The NES did NOT fail in the UK 

I'm 44..... i loved gaming as a kid, but all i knew was the ZX Spectrum, it is what me and my 2 brothers played, and in the UK, it was huge. We had the original ZX (rubber keys). But it died, and my parents went out and got me the newer model, the larger version with built in tape deck. Buy pure chance, it didn't work when we got it home, so my mum drove back to Dixon's (another store that vanished) and she was gone for ages. Anyway, she got home and said the guy in the shop said, forget the ZX, this was the future. It was the NES Lightgun and R.O.B the Robot bundle, with Gyromite, Duck Hunt and i had Mario also. Wow...... about 6 months later, for my Bday, i got Excitebike and RC Pro AM. The memories will stay with me forever.

I was born in 85 and my mum bought my dad a NES for his birthday in 1989 and for a few years it was a huge part of my childhood. I played it more than my dad. Mario 2, Mario 3, DuckTales, Gremlins 2, Bart vs The Space Mutants, Snake Rattle n’ Roll, Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout, Bubble Bobble, Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers, PaperBoy, Gumshoe, BatMan, Track & Field 2, The Flintstones, To The Earth, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Faxanadu, Simons Quest. They were the games I grew up with in the late 80’s/early 90’s. My cousin also had an NES and he had Mario/DuckHunt, Mario 3, Zelda, Zelda 2, Pinbot, Robocop, Double Dragon 2, Adventures of Bayou Billy, WWF WrestleMania Challenge, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Gremlins 2, PaperBoy... it is crazy how over 30 years later i still remember both mine/my dads and my cousins games library from my childhood. The system just holds such a huge place in my heart

I'm 38 and I remember Nintendo becoming really popular in the UK at the start of the 90s. The 80s were all about microcomputers but when we bought our Nes in 1990 it seemed to be at the start of a new era of console gaming with micro computers quickly becoming old hat. We also had TV shows like Captain N the Game Master (anyone else remember that?) and the Super Mario Bros show which created more publicity for Nintendo. Super Mario in a particular seemed to become a major household name by this time. I think the Nes was popular in the UK up until the 16 bit era took hold. The last games we bought for the Nes were Shadowgate and Defender of the Crown which I recall were quite cheap at around £10 each brand new in 1992/93.

It wasn't a failure in the UK by any means but it certainly didn't have the same cultural impact here like it did in the US. Mattel handled the distribution from 1987 to 1990 and did a piss poor job of it, games were too expensive in comparison to tapes and floppy disks and a lot of stuff didn't come out here or took much longer Nintendo really saw Europe as an afterthought. It wasn't til 1990 when Nintendo took over control and released the Turtles bundle thensame year when the film was released pretty much saved it here, after that it was marketed as a budget system like the master system 2 and picked up from there and as you said the 2nd hand market played it's part.

I agree with the points you make here, I’m a bit older than you but I was in my early teens in the mid/late 80’s , I was very much a Spectrum fan (Still am) but by now was aching to try the new breed of consoles coming in from Japan- Crash Zx Spectrum called them - Dedicated Consoles!- Initially my gaze fell on the Sega Master System as I wanted to play all the coin op games I loved- Out Run , Afterburner etc and I had one bought for my birthday - at the same time I was bunking off school to visit Boots in the neighbouring town to play on this other console - this “other” console was the NES, I was playing Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Rush n’ Attack(Green Beret) and several others. I managed to persuade my parents that a NES would be a good addition to my collection and they bought one for my birthday a few months later. I’m bored of the revisionist history surrounding the NES in the UK and the myth that it wasn’t popular- some UK RU-vidrs who shall remain nameless even refuse to give it a mention on their multi game roundups or refuse to give it credit. It’s almost as if they are peeved that it was popular in the USA and Japan in a big way and get very sniffy about it. To me the reason it was popular in those territories is down to the fact that the games were by and large brilliant and hold up very well today. Just as American RU-vidrs (with some exceptions) are slow to acknowledge the Master System/Spectrum/Amiga etc- there are plenty of sniffy UK RU-vidrs who are snotty about the NES- and they are all wrong! I just happen to love video games and the NES has tons of great ones and that’s why it was popular and endures to this day. In my area there were quite a few kids who had NES and quite a few who had the SMS and opportunities to buy games for them at reasonable prices was plentiful- so I agree with you- my perception was that the NES was a reasonably popular system here -comparisons with the US and Japan are not particularly relevant, the UK scene was far more fragmented - lots it Speccy and C64 and Amstrad fans, lots of NES/SMS fans and lots of Amiga and ST fans. That’s why we had such a wonderful scene and a great time enjoying all those wonderful systems.The rest is just surface noise! Great video and one I agree wholeheartedly with.

Here in the US, the Atari 2600 had a comeback after the success of the NES. They ran commercials saying "THE FUN IS BACK!" It was sold as a brand-new (Jr) budget console that was only $50. I remember lots of kids had a 2600 at this time (either a Jr or the old console being liquidated from inventory,) because the NES was sold out everywhere and the 2600 was so cheap and the games were also 5-10 bucks, sometimes cheaper if it was an old game found in a bargain bin or flea market. Atari did not sell anywhere near as many NES consoles, but if you called it a failure that would be flat-out wrong. They kept selling consoles up to the release the handheld Lynx system. Really impressive for tech from 1977.

What game is the music taken from at 11:22? Sounds really familiar but I can’t think what it is

I was born 84 also. I grew up with a C64 but got a Master System eventually. My primary school was hardcore Sega, everyone went SMS to Mega Drive. One kid at my primary school had a NES and I had never seen one before, played Super Mario Bros and thought it was pretty cool but never got one. Eventually I sold my Mega Drive to get a SNES, love both consoles. But you are correct on Mario being popular, I think a lot of it depends where you grew up.

Thanks, I now feel old. Born in 74, yet sold computer games on a market stall in the age of the speccy and C64 etc. Moving onto the early 90s. Nintendo 8bit wasn't a big thing at all in the computer shop I worked at.

1991= Mega Drive Time! Good Video mate. I had a Master System in the 80s. I didnt know anyone with an NES. Thats not to say it wasnt a console but everyone bought the same console or computer as their friends so they could swap games. I bought one in the early 90s but it had the blinky red light and I didnt know how to fix it. So I was robbed.

i grew up in basildon and everyone i knew apart from 1 or 2 people all had nes. i want that beatles pillar :) great album n great film. anyway that hurt i agree with a spurs fan , the retro bit cool the beatles big thumbs up but spurs, ouch lol

I read on a forum that sega of Europe's ceo and serif mike Haynes said the nes eventually overtook the master sytem in the uk

Second hand market was rife with nes at the time as you say. I never bought a new console til the Dreamcast.

Until the end of 1990, the NES actually was a failure until the release of the Mutant Machine pack. Then the NES really took off big time until it started winding down as 1993 progressed.

Like other European countries until the early 1990, the Nes was a niche console. When the bundled boxes came out like the action set (late 1990) it was successful but less than the Master System. The only country where the NES was successful in Europe in the late 1980s was Germany.

“Tophat gaming”spews a lot of propaganda for cheap clicks. Nobody with a brain should ever take anything he says as truthful. The NES was very big in the UK

It was a failed system due to there were different markers of the system and if you tried to play a game and depending on where you brought the game it might not work. And yes in 90s Nintendo started overseeing the production of their system. But sega worked 100% of time plus we had the choice of Commodores or amigas. And you say it's your era but you don't look like you were born in the 70s

I play the shit out of my 2600

NES Sell poorly against master system even it was successful in uk.