[kennyadam]

The NES was pretty popular in the UK, wasn’t it? In our solidly working-class home, we had a NES. I remember getting Super Mario Bros 3 for christmas one year and so did many of my friends at school, who all lived in semi-detached two-bedroom homes or masonettes. So, we weren’t in a wealthy bubble or anything. I’m sure it sold multiple millions of copies in the UK and TV shows like GamesMaster were popular and had NES games on a show watched by a pretty big audience. How old were you when it released that you’ve never seen one in the flesh?

[Supernaut]

Okay, that's interesting. I was in my early teens when it was released. Absolutely everyone I knew had either a Spectrum or a C64, aside from the one rich kid who owned a BBC Micro.

I just had a look at Wikipedia, which says, "the NES performed less well in Europe, where it faced strong competition from the Master System and home computers such as the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum."

[superchartisle]

This is a interesting long read on the subject: https://fatnickindustries.com/Blog/2019/07/03/8-bit-showdown...

The NES did get past a million sales in the UK, but a lot of them seem to have been at a cheap price late in its life once the SNES and (more so) the Mega Drive had established a popular market for consoles in the UK.

An indicative fact on consoles vs computers that the article highlights: in 1991, Sonic the Hedgehog on Mega Drive reached #11 in the UK charts on its release, and it was considered a remarkable and unusual achievement for a console game to do so well.

[Supernaut]

Just want to say, I hadn't encountered your website before, but it's an absolute treat.

I'll be working my way through your Timeline over the next while!

[superchartisle]

Thank you! I hope you enjoy

[qingcharles]

Great article! Interesting to see they were still selling the SMS for 10% of the price of the Saturn at the same time.

[pipes]

I got one about 1992ish I think. I had a Gameboy before that. And a spectrum before that. To be honest the game boy was a revelation, smooth fun polished games. My spectrum crashed all the time (thanks Alan sugar and your cheaper manufacturering). Nintendo games had multi person dev teams instead of some poor guy looking at a video of an arcade machine and trying to recreate at on a spectrum.

Though everyone I knew got a snes and street fighter 2 for Xmas one year. I only knew one other nes owner