One thing to remember was that (in the USA, at least) the NES came out in 1985, Super Mario 3 came out in 1988, while Commander Keen (generally regarded as one of the first console-quality side scrollers on the PC) didn't come out until 1990-1991, meanwhile the SNES was released in 1991.
The NES was a huge improvement over the previous console, which was basically the Atari 2600, and then you had all the other gaming options like a Colecovision, C64, etc.
The NES was a huge improvement over the previous console, which was basically the Atari 2600, and then you had all the other gaming options like a Colecovision, C64, etc.