What do you want to know? I consider myself an expert on the UK market. Also there are many more versions than the "mattel" and "nintendo version" of the NES

I was born in 86 in the UK, and NES was my first system. It is impossible, of course, for me to compare the impact of this system in the UK with the US. However, I must say that the NES was very popular indeed among friends I had growing up, and it was a definitive part of the video gaming scene.

It is true that the scene was highly varied, people had amiga and Commodore and spectrums and master systems and megadrives and whatnot. But the NES was probably still the most common system people had... I guess in the USA NES had a majority of the market, while in the UK it had a plurality of the market.

I don't know what it was like in the rest of PAL land, but to understate the impact of the NES here would be disingenuous.

I was a bit of a nipper when the NES was originally launched. GameBoy was my frist love so I can't remember too much anacdotely about what the situation with the NES was. 

I know Mattel handled the original launch but treated it more like a toy. The games were way too expensive and sold through department stores, boots, mail order etc. Compared to the Master System and Spectrum games (plus other computers) the NES was seen as a bit too expensive. 

They packed in the Hero Turtles game (even though it wasn't a first party Nintendo title) and that picked up popularity but then Nintendo took over distriubtion (as they already distributed through PAL B regions).
 

Reading though this and seeing bacon instead of Nintendo is hilarious!

Bacon?