Short answers, pulled from the story.
The NES launched in a limited test market in New York City on the 18th of October 1985, followed by Los Angeles in February 1986, and a full nationwide North American release on the 27th of September 1986.
Nintendo sold 61.91 million NES and Famicom consoles worldwide. By 1990, the NES was present in 30 percent of households in the United States, and the Famicom was present in 37 percent of households in Japan as of June 1989.
Engineer Masayuki Uemura designed the Famicom under the direction of Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. Yamauchi tasked Uemura with building a system priced at around 9,800 yen, less than 75 US dollars, that could outperform competitors priced at the equivalent of 200 to 350 dollars.
Shortly after the Famicom's July 1983 launch in Japan, reports emerged of consoles crashing during gameplay. Uemura and engineer Gunpei Yokoi traced the fault to a defective integrated circuit that could lock under specific data conditions. Yamauchi ordered a full product recall and released a revised model with a new motherboard.
The 10NES was a lockout chip Nintendo included in every NES console and licensed cartridge for western markets. It prevented the console from running cartridges that lacked a matching chip, allowing Nintendo to enforce quality control and restrict unlicensed games. A chip authentication failure produced the notorious blinking red power light symptom. Nintendo and the Federal Trade Commission settled antitrust complaints related to the chip's licensing requirements in April 1991.
The NES launched in New York City in October 1985 with 17 games, including Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, Excitebike, Ice Climber, Golf, Baseball, Pinball, Soccer, Tennis, and Kung Fu, among others.