I think people are missing the point with the NES. It overcame the impossible and brought the industry back from the dead in the US. Store owners were so skeptical of video games after the crash of 1983 that Nintendo had to promise to buy back anything that didn't sell. Not only that, but the consumers themselves were put off from games thanks to the crash, and getting them interested again was a monumental task. Nintendo faced this kind of resistance, and yet they still not only managed to survive, but their system became very, very popular.
In my book, it's ahead of everything else, just because it did something that was seemingly possible, but absolutely necessary at the time. I could see an argument about how we would've seen something similar had the Wii not come along, and the Wii basically saved the game industry from a repeat of 1983. However, the fact of the matter is, it didn't, and thus the NES has still done something the Wii can't ever surpass.
