That's quite true.

Aside from that I lost my SNES and NES as well as my cartridges to a basement flood (not to mention 90% of my VHS tapes).

Now I just emulate them for convenience. Yeah I always felt that way about the Saturn or the Sega CD at least until I played the latter.

In my life I have owned:

Atari 2600 JR
NES
SNES ------------------
Nintendo 64 ---------- My 3 fondest eras or gaming.
PSX -----------------
PS2
PS3
Xbox
Xbox360
Gameboy original
Gameboy Color
Gameboy Advance SP
Game Gear

I only own a 360 at the moment.

Hmm, a MB Vectrex... drools and slobbers...

Been a while since I've thought about my old consoles. I do have fond memories, though. Just the mere sight of those old hunks of plastic in a low-res web image search is enough to send warm fuzzy feelings of childhood nostalgia coursing through my dendrites.

The ravages of time and intercontinental migration have not been conducive to my holding onto my old classic consoles, but I do hope they have gone to good homes and perhaps are giving someone as much enjoyment now as I had with them when I was a child.

I often tended towards some of the more unique consoles, and was one of the few I knew of that had the full NEC compliment of TurboGrafx-16, TurboDuo, and TurboExpress units. They all used the same HuCards, which was awesome because they were tiny sizewise in comparison to other cartridges at the time and the same exact games on the home console could be played on the go with the TurboExpress. Particularly in North America, the catalog of games was never as popular or extensive as the more mainstream consoles like the SNES and Genesis, but the TG-16 had some really great and unique titles. The NEC line of game systems probably stands out for me as my most memorable in terms of a childhood nostalgic connect with my old consoles -- it hit the sweet spot for when video games were a sort of magical, wondrous thing, and came out at a time when I was old enough to appreciate them fully but not yet old enough to have to worry about things like adolescence.

my favorite consoles:

SNES
N64
Gamecube
GBASP
3DS
PS3

The Game Boy and N64 invoke the strongest nostalgia for me.
I have a fondness for Japanese gaming systems, in large part because Japanese games are so different from Western games, something I really appreciate. My favorite systems today are PlayStation 2-4, Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita.

Well, the term is Personal Computer, which yes would include Macs, and any any other non-business related computing device. However your quite right in the it came to reference IBM based machines and Mac became a separate entity (well, they had to do something to validate their vastly over priced equipment :o)

I have the best memories of the Atari 2600, because of my age when it came out, and the strong focus on lightweight multi-player games.

Tons of hours spent playing with neighborhood friends with games like Warlords or Air-Sea Battle.

Both consoles and micro computers fall under the same market. You had similar add ons and upgrades for the consoles too. The PS3 was even a computer until Sony shafted it's customers.
So I would say they would fit into the category for his thread. For example the C64 and Spectrum in Europe would be what people were playing on instead of the NES* and the Amiga and Atari ST would be competing with the 16 bit consoles.

It is a pity there wasn't a true successor to those computers to fill the gap between the 32bit consoles and the insanely priced IBM PCs at the time.

Yes, but I was referring to devices at the time. You wouldn't do word processing on a NES would you? These things evolve over time. Yes the consoles now are basically compressed pcs and can double as media center etc. Just more lime blurring, like mobile phones, they were not originally computers, but I am now typing this out on a phone. Its evolution.

I have a hard time considering Oriental Blue as part of the franchise; it doesn't take place in Jipang, it isn't silly and it doesn't feature artwork from Yoshiteru "Torajiro" Tsujino. I would say it is more of a "spiritual successor".

As for the games coming out in English regions, it almost happened so many times! Tengai Makyou II: Manjimaru was considered for release, along with its spin-off Kabuki-Den, with publishing handled by Hudson USA and translation by Working Designs. For whatever reason, neither games ever materialized. Tengai Makyou III: Namida was going to be released by Konami USA, but was canceled when the Japanese release was delayed and was subsequently never reconsidered. The Xbox 360 remake of Tengai Makyou: Ziria was almost localized by Gaijinworks (the remnants of Working Designs) and Hudson USA, but Microsoft rejected the game because they thought it couldn't meet their projected sales quota. Even though they're probably right, it's still such a shame!

The PS2 game was briefly considered for an English release, but nothing solid ever came of that. Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage is an excellent game, but you are right in saying that the PS2 game is superior in almost every way. I do give the Dreamcast game bonus points for having a wholly original story by Miura-san. While the PS2 game features an original sub-plot, it is mostly just a recreation of pivotal scenes from the manga...not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you. You can't go wrong with either game.

Yeah you have me there about Oriental Blue, but on the upside at least it's still good. So many successors to a franchise (spiritual or otherwise) tend to be so lack luster. I do agree also it's a shame it misses the humour though, that was always one of my favourite parts of the Tengai Makyou series. I think The Apocalypse IV stands out for me because while it deviated from the other games in terms of location, it still had the trademark humour and quality game play though without changing as much as Oriental Blue did. I wasn't aware the series had even a snowballs chance at an official western release, dang I would have so enjoyed that.

I'm really surprised it didn't, especially with how good Guts' Rage is for the most part. Yeah, I found a fan translation patch that works great if you rip the Disc akin to what you had to do with Persona 2: Innocent Sin. It was a pretty decent translation and made sure the story wasn't lost on the player. Yeah part of why I like Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage was the original and inventive story and the bit with Casca was kind of a nice moment of hope for Guts. Yeah I think I mostly liked the PS2 game a bit more is due to the obvious story lifting from the manga, but ALSO seeing all Team Guts on any sort of screen for once (not including the cameos in the film trilogy). I still hope Berserk: Inquisition is going to be a thing, but if not at least Berserk for PS2 exists.