As with many of you, I fondly remember my first Nintendo experience. The year was 1986, and I was at a friend’s house playing the original Nintendo Entertainment System. This wasn’t the first console I played at home (the Atari 2600 owns that honor), but I instantly knew I was playing something very 
different. I also remember thinking the graphics were amazing compared to the stick figures I was used to on Atari.
Though the details of the experience are a bit foggy due to my young age at the time, I was instantly hooked on Kung Fu and Super Mario Bros. Additional titles followed such as Pro Wrestling, Metroid, RC Pro Am, Zelda, Tecmo Bowl and about 500 more.
Whether young or old, regardless when you started playing Nintendo, I’m confident the experience was largely the same. Do you remember?
Originally published on September 26th, 2005.
DrJay the Game & Watch was also my first Nintendo experience. I still have my Donkey Kong Jr. Game & Watch. I also had Parachute. Right now it has been misplaced. Need to look for it. My first NES experience was Metroid. Then there was Super Mario 3. It is hard to describe that first time when you discover you could bounce on that music note into the clouds and get those coins! I still play these games today.
i wuz 3 and i played mario
my dad still has the nes
My parents used to give the second controller while the intro screen ran for SMB when I was 1 and 2. Since I don't remember those though the first games I remember actually playing are still SMB and Super Mario Land for our Gameboy. I loved them both although I sucked since I was still 3 and to get further I played off my Mom's continues.
Super Mario Bros at launch at a friends house since I couldn't convince my parents to purchase a NES for me at launch (since we live in Mexico and the price was preeetty out there). Before I year I was the proud owner of a 2nd version NES (no R.O.B.!) since we had a trip to Tucson and took the chance to make a point about purchasing a NES while there since we (we, hahaha, I was 6!) would save on import taxes and what not.
Still own my NES, as well as a SNES, N64 and Wii (the Gamecube got traded in once I bought the Wii).
Donkey Kong.
Arcade.
Good times.
My cousin came to visit our house on summer and brought his brand new NES with him. I must have played Super Mario Brothers and Duck for two weeks straight.
kung fu, castlevania and megaman on the nes. also, donkey kong in the arcades, and donkey kong game & watch.
mike tyson's punchout and obviously super mario bros on the nes as well.
someone mentioned kid icarus earlier…..wow the memories.
SMB.
1997, playing Super Mario Bros for the NES for the first time.
Yeah, I'm a young 'un.
I was probably around 4, and my grandpa showed me Iron Tank. I'm not sure why he thought a girl would like it, but I soon dreamed of video games and have been playing them ever since. This was probably in 1991.
Ocarina of Time, Christmas 1999… sigh… good times.
1986, Nintendo Baseball. It was at my very first slumber party, at my friend Jason's house for his birthday. I was barely five, but I knew that the very fabric of space and time itself has suddenly torn and that my destiny had been drastically altered. I'd been playing on Ataris and Intellivision pretty much since I was born (arcade games, too), but there was something magical in that NES. It was actually another three years before I ever played Super Mario or Metroid (those were a rough three years for my family), but look at me now…..hopelessly addicted to games and actually making them for a living. Take that, reality.
SMB and Maniac Mansion.
It's actually one of my earliest memories period. My dad woke me up in the middle of the night (9 pm!) to show me that he finally got all of the characters playing their musical instruments in Tetris. We still have it on tape from when he recorded it with our super huge Marty McFly 80's video camera.
Playing Super Mario World at my Next Door neighboors place ^.^
1986…I was 8…R.O.B. was in my living room and I was playing Gyromite. Oh!, and Super Mario Bros. too. Wow that was a long time ago.
My first gaming experience was with Super Mario Bros. 3, doubling as my first Nintendo experience. I don't remember it very well, but I do know it has remained perhaps my favorite game of all time since that moment. I cut my teeth on some high-quality stuff. ;D
I started out with the playing cards…
…only joking, had a few game and watches to start, then my step brother got a famicom (grew up in South Africa) and it had a wireless 1st controller – infra red in 1988 I might add! I was hooked on mario, rygar and batman. My cousins still have the famicom and I play it when I visit. oh, the days…
HEY!! greatslack??????
