For me, it was the OG Nintendo Entertainment System, NES. My first game was Super Mario Brothers and Duckhunt. I still refer to any switch as a "gameboy."
@RickAllensLeftArm@Stellario Ah, the TI-99/4a, with such classics as Munchman and Parsec! Did you have the speech synthesizer? I didn't and was jealous of our cousins who did.
Blasto was my jam. The sound effects were so satisfyingly crunchy! I didn’t have the speech synthesizer either. Nor did I have the tape recorder to save my BASIC programs.
Sega gensis. I can't even remember names of the games cuz I was too young.
I can only remember visuals. Like one game that was similar to TMNT, you pick character(s), you got hp/lives, fight baddies, luck up weapons and stuff. Three characters were: white blond dude, black dude with flat top haircut, green military vest, and woman. I always picked flat top. His moves was jab jab uppercut then hook to knock them away.
Same system, same game. We had a decent collection of maybe 20-30 games, one of the few I remember specifically was called Skate Or Die!, apparently one of EA’s first games.
Sharp Twin Famicom for me, I mostly used Disk based games Most of those Disks were counterfeit ones though that either had a slot instead of Nintendo Logo or for the drive mechanism to latch (the drive mechanism was made to play Nintendo Only Disks by using the logo stamped on the lower part of the disk). I still do have it but the Disk Drive doesn't work well, I think it needs lubrication, though I'm not sure if the Disks I have still work or still have data on them.
That's a surprisingly difficult question to answer. The first console I ever played was likely an Atari 8-bit computer, as I have an older brother who still brings up the fact that toddler me broke it by yanking the cartridge while it was on. I don't remember any of that, however.
The first console I remember playing on was an Atari 2600, also belonging to my older brother. He bought up lots of games for cheap after the Great Videogame Crash so we had several cassette-tape racks full of cartridges. I remember playing a lot of Asteroids and E.T., watching my brother play Star Raiders and fight the dragon-duck in Adventure, and being scared of the game over sound in Missile Command. (Why was it so loud!?)
The first console I actually owned myself was an NES. My parents got me the Super Mario/Duck Hunt bundle for Birthmas one year, and we soon picked up Zelda as well. Unfortunately, they also decided to give away all the Atari stuff because they assumed having a new console would make me not like the old one anymore. It did not.
I was born in '85, and my boomer parents haaaaaaaaated video games. I played the Atari 2600 at my cousin's house and also the NES, and wanted my own terribly badly. I had friends in the neighborhood who had Sega Genesis and SNES as well. It took me ages to save up enough to buy a Sega Genesis in ~1996 even though my cousins always had console systems of their own. I had a Sega CD and a 32x as well, but after that I jumped to the Nintendo 64 and then the Playstation 1. From then on, I played PC games. I never got to own a Playstation 2, 3, 4, or 5, never got to own a gamecube, wii, or switch, never got to own an xbox of any kind. I never had the money to devote to a dedicated console system. Only PCs seemed worth it because I could gradually upgrade them - RAM, CPU, GPU, etc, one piece at a time at a fraction of the cost of a whole-ass new console system. Plus I could just, you know, emulate console games eventually. I haven't emulated in a long time. Nowadays, if a developer wants me to play a game, they will put it on Steam or GOG. If they don't put it on Steam or GOG, then clearly they don't want me buy it from them and I'll just fucking pirate it instead if I want to. I usually don't care enough to go that far.