That just sounds like all you had access to was a Nintendo console, not necessarily due to your own choice. I missed out on all the early zelda, metroid, and mario home console games because we were a playstation family until the wii.

I played plenty of PC games such as Warcraft, StarCraft, and random stuff on steam. I was just not much into FPS (although TF2 was an exception). I also had all 3 consoles (all of my teenage paychecks went into games), but I think it was really Nintendo games which were commonly played by everyone I knew. Even if you didn't have one you'd play them via local multiplayer at someone's house.

Saying “everyone” played those two titles is still incorrect. Personally I think the landscape was more fragmented then.

Absolutely is fragmented. Even though I own a Wii I've never played Zelda or any Mario games, and I don't think I know anyone who owns a modern Nintendo. We all live in bubbles. And we change bubbles occasionally; I no longer play Fifa or CoD mostly because of the kernel anti-cheat. I got bored of CSGO. I play less gory games now because of family. We play less Lego games because we grow up.

Until the 2010s, PC gaming was fairly niche in US/Canada. Growing up I didn't personally know anyone that gamed primarily on a PC.

I feel like it was when Minecraft took off that people started investing in gaming PCs, kids were asking their parents for them, etc.

Yeah, I am pretty sure most heavy gamers in 2004 were knee deep into MMOs and FPSes.

There isn’t a single one way to be a dedicated gamer.

Inevitably everyone has finite time and access to games and has to make choices about what to play.

As a Mac guy, I always found the game platform wars weird because even on the weakest gaming platform there are still more good games than anyone can individually play. And even on Windows, probably the strongest gaming platform, you’re still missing out on many significant games.

I totally understand buying a system because it has some game that you absolutely must play. I bought an OG Xbox back in the day because I thought I desperately needed to play Deus Ex: Invisible War when it didn’t come to Mac. Got burned on that one, but at least I had Halo before it came to Mac (and was in the end much better there than on Xbox due to expanded online multiplayer).

What I actually don’t get is folks who have to play the hot game of the week every week. Just seems expensive in terms of money, time, and space for different systems, and you only scratch the surface of the games.