If I remember the NES was really the only game in town for 95% of people. I didn't know anyone who owned a different system.

The Genesis was a legitimate alternative. As a kid I definitely remember Genesis game being a bit cheaper than SNES games which held at $50-60 range for a long time. Among friends it was not uncommon half to have Genesis, half to have SNES and just visit the other to see latest Sonic or Final Fantasy.

PlayStation catered to a different market and expanded who played. This meant Nintendo was not fighting as much for its existing customers so much as fighting and losing out on new customers. I mean the NES all alone sold ~62 million and the PlayStation with competition sold ~100 million so hard for me to believe their was not a significant market expansion in that time.

Why in hindsight not surprising that Nintendo struggled the following gen as that new demographic became the dominant one. It was until they flipped the script and went after their own new market with the Wii that they saw their best selling console ever.

Genesis took a large piece of the NES market. The market grew overall, but it was split more 60-40 than 90-10. When N64 hit, the market had grown even further with those of us who grew up on NES now in college and a whole new crop of kids buying systems. In basic numbers Nintendo's market declined less in 5th gen, but it's market share fell even more. Especially when you consider how much the market was growing.

Total units went from less than 70 million to 80 million to nearly 150 million. Nintendo had a smaller piece despite a much larger pie.

During the 3rd generation, the NES was the only console that was really relevant in America! Gamers didn't give a damn about the Master System and Atari 7200, now did they? That changed during the 4th generation when the Genesis actually became a threat to Nintendo thanks to "genius" marketing and good ol' Sonic! During the 5th generation, the gaming market grew a lot thanks to PlayStation, so that's why the drop in sales didn't seem to be that big!

Americans like to shoot things, N64 had plenty of shooters. The SNES didn't. :P

Wut....

The SNES had a crappy port of Doom. Does that count?

Since in Japan, every console sold more than the last, the SNES sold 130k more than the NES, while the N64 only sold 30k more than the SNES.  The SNES saw more of an increase than the N64 did in Japan compared to last console sales despite gaming getting bigger in the fifth gen.

You're looking at "rest of the world" sales. There was a massive decline from NES to N64.

Oh yeah.  You're right.  Nvm then.

the reason the NES did that much better was the killer app Duck Hunt