You have changed the argument.  I am not talking about the "Game Industry".  I am talking about console gaming.  The NES saved console gaming.

We already agree that the NES revived console gaming in North America.
European gaming in the early-mid 80s was being developed on computers.  They were not developing any significant console worth mentioning.
That just leaves Japan.  

I do think another company, like Sega, could have made a decently successful system in Japan, but it would mostly have just stayed in Japan.  Nintendo had to do amazing things to revive console gaming in North America.  And console gaming never became that big in Europe until Sony entered the market, which is a result of their temporary partnering with Nintendo on the Nintendo Playstation.  Also console gaming, even in Japan, would be much smaller in Japan without the Famicom.  The kinds of successes that the Famicom was having in Japan were amazing in their own right, before the rest of the world even enters the picture.  The SMS could succeed in Brazil where there wasn't a significant movement in computer gaming, but not in North America or Europe.

In a world without the NES, computer gaming becomes the dominant platform instead of console gaming.  This is important, because the console market is naturally much bigger than the computer game market.  The C64 succeeded in the absence of consoles and sold about 16m units.  The NES sold about 4 times that amount a few years later.  That indicates that the console market is about 4 times larger than it would have been with just computer gaming alone.  Consoles are cheaper and more convenient than computers and that naturally leads to a much bigger gaming market.

So yes, Nintendo and the NES did save console gaming.  In a world without the NES, there is no reason to believe that people would have kept trying to make consoles when computer gaming had already proven to be successful.  The PC would have become the standard instead of the console.  And the most likely result is that the "Game Industry" would be about 1/4 of its current size.  Gaming would still be a decent sized industry, but still much smaller than what it actually did become because of the NES.

I obviously meant the home console industry as this is what I’ve been discussing the whole time.

But I see that you think nothing can ever be a thing if it’s not a thing in the US. That because the NES was the console that managed to take traction in the US, it can only be Nintendo, and the others can never ever possibly have continued investing in the industry beyond Gen 2, despite having continually invested in it and released systems prior and during the NES’s US launch. That if it’s not in the US, then it’s only in Japan, and Japan only.

Nintendo is single handedly responsible for everything that is good in the universe. And without them, there can’t possibly be anything. I often forget about that one.

Fully agreed, can't say that happens often.

The clique is still watching me. I almost feel honoured..

A bit paranoid, but alrighty. Glad you see the value of the NES helping shape the videogame industry though!

You have changed the argument.  I am not talking about the "Game Industry".  I am talking about console gaming.  The NES saved console gaming.

We already agree that the NES revived console gaming in North America.
European gaming in the early-mid 80s was being developed on computers.  They were not developing any significant console worth mentioning.
That just leaves Japan.  

I do think another company, like Sega, could have made a decently successful system in Japan, but it would mostly have just stayed in Japan.  Nintendo had to do amazing things to revive console gaming in North America.  And console gaming never became that big in Europe until Sony entered the market, which is a result of their temporary partnering with Nintendo on the Nintendo Playstation.  Also console gaming, even in Japan, would be much smaller in Japan without the Famicom.  The kinds of successes that the Famicom was having in Japan were amazing in their own right, before the rest of the world even enters the picture.  The SMS could succeed in Brazil where there wasn't a significant movement in computer gaming, but not in North America or Europe.

In a world without the NES, computer gaming becomes the dominant platform instead of console gaming.  This is important, because the console market is naturally much bigger than the computer game market.  The C64 succeeded in the absence of consoles and sold about 16m units.  The NES sold about 4 times that amount a few years later.  That indicates that the console market is about 4 times larger than it would have been with just computer gaming alone.  Consoles are cheaper and more convenient than computers and that naturally leads to a much bigger gaming market.

So yes, Nintendo and the NES did save console gaming.  In a world without the NES, there is no reason to believe that people would have kept trying to make consoles when computer gaming had already proven to be successful.  The PC would have become the standard instead of the console.  And the most likely result is that the "Game Industry" would be about 1/4 of its current size.  Gaming would still be a decent sized industry, but still much smaller than what it actually did become because of the NES.