Otanjoubiomedetougozaimasu, Famicom-san!
The NES was always a favorite of mine. I proudly celebrate the birthday of its father…or Japanese cousin…or whatever.
I’d share my NES nostalgic memories, but they’re all bumped off by my Atari VCS nostalgic memories. 
It was released in New York on a trial basis in '85 – it wasn’t available to the rest of the country till '86, so your cousin was probably one of the first people to get it. During that time, home consoles still carried the Atari stigma (low quality and the assumption that video games were a “fad” after the U.S. game crash), so parents weren’t very eager to get the system.
It wasn’t till '87 that the really good games started coming out, like Zelda, Kid Icarus, Metroid. That’s when the system started selling. When the NES was released, the only available games were things like Stack Up, Ice Climber, Gumshoe, etc. Not exactly household names. Super Mario Bros. was really the only good one for a while.
The NES wasn’t an overnight sensation in the U.S. by any means. You’re right about the marketing – I don’t recall a really big TV push for the NES. The first really big campaign I remember was for Zelda. If anything, my awareness of the NES itself came mostly from word-of-mouth at school.
I must have gotten an early one, since my NES came with a crappy little robot and a game, that I can’t remember the title of.
I tried to use the robot once and it sucked.
I also got the gun and Gumshow.
Indeed, you did get an early one. The robot was named R.O.B. (go figure) and the game you had for him was either Gyromite or Stack Up, as they were the only two games ever made for the damn thing.
It was gyromite. Thanks.
Ah childhood memories. Nintendo is still cool to me. We were always a Nintendo family…NES, GameBoy, Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64. I was proud of that fact. Well Playstation 2 came out and I have that now as well. Nintendo will still be #1 in my heart. The Legend of Zelda is to me the greatest game ever.
My brother and I got the Game Genie because we were young and I guess it was cool to infinite lives on every single game. Well after a year or so, the Game Genie destroyed our NES (or at least that’s what we figured). It wouldn’t play anything at all no matter how many times you blew into the games or the console. Did you ever get the game cleaner? Rubbing alcohol always worked best for cleaning the games. Ever wonder why our NES was destroyed? So in the late 90’s we got the “new look” NES. The one that is a little more compact and the games stand straight up. Similar to how the games stand up in Super Nintendo and N64.
I love the fact that I can go to Funcoland and get old NES games for like $3. I got both Bases Loaded 1 and 2 for like $5 (they both suck big time!)
Man, I remember making friends with the kids who lived on the corner just so we could play Super Mario Brothers. I remember always dying on level 6? 5? with the swinging trees and the bullets going by. Another friend (a real friend) got the whole combo set with the mat and all, and we used to see how far we could long jump on Track and Field by jumping off the mat and then jumping back on just in time to land it. Oh, yeah, and we’d run the races by sitting next to it and pounding the big blue/red circle with our fists.
My mom was going to buy me Super Mario Brothers 3 for my birthday, but then my sister lost the check and I never got it. Hey! That’s right! I never did get it! What’s up with that?
Ooh, ooh, and did anybody else subscribe to “Nintendo Power?”
-audiobottle
PS - In case y’all were wondering, the game with the duck hunting was in fact called “Duck Hunt.” Nowadays it’d probably be called “Super Extreme Duck Kill XXX: Rage of the WaterFowl!”
Regarding the Game Genie:
The slot connector was considerably wider than that of a game cartridge, so after repeated inserting, it would push the contacts in the NES so far apart that they would no longer hold on to anything except the Game Genie. My Game Genie is permanently attached to my NES; without it, I can’t play any games. 
I had a subscription to Nintendo Fun Club the precursor to Nintendo Power. I wish I still had those old issues. <sigh> I did get a subscription to Nintendo Power as well.
Marc
The NES was buggy is such an endearing way. I bought the Advantage controller, which rendered certain games nearly unplayable. It somehow altered the state of the machine permanently. In Zelda, I could no longer fire the sword (with full health) without a freeze. And about 50% of the time, hearing the roar of a boss in the dungeons would cause a freeze also. Bizarre. I know I’m not hallucinating because similar things happened to my cousin as soon as he bought the Max controller.
But, oh! the games!
How about Baseball Stars? So freaking fun. And my favorite game of all time, for any system is still River City Ransom. That game had infinite opportunities for fun.
I also saved all my money to buy one, like many others here. It’s really the only thing I ever bought with my own money until I was much older.