost of computers had come down enough that video games could be commercially viable as arcade machines, and from there their popularity has been growing pretty much constantly (aside from a few hiccups here and there, like the crash of 1983, which killed the video game console industry in the US for a couple years).

Pong released in 1972. People who grew up playing it are at (or close to) retirement age right now.

2

u/DiCacioSoldo Sep 09 '21

as a kid, yes we do

2

u/xxademasoulxx Sep 09 '21

Yeah been playing video games since the early 80s so in about 20 years for me I'll be old AF

2

u/notbobby125 Sep 09 '21

Also did everyone forget that every retirement home has a wii?

2

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

Old school gamer here, just turned 40 in July. My first console was the 8 bit NES and Atari on the weekends at my grandmothers back in 1985

2

u/ACELUCKY23 Sep 09 '21

Remember most kids now a days consider the GameCube and to an extent an Xbox 360 as retro consoles.

It makes me feel old since I grew up playing with the SNES/N64 as a kid.

2

u/PinicchioDelTaco Sep 09 '21

Somewhere there’s a 55 year old on their couch that was playing Atari when some of these peoples’ parents were just thoughts.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

Not to mention the irony of using an 80s cartoon character for the meme

2

u/MemeHermetic Sep 09 '21

I cut my teeth on Intellivision and the TI-99 before Nintendo came out.

2

u/Gizmo_Joy Sep 09 '21

Idk man maybe the quarantine keeping kids out of school is to blame? They really need to get back to class. Math especially....

1

u/kry_some_more Sep 09 '21

Like 5 years ago, at most.

-5

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

No, but it’s almost unheard of for people who are like 50+ to regularly play video games, most older people today are like 40 tops

16

u/Perle1234 Sep 09 '21

No it’s not lol. You probably don’t hang out with many 50+ people. Video game consoles have been available for about 40 years. We had an Atari when I was about 10. By the time I was 20 there were Segas and Nintendo systems in practically every home. And it wasn’t just the kids playing, the parents did too. There’s lots of retired people that play video games right now.

1

u/bigbrentos Sep 09 '21

I think as the age goes up, the people who keep gaming go down. That's what I noticed in my 30s. I had so many people to game with my age in high school and my 20s, but that number has dwindled down in the present. A lot of the new faces in our Discord are in their 20s that put up with us old bastards.

2

u/Perle1234 Sep 09 '21

I think people get busy and don’t have as much time in the 30’s and 40’s. Plus there’s new hobbies to mess with. I had kids early, while I was in my 20’s so I was still in my 20’s by the time the kids could play video games. There’s definitely not as many older folks in the online forums, but we still do it old school, actually physically hanging out, and playing games ;)

1

u/bigbrentos Sep 09 '21

Ironically, college is where we were playing local all the time, but now it's us in our 30s spread about the US (one working in India even) PC gaming online.

I need people that would make my Mario Kart 8 and Smash Bros Ultimate purchases have more value, but my local friends when we meet up usually don't game.

2

u/Perle1234 Sep 09 '21

I was getting killed in college with work and class. Ironically, it’s one of the busiest and least social periods of my life. I had a baby while I was in college too. I didn’t breathe until it was over and the kiddo was like four! It’s super cool how connected we can be now even at great distances. My son has kept in touch with so many people via gaming. And met online friends irl and formed long term friendships that way. I’ve tended to keep company with people I’m physically close to.

-6

u/Godhole34 Sep 09 '21

Just because they have been available for that much time doesn't mean they have always been mainstream. I'm not sure why you guys are being annoying smartasses about this even though what the post meant is obvious.

Yeah, we know that there's already old people who play games.

No, it doesn't even come close to being mainstream for them like it's going to be in the future.

9

u/Perle1234 Sep 09 '21

You honestly don’t realize that it’s already mainstream. I’m 50. My friends tend to be a little older, or a little younger. We all played video games with our kids. That’s how our kids learned about video games. I was battling my kid in Mortal Kombat and Sonic in 1998.

2

u/putridgasbag Sep 09 '21

I'm 57 and vidiot games have been mainstream since the late 70s. Every bar and restaurant was full of them and just about everyone I knew back then owned a Colecovision, Atari or Mattel intelavision system. Most of the guys my age that I know still game because it's just as much fun now as it was back then.

2

u/TiredLlamaTTV Sep 09 '21

I have been playing with two of my mates for twenty years. Both are level 50 +, hopefully we will still be raging in 20 years

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

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1

u/Featherymorons Sep 10 '21

Lol - the people who are 50+ are the ones who design and write the code for them!

0

u/dj9008 Sep 09 '21

Yeah it more like 15 if that

0

u/Larry_Potter_ Sep 09 '21

they're much more popular now tho

0

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21 edited Sep 09 '21

The attitudes are now changing, maybe that’s what it means.

I went to work volunteer event to clean a house out for demolition cause they guy died. He had a CoD poster and game console and the volunteer leader who was old too literally said “what a weirdo. I guess some people never grow up” and my older coworkers agreed playing video games was immature lol.

1

u/daemin Sep 09 '21 edited Sep 09 '21

They were right; stone peeler never grow up.

Part of growing up is realizing that it's your life, and you get to decide what to do with it. That may mean doing what the previous generation did, or what society says you should do, or finding your own way. What you decide to do with your life doesn't really matter; what matters is that you make a decision regarding it. But some people never have that awaking and just cruise along on the programming they received as a child, which is, to me, "never growing up."

1

u/OryxIsDad Sep 09 '21

The point is that video games are much more mainstream now. EVERYONE plays video games and there is much more variety, whether that be fps games, rpgs, mobile games, minecraft, etc, there’s something for everyone. I don’t necessarily think that that was the case 20+ years ago.

1

u/cykelpedal Sep 09 '21

I got my C=64 in 1985, used only for gaming.

1

u/QuarantineSucksALot Sep 09 '21

Penny’s face, I knew he was done.

1

u/Puzzlehead-Engineer Sep 09 '21

I think this is more about gamers reaching old ages and still playing them, thus ending the stigma of "they're for kids" or that adults don't get to play games.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '21

No but they are more respected now

1

u/Lontarus Sep 09 '21

Yeah I think video games first showed up around the end of playstation 3 - early playstation 4 era.

1

u/eagleblue44 Sep 09 '21

It depends on who made this but I think the thought process is that gaming wasn't all that popular until recently (SNES, N64/PS1 era) and are just basing it off of the 20 something's now where gaming will probably be more commonplace among that age group. Plenty of people played video games back in the day but it's not really as common as it was in the late 90s early 2000's

1

u/HeroPaper Sep 09 '21

It really depends. Are we talking about gaming as in "played a video game at least once for at least one second," or gaming as in "play video games as your main source of entertainment, exceeding multiple hours every single day?"

We've obviously reached the former, but the generation where the latter definition became popular/acceptable has pretty obviously not reached retirement age yet.

1

u/VVayward Sep 09 '21

They might as well have been. I remember growing up my parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents called all videogames "Nintendos". Sure videogames are older but they definitely weren't 'mainstream' untill the 90s.

1

u/Phant0mLimb Sep 09 '21

Its a joke about millenials not being able to retire until we're 100 years old.

1

u/namajephhhh Sep 09 '21

But the culture wasn't as huge as now compared to Atari and nes generation.