Home-computers and PCs always had the better game
Your opinion is valid too, but it's not the majority, going by reviews or sales. Most of the best rated/selling games of all time are console games. That's important when talking about who was going to step up to save an industry!
How do you define the "modern gaming era"?
I've seen it called that, so I assumed it was commonly accepted as such, because it made sense to me. Googling to check though, all sorts of things pop up, so maybe I just found a few like-minded people, hahah!
The Famicom started modern gaming, in my opinion, because it was the first console full of games that still hold up in concept and execution to this day. Mario 3 and Mother are still perfect games. The original Zelda's ethos directly translates to Breath of the Wild's, hailed as one of the best games ever made over thirty years later. Metroid sparked a genre and/or franchise that are still wildly loved and