It's ridiculous how many think there would be no consoles if not for the NES. Gaming would have continued on PCs on arcades eventually on smartphones and other devices. The idea that nobody ever would have released a new console is ridiculous. The technology that allowed gaming to grow would have continued without NES.

For me its the Atari 2600. At that time I played arcade games in the mall almost everyday, but Because thats the 1st console that I played as a home console. But i voted for the Sega Genesis, cause Sonic the Hedgehog changed my view on gaming. What an amazing game at the time.

Atari 2600...

There probably would be but they likely would be radically different. 

Without Nintendo I think there is no Sony, because for what frame of reference does Sony even have for the game business prior to working on the SNES sound chip? Without that they likely are as revelant to gaming as Panasonic or Toshiba is. Their board of directors likely reject any plan to go into gaming, Ken Kutaragi likely doesn't even have a position of influence within the company to begin with. 

You're right gaming would've continued on PCs .... and mainly PCs IMO. And the world of gaming in that case would likely be radically different. Things like Megaman or Final Fantasy may never have taken off as big IPs, in such a scenario something like Jazz Jackrabbit might be a bigger IP than those. 

With no NES IMO ... there is no Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart, Pokemon, sure (or to a lesser degree), but also quite likely Square-Enix, Capcom, Konami do not exist today in the same way. "Final Fantasy" might be some old PC game that never got a sequel for instance or never even got greenlit in the first place. No Playstation likely either, who knows if MS then even bothers with an XBox since Windows PC would likely be the lead game platform anyway.

I think Sega would've stuck around though and made moderately successful consoles (20-30 million) for a few years, but even Sega is likely radically different. They likely don't make Sonic for example, because Sonic was a direct response to Mario's success. So likely you have Sega systems focused on things like After Burner, Out Run, and similar arcade type experiences.  

Most popular IP likely would've been Western PC games I think. 

Not to be devil's advocate...but quite a few of most popular IPs in fact started as Western PC games...CoD, GTA, TES, Fallout, Battlefield, Minecraft, FarCry...to name a few...and what Sony (and consequently MS) gave them was new audience...with or without Nintendo.

One might argue that it would happen no matter what...yet one might argue that NA vg market would be quite fine no matter what as well.

You're showing your age here, kid.

Some of us REMEMBER growing up in the 80's and 90's. Of COURSE, companies would still be trying to make games, without the NES. But we're talking about REAL history, not a fictional version of it :)

The NES blew everything out of the water, back in the day. Nintendo didn't even have to worry about competition at all for 7 years.

Warned ~ CGI

LOL "kid", look at my join date.  Though I say PS1 is the most important, it doesn't mean I don't credit the importance of the NES.  

But hardware isn't really important, its the games.  The way to get the games is to have great relationships with 3rd parties.  

Atari was too loose, allowing a lot of crap games to get released on their console.  

The NES established very tight controls which did introduce quality control, but it really was about selling Nintendo manufactured catridges to third parties and restricting them from supporting competing consoles.  (This is the real reason the N64 had catridges, and not a CD-rom drive.)  

Sony got the partnership just right with the PS1, listened to the 3rd parties when designing the console, and helped create a massive success for Sony and the 3rd parties.  Simply put, the PS1 represented a pivot in console gaming which has laster longer than the one which occured with the Atari, NES, or any other console.

NES & Game Boy.
Probably we would be playing only on PCs during the last 03 decades if those devices weren´t able to call people´s and media attention

It's not hard to see that gaming would be exactly the same place it is today if it just stayed Nintendo and Sega.

Atari 2600 by 2 country miles.

But since Nintendo created existence itself, the NES is the answer by default...