GUY????
why cant girls enjoy Nintendo to its fullest!!!
Im 13 and wasnt there when NES first came out, but i loved duck hunt with the best of em!!!!
rock on girls dont ever let no guy tell you cant play video games!!!
(the old metroid prime was da bomb!!!)
peace out
Tecmo Bowl on NES. I'm not actually old enough to play the NES when it first came out, but my family had it for a while after I was born. The first game I really remember well is Mario 64.
What's with the reruns?
Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES.
I remember having my first video gaming experience, let alone Nintendo. It was my first console, the N64, with Super Mario 64. An amazing game, me and my dad actually challenged each other to see who could get all 120 stars in the shortest time. I won. =P
my first nintendo experience was back in grade 3/4 when pokemon blue/red was all the rage. probably spent a good couple hundred hours on that series ever since.
It was probably late 85 or early 86. My neighbor friend got an NES. He was the spoiled kid on the block and always had all the best toys, Gi Joe, Transformers, he had all the big stuff. I would always ask him to play Nintendo. We played SMB and Gumshoe (with the GRAY zapper) mostly. Eventually, I saved up paper route money (I was 12 in 1986) and bought my own system at KMart. I remember trying to convince my parents to let me buy it. They didn't like the idea of "TV games" and thought it would rot my brain. I made a deal with them that I would read 1 hour for every hour I played Nintendo. Needless to say I read a LOT of books in junior high, literally hundreds. It totally helped me in highschool as I had already read most of the books I would be tested on later. I can literally thank Nintendo for my nearly 4.0 gpa in highschool. 🙂
I must be the youngest guy posting here, I'm not even old enough to remember when the Super Nintendo came out, being that I am only 15. Anyways my first Nintendo experience was at my uncle's house, and he had a Super Nintendo, I was about four or five, we played together and took turns with him being Mario and me being Luigi. We played for hours on in, and I remember using Star Road to skip a world or two! XD Ever since, Super Mario World has been my favorite Mario game of all time! I bet this doesn't compare to playing the original SMB when it came out, though XD
I believe the first actual NES game I played was Volleyball at a friend's house. He had a lot of the early releases…Volleyball, Baseball, Ice Climbers, Urban Champion, and of course Super Mario Bros. I think SMB was actually the last of his NES games I played. Even then I thought Urban Champion was awful lol.
The first NES game I bought with my own money was The Legend of Zelda.
Donkey Kong arcade machine was the first time I noticed Nintendo's name… 1982 I guess it was. Man I miss the old arcades. (Not to be confused with today's chuckie cheese gaming arcades).
When I received my NES (Deluxe package with Zapper and ROB the Robot!) I got Ice Climbers and Super Mario Bros. with it for Christmas. Good times!
The Donkey Kong game & watch was my first experience with a Nintendo product. I've been fascinated with anything Nintendo ever since.
Don't even remember my first experience. I had an NES as long as I can remember. I fondly remember playing games like SMB 1, 2, and 3, Duck Hunt, Zelda, Metroid, Contra, and several others. I know that we had a stack of games probably 4 feet tall or more. I don't remember playing half those games.
I bought the NES/Super Mario bundle in college, and have been a fan for the past 25 years. I've owned every Nintendo System except Virtual Boy. The Wii's virtual console shop is certainly an awesome trip down memory lane.
This topic was from 07 when I was fifteen! WTF, blast to the past
My first gaming experience was
ABSOLUTELY SUCKING at Mega Man X.
I only recently finally beat the game once I realized (1) you could change Dash to the R button and (2) you could Dash-Jump off walls.
Probably reduced the game's difficulty by 75%.
And I'm just a lot better at games now.
But WOW I sucked at that game when I was a kid.
When beating Chill Penguin feels like a true accomplishment, you know something is wrong with you.