I didn't grow up with Nintendo, at least not in my early childhood. In fact, I didn't really grow up with many video games at all. We had an original Playstation and my older brother had a Playstation 2, but the majority of the games we had were either licensed games and sports games, and since I've never been a big sports guy, I was accordingly not exactly enamored. Some of the games were fun, sure (Lego Racers for life) , but none of them ever captured my imagination or inspired me to play more than every few months. It didn't help that the discs were in terrible condition and getting a game to even work was a huge ordeal.
Fast forward to 2008 (I was 12 at the time) and, like many other families not very into video games, and my family got a Wii for Christmas. Alongside it we got Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Music, and some sports and Star Wars games. While I played these more often, and the motion controls were cool as hell the first time I tried them out, I still didn't give the games much attention.
Now, I was a big fan of Doug Walker's videos at the time, and his Nostalgia Critic vs. AVGN thing introduced me to Jame's videos, which introduced me to Screw Attack. While on their website, I watched their top 10 Mario games video, and decided to try out some of the games they recommended on an emulator.
They were really fucking good.
Christmas 2009 was fucking awesome because I damn near everything I asked for. The family got Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii, two games which I clocked in countless hours with my brothers, and the former of which would eventually introduce me to series outside of Mario. I also took a $50 gift card my grandmother got me and purchased New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The biggest gift I got, though, was a DSi along with New Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 64 DS, and Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, the latter two which introduced me to 3D platformers and RPGs.
Fast forward to now, and I've owned six different Nintendo systems at one point or another, have over 200 games, Nintendo or otherwise, and assorted memorabilia thanks to the likes of Club Nintendo and amiibos, and it's only been over a little more than five years. Not to mention it all happened while most of my friends were playing on Xbox or Playstation.
See, Nintendo, emulators aren't all bad. They got you one consistent customer, at the very least.
(Any code will do except Luigi's Mansion)