Grew up a Sega fanboy.
Being born in 1980, I mostly played games in the Arcades and Sega ruled the arcades. Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Virtua Fighter/Cop/Tennis/Striker, Daytona USA....the list goes on.
Naturally, when it came to getting a home console, Sega was the only choice. How the fuck else would I get those arcade games at home? So I went from Master System to MegaDrive to Saturn. But alongside me, my best friend was a Nintendo guy. So I did get exposure to Nintendo consoles all the while and honestly up until the N64, the NES and SNES did nothing to make me regret my choices.
But maaaaaaaaaaan. One night he had a sleep over with a bunch of guys and we played Goldeney multiplayer and Mario KArt 64 all night and it was like a transformative experience. From that day on I vowed to be a multiplatform gamer. So went and got a Nintendo 64 not long after. Sega was still ultimately my go to and favourite console brand, but I didn't want to miss out on anything so I bought it all.
After the Dreamcast though, I kinda naturally gravitated towards Xbox as it seemed like the spiritual successor to the Dreamcast. Ditto for the Xbox brand and Sega. Xbox valued online gaming, onboard storage (which even the Saturn had while the PS1 did not), they supported 4 players out of the box like Sega and Nintendo, which Sony did not. They also had all the quirky cool Sega games which again...Sony (and Nintendo) did not. I'm still a multiplatform gamer all the way, but to this day Microsoft hasn't given me a reason not to main their platform and Sony and Nintendo haven't given me a reason to be pulled away.
I think it is interesting how some people can have some similar exposures but different experiences. I was born 1981 and spent plenty of time in arcades but didn't become a Sega
fan until 1996 or so. A little background:
My favorite arcade games in the day were Marble Madness, Rampage, and later the TMNT arcade game. As far as Sega stuff, somehow I had this perception that a lot of the stuff felt 'older' except for After Burner II, which I thought was really cool, and Rad Mobile. I remember watching some kid play Rad Mobile for probably an hour. I loved that there was a windshield wiper button, and I loved the Sonic mirror ornament. I thought that was amazing - it looked so good.
By that time I was a Nintendo fanboy. I got a NES when NES was the hot stuff in town. Every kid new about NES and loved the games. I also got an Atari Lynx, which most everyone thought was amazing, but obviously NES was very popular.
At some point I thought Mortal Kombat on Game Gear looked real good, so I wanted a Game Gear. I got a Genesis, too. I really enjoyed Sonic 2, and I rented Sonic 3 in the day, but I literally only owned Sonic 2 for Genesis for quite a while. Meanwhile I had about 20 SNES games.
When PlayStation came out, it wasn't long before I thought it was the hottest shit I had ever seen. By and large the games blew away anything I'd seen on PC at that point. I was a huge fan of Doom and PC gaming stuff and suddenly this console from a nobody comes up in the game space and just fucking owns everything. So I got the PlayStation. And I got hyped for N64 and got that too.
At this time there was a fair amount of hype in gaming mags regarding some of the Saturn games, too. I remember thinking Virtua Cop looked amazing, and I was interested in other stuff too.
But at this point I still had never seen a Model 2 arcade game. I had seen Virtua Fighter and played Virtua Racer and I thought they were real cool, but for most intents and purposes Doom with its texture mapping and atmospheric levels was just cooler. Heck, I had played Cruisin USA a lot and thought it was the best looking racing game at the time.
So I even decided to rent a Saturn and Virtua Fighter 2. I thought it was alright. I decided to get a Saturn anyways, because even though my rental had ended, I just kept thinking about Virtua Fighter 2. I couldn't stop thinking about it now that I couldn't play it. I can't recall if I knew about the Christmas deal where you got VF2, Virtua Cop, and Daytona USA for $200 or something or not.
Then it happened. My family went to Atlantic City or some other east coast tourist place and the boardwalk there had the biggest arcade I'd ever been to. The place was packed. That's where I first saw Daytona USA (4 unit). They also had Virtual On. I remember that was the moment Cruisin USA got kicked to the shit can. This shit blew Cruisin USA out of the water. Daytona USA & Virtual On were THE games at that arcade. The units were mobbed. I was absolutely smitten, especially by Virtual On. This was my shit.
So that was it. I literally became a Sega fanboy at that moment. I got that Saturn pack, Virtual On, and Nights. Besides PC gaming a lot, especially in 1998, I was
so into Sega's style from late 1996 through 2000. Sega's Model 3 stuff absolutely destroyed me. This was the future of video games delivered a almost a decade early. I literally got my first job so I could import a Dreamcast in early 1999. I owned more games for Dreamcast than I'd owned for any console previously by a huge margin. It was a lot of fun.
Anyways, it's a long story, but it is interesting how simply the games that show up in my local arcades shaped so much of my opinion.
