I cried like a freakin suck when I got another year of piano lessons instead of a NES that one Christmas. Looking back, my parents were right.
But the first I ever bought myself was a used Genesis from a rich kid at school, had money burning a hole in my pocket and was almost out of the baseball card phase, so I bought his Genesis with Sports Talk Baseball and Joe Montana Football. Once I got NBA Live 95 and Hardball 3 or 4(I forget) that was it, I was hooked on games forever. I remember renting Toe Jam and Earl and Road Rash, but we were poor and once I actually bought a game I played the HELL out of it. Me and friends must've put 1000 hours into NBA Live 95, twas insane.