I’m curious how come there is such a strong association between video game consoles and couches in American culture (and not only), when the couch is a shared space, you’d have to compete with parents and maybe other siblings for access to the living room TV.

50 comments

  1. My video game consoles as a kid were relegated to the basement TV. It was a finished basement and had a couple couches so it was a lot of space to spread out , play games, or watch movies. It didn’t have a connection to cable nor did it have antennas so we couldn’t get any TV channels on it though.

  3. In my own room, parents got me a little 15-20 inch TV (forget exact size but smaller) for my bedroom for video games so I wasn’t using the family TV.

  5. The PS2 we got as a family was also our only DVD player. It was for Christmas.

    I remember Christmas break I would wait all evening for us to be done watching movies (again: we got a bunch of movies as a family for Christmas…see: new DVD player) as a family and then stay up all night playing Gran Turismo 3 and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon.

  7. LOL!

    Well, I’m probably a bit older than the typical Redditor, so we didn’t have any console games. We played cards, board games or read books. So, I used to read a lot & played a lot of solitaire card games (you know, with actual cards).

    We only had 3 TV networks (4 if you count the local PBS affiliate) & cable wasn’t even a thing in my hometown until I was a teenager, not that we got it. We did get a few independent stations when I was in HS, which later turned into the CW & Fox networks.

    When I was a bit older, I played video games in arcades: Zaxxon was my favorite.

  8. I didn’t play on the living room tv, but we had another tv and couch in the basement that was mostly for my brother and I to play games on

  9. American houses are big. We had a family living room and a separate area where I had my couch and consoles.

    TVs are also super cheap in America. The average household has 3 TVs so just the living room TV isn’t the only TV in use at any given time. Even back in the 90s this was the case

  10. Both – I had a PlayStation in my room and the Xbox was in the living room. Anything handheld I’d play wherever.

    I’ve also had couches in my bedroom(s) though.

  11. Many, if not most, American families would have at least two TVs. Bigger houses and all that.

    Starting at around age 12 I had a PC in my room that I used for gaming. We later got a Gamecube that was connected to the secondary TV in the basement.

  12. In my own room as a kid. As an adult I play in the living room now. My kids go back and forth. One of them is more of a gamer and has a whole setup in their room, the other is more casual and generally plays the xbox in the living room or on their laptop in their room.

  13. I played in my room. Although for a while we did keep the console plugged up in the living room. Now that I’m an adult I had the console plugged up in the living room for a bit, but I’ve made a office space where I can play my PS5 in peace.

  15. Video games and consoles did not exist in my childhood.

    As an adult (school age), I got a console and a few games and played them in my room. Then I gave the whole thing away.

  16. Many of us didn’t have TVs in our bedrooms growing up. Even if we did, often the videogame console would be shared between siblings taking turns because most parents aren’t about to drop $500+ for each kid to have their own console in their bedroom plus a TV.

  17. Recalling back to my childhood in the 90s, I’d say it comes from an association with bringing said consoles into public spaces when playing with guests that were invited over, or as a family unit. I did have a TV in my room and I used it to play on my Playstation for a majority of the time, but if I had a friend over we commonly would play in the Livingroom/Den.

    I’m not too certain if this has maintained well into today. “Couch Co-op” and the like are terms that come from being able to play in a social environment locally as opposed to online. There are many games that do well aiming for that experience, I think the Smash community prefers to play in person rather than online (though I could be wrong, it’s not one I’m a member of)

  18. None of the above and both. Until 1st grade, we had a NES connected to the TV in the den/living room. We then moved to a 4 bedroom house, which gave us a spare bedroom that we then called the game room. We put a TV in there and I played in there until I was probably 14 or 15 when I got a TV for my bedroom, then I played in there until I left for college.

  20. I didn’t have a TV in my bedroom as a kid. We really didn’t watch TV. Although we did have Pong and some other games that we played. And had a Commodore 64, but that wasn’t in the living room. We had a half garage for storage and half was sort of a little room and the computer was out there.

  22. I remember I had a TV in my room for a couple years, I must have been an older teenager by then. At that point I wasn’t really into console gaming anymore, but yeah when I was younger I would either game in the living room or go down to my space in the basement where I had my pc.

