This pisses me off

[Mike McCarthy]

1st gen: Magnavox Odyssey and the other million pong consoles
2nd gen:Fairchild VES(the first video game system to accept programmable media), Atari 2600 VCS, mattel intellivision, RCA Studio II, bally astrocade, Magnavox Odyssey 2, etc..
2.5 gen:Atari 5200, colecovision, emerson arcadia 2001, vectrex
3rd gen:Nintendo NES, Sega Master system, Atari 7800, Atari XEGS

The Nintendo is so significant because it delivered the paradigm shift in gameplay; you could actually finish the games. there was a narrative and an end goal. before the NES you would just play til you got bored. yes there were some earlier games that you could "beat" on earlier systems but the whole "did you beat it?" phenomenon came from the NES. I'm no NES fanboy, I greatly prefer the 2600, but that is why people think NES is the system

I agree with jack though. I'll take an original gamer shirt with "tennis for two" on it 

little know fact; the Odyssey was a commercial failure because department store salesmen routinely led customers to believe that they had to purchase a brand new Magnavox television set just to play the Odyssey 

[number six]

The NES was definitely a big step forward but remember there were tons and tons of computer games that were more advanced in terms of game depth by 1983/1985 so its not like the NES introduced the concept of a game with a complete story or deeper-than-arcade-style gameplay.

Atari, et al were just a lot simpler due to the vastly smaller ROM sizes and obvious hardware limitations although some Intellivision and Colecovision games had decent depth but just weren't as popular and aren't remembered as well.

You are just dealing with a slightly younger generation that grew up in the late 80s versus the late 70s hence they remember the Nintendo more. On the flip side the hipsters born even after that remember whatever Nintendo they had when they were kids.. be it the SNES or N64 or even Gamecube.. and are trying to trace the franchises back to the NES. They don't have any memories of the Atari since the Atari was functionally dead after the early-maaaybe mid 80s so you have to be really old to have any sort of nostalgia for it.

[Niloc]

Ball and cup? You kids with your techno-gadgets, always cupping the balls. It's a fad I tell ya! It'll never replace hoop and stick!

[zenbone]

Ball and cup? You kids with your techno-gadgets, always cupping the balls. It's a fad I tell ya! It'll never replace hoop and stick!

LOL 

[k7]

Ball and cup? You kids with your techno-gadgets, always cupping the balls. It's a fad I tell ya! It'll never replace hoop and stick!

stick and hoop was soooo generation 2. you damm kids:

for my generation, it was just hoop:

[littlewest]

stick and hoop was soooo generation 2. you damm kids:

for my generation, it was just hoop:

must be back to square one... My generation is all stick.