Yes it was.

Nintendo invented the D pad which is now standard. Plus it introduced us to games like Mario and Zelda which were breaktrhough back then.

Atari was about dead and practically no one even heard of master system.

I don't know how things will be today though I know one thing for sure we will have no playstaion or X box or even the almighty nintendo's franchises

Exactly, gaming would suck;)

It feels just that they are finally back at the top of the mountain.

Nintendo did do things at the retailer that were different enough to revive a dead market. Someone mentioned that Atari would do another system- they did. It was called the 7800. And we all know how that did...

**please note from this point on is speculation**

But seriously, where would the market be without Nintendo? The question can be answered by getting the answer to one question- would Sega have done the same things as Nintendo? (Meaning, partnering with a hot toy and offering a buyback guarantee.) If not, console gaming would simply not exist. It would be a PC-only market.

If they did do those things, though, we would have a very different market. The Master System would have been unrivaled in the 8-bit era (retailers were too burnt by Atari to carry the 7800), allowing Sega to be very strong into the 16-bit era. The TG-16 still launched first, so the Genesis/Mega Drive may have been delayed slightly for its launch, but it still was coming. At this point, Sega had much better relations with the 3rd party companies, and the balance of games would still have resulted in NEC's demise from consoles. The Sega CD was still an internal development at Sega, so it would still come out. Note that with Nintendo not being around, there is no deal with Sony, and thus, the Playstation is not born. After here, though, things start to get hazy.

After the Sega CD, I do think we would have seen the Saturn come out, though I predict it would release later than it did. The 32X, which was made to compete with the SNES, would not exist. I also do not see any change in traction for things like the 3DO or those ilk in the absense of Nintendo. The life of the Saturn would be substancially greater in the Americas, enough so that I think it would have lasted long enough to see Microsoft release the XBox before the Dreamcast. (I see no signs that would point to MS not entering the market.) I also think that MS's performance would be about the same, with the Japanese developers still strongly favoring the Japanese console maker. Which would lead us to today. We would have the 360, which would come out before the successor to the Dreamcast. MS would use the same tactics as they have in this timeline, though with only one other system, I think they would have a bit better market penetration than they do now. I'd say 80/20 in Japan, and 65/35 worldwide for Sega.

Now, portables? That's even harder. The Game Gear would have won that market in the end versus the Lynx and TGExpress. However, that would not have been an easy fight, and would have taken several years. However, I would not have been surprised to still see the Nomad come out, probably fairly late in the Genesis life span. And this, with little competition, would cause the portable market to go in a completely different direction. Later portables would not be as small as the current ones, rather, I see them as being the size of the Nights Saturn controller (or a Dreamcast controller), maybe a bit thicker. And they would play the console games. Sega's handhelds were never exactly known for their battery life, so that would still be an issue. There would be a screen in the upper-middle of the controller, the disk would load in the back (think in a PSP-style), and if it got too thick with the drive mechanism, battery, and controls, I could see a side profile of the system being shaped like >=< , giving you a curved place in to put fingers. The current portable on market would still be a portable Dreamcast, with the next one still being a few years off.

And the toughest part of all- the innovations. Would we see the motion control, touch screens, etc, that Nintendo brought later? Probably not, but who knows. Could it even be brought in by an outside disruptor company? Would the lack of competition make Apple serious into marketting the iPod Touch as a gaming machine? At this point, now, we're too abstract for even me to make guesses.

Well no your somwhat wrong. The only reason MS came in to the console wars was because sony made dvds to
the ps2. They saw that as a threat to pc gaming. So they enetered to stop them. That's why they made it like a pc.

Also becase nintendo brought sony in but they don't exist or as a 3rd party so no sony no MS. But Sega became popular
during the the 16 bit era. For all we know sega could be in thge market right now and the dreamcast will be much more diffrent.
Also no sonic. Sonic was only made to rival mario. So alot of things will be diffrent. So don't mess with the past

Am I wrong? Maybe, I don't know. But for that matter, NOBODY knows. But I still see MS entering market. Here's why:

I believe that MS would see the console power increasing as a threat to their lucrative PC software business. I do think that Saturn would have had online capability, as does Dreamcast, and it would be a talking point for Sega. If people are able to go online without a computer, some people would have no need to get a PC, and thus, no need for MS software. This is how I see MS entering the console market. As you said the XBox is close in structure to a PC; I do not dispute this. The XBox would be released as a gateway to sell more software to the non-PC gaming market.

Yes, Sega became popular in the 16-bit era. But I think that without the presense of the NES, the Master System would have been able to sell, giving them earlier name recognition. And I do think that Sega would still be in the market; note how I mention that their current systems are a Dreamcast successor and a portable Dreamcast. Would the systems be different? Probably, I could see the Dreamcast using DVDs instead of GD-ROMs. However, Sega's interest in the CD format with the Sega CD means that I still see the Saturn going with CD media, and keeping a disk format for the Dreamcast and its successor. But... what does Sonic have to do with any of this? He may not exist, sure, but nowhere did I say that Sega's existance in this Nintendoless market is dependant on Sonic.

I think we could all agree that the market would be vastly different than it is now.

sorry wrong word. I should've meant unrealistic. Because it ain't fact
Though I trhink we should end this topic before things get bad

if there was no nintendo we'd all be playing atari's latest console. the atari 98272666389020028993. it would be sold as a 256bit system. the processor would actually be 64bit and run at 23mhz.