  23. When I was little we had a living room upstairs and a family room downstairs.

  26. We didn’t have TV’s in our rooms. My parents did but we weren’t allowed, even if we bought it ourselves.

  27. In the 80s it was in the living room, but by the 90s I had my own tv in my bedroom to play on.

  28. We had a 2nd smaller TV in the dining room that I used for video games. I didn’t have a TV in my bedroom until I was maybe 16-17.

  29. Back in the 80s a lot of people still had those huge, bulky floor model TV sets that no one would have put in a bedroom. TVs got smaller and cheaper in the 90s so it wasn’t uncommon from the kids to have a smaller one in their room. But by then consoles in the living room had already been codified in popular media.

    Plus, I think for a lot of media, it’s just easier to have characters talking to each other while playing video games in the living room. You’ll notice, even now, popular portrayals of video games have barely moved on from beeps and blips that haven’t been accurate since the 80s.

  30. Didn’t grow up with one til later in our teens. Then it was a while in the living room

  31. At first the family room couch, then the basement. I then went back up to the family couch in middle school and then back to the basement in the middle of high school

  32. Living room when I used to play on the PlayStation. Mostly because I didn’t have a TV or anything in my room and because I always played split-screen with my brother. I got a gaming PC in high school and eventually did all of my gaming from my own room.

  33. As a kid we only had two tvs in the house. And the TV above the garage had rabbit ears and no input plug-ins comparable with an N64. My mom let us play video games but certainly we could not be on it all day and I think it was easier to monitor that in the family room. Also the chords on the N64 were always too short so I had to sit on the floor cause the couch was too far away. I still sit on the floor when gaming sometimes…
    As an adult the console still stays in a common area. I do sit on the couch more now.

  34. In the basement

    My friends all had their consoles set up in the basement too

  35. I switched constantly because the TV in the living room was so much bigger and flat screen but you’re right I’d have to wait until anybody was done with the tv to play games. So I’d move it back to my room to play it whenever. It stoped for awhile when I got my 360 and Xbox live because the router was next to my room and WiFi singles were freaking expensive so I had to keep it in my room

  36. As a child I wasn’t allowed to play video games. There was one TV in the house in the living room.

    My kids have options. There’s a gaming computer and a TV with a Xbox in the den. And there’s a Nintendo switch that gets moved around. There are tvs in the living room, den, kitchen, parent’s bedroom. I have not allowed TVs in kid’s rooms.

  38. I didn’t have a TV in my room, but we had a separate TV in the basement. Pops needed the upstairs TV for football and I didn’t want anything to do with that shit.

  39. I played my DS in my room, but the Wii was on the couch bc none of us kids were allowed to have tvs in our rooms.

  40. My parents NES, my N64 and my Playstation were in the entertainment room. When I was a little older and the PS2 and Xbox rolled around, those were in my room.

    The living room TV never had any consoles hooked up to it.

  41. I played console video games in the living room exclusively. I didn’t have my own consoles – my siblings, dad and I shared them. I did get a laptop as a teen and used that to play PC games in my bedroom.

  42. We had two living rooms so one was for video games and tv, the bigger one was just for tv and my parents would hang there while I gamed

  43. When I was younger it was in the living room, but as I got older my parents let me have it in my own room

  47. I played Pong in the living room ’cause we only had one TV.

    It was in an oak cabinet that swiveled… and a massive 32″ screen.

  48. Had my own TV ever since I was six.

    It’s amazing how cool my dad was playing video games for hours on end. Never had a time limit.

  49. Living room mostly. I didn’t have a tv in my room for most of my childhood and when I did it was a tiny one with a built in vcr whose screen was smaller than my current laptop screen, which made it hard to play the games I had.

    >you’d have to compete with parents and maybe other siblings for access to the living room TV.

    Yeah, sharing is a thing. You get so much time to do your thing and then someone else gets to use the TV. Constant sole access was not a thing until I got my tiny tv, which tbh I mostly used to watch anime on cartoon network when I was meant to be sleeping.

  50. Neither. I’m in my mid 40s and I grew up poor. We had one tv in the house until I was a late teen and we never got a game console.

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