To start, I want to say I'm really glad I found this board.  I've tried a couple of other retro gaming boards in the past, but they tended to mostly consist of teenagers who are going back and playing these older games  now, not so much an older gamer type of crowd.  I was about to give up, and found this board, so I thought I'd ive it a shot.  Anyway, I'm mostly a hardcore Sega and classic Arcade fan (though I always picked up Nintendo consoles later, and foolishly bought a Jaguar  ); my first console was a 2600 hand me down, a Master System was the first I bought with my own money.  From that time on, I was mostly a console and arcade guy, never got into PC games too much outside of the Amiga.

My favorite genres are shmups, rpgs, 2d platformers and 2d fighters, but I will play just about anything.  My favorite console of all time would probably be the much maligned Saturn, given that it had the best arcade-like controller and IMHO 2d fighter and shmup library of any console.  The last time I participated online much was in the Usenet and early GameFAQs days, and part of why I'm getting back now is that I'm trying to collect for older systems I never had growing up (Turbografx 16/PC Engine being a great example), as well as the fact that most of my friends have moved on with work/family and just don't play much these days.  My favorite arcade games are probably the classic Atari and Konami cabinets, as well as SNK fighters and beat 'em ups (KOF being my favorite of those)