Speaking of Sears ... I remember as a kid growing up in the 80s that was THE place to go for almost everything, including video games.
I dunno how old you are (if you were 16 in '91, we're about the same age) but at age 31, I consider myself part of the Atari generation (as opposed to those who grew up on the NES, or SNES, etc) and I remember around 1980 or 81, before I finally got a 2600 in '82, going to Sears with my dad and playing the Atari VCS and the Intellivision (or rather, the Sears Video Arcade and Sears Super Video Arcade). I think Combat was on the 26 and I know Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack was on the INTV. I also remember almost literally drooling over the old Sears and JC Penney xmas catalogs, with their pages upon pages upon pages of Atari and Intellivision games...screenshots for every single game!
I also remember a small shop in the Valley Fair Mall here in Appleton, WI (point of trivia: the Valley Fair Mall here in Appleton, WI was the very first indoor mall in the country!) called Video Exchange, which was probably the earliest place I knew of that had these weird things called "videocassettes" with movies on them. They also sold videogames of course, and I know I saw NFL Football played on the INTV there, and my parents bought 2600 Pac-Man there for, I think, 25 bucks. I recall looking at their display case of Atari games and seeing Indy 500 with the driving controllers and thinking that $45 was an outrageous price for a videogame.
Also, your story about the SNES echoes mine pretty closely. I remember that Toys R Us was the first place to sell it, like a week before the scheduled launch date. I had it all planned out, to buy it on the release date with my paycheck that I would have gotten two days earlier from my crappy Burger King job, but the Sunday prior to that expected date was a full-page TRU ad in the newspaper that shouted SUPER NINTENDO IS HERE! In a panic, I had to borrow 250 bucks from my dad (my enabler again, it seems) to get the SNES and F-Zero on the release day. I was in line at 10 am and got the second one out the door. Like you, all my income went to SNES games, as I bought all the major releases right on their first sale date -- Actraiser, Super Ghouls n Ghosts, Final Fight...and I remember saving up 80 BUCKS (yes, 80 bucks, do you remember that bullsh*t?) for Street Fighter II, and playing it so much that it actually did make it worth 80 bucks for me.
Which leads me into a story about the SF2 tournament I almost won and the greatest SF2 match I ever had, or have ever seen, in my life...but I'll save that one for another time =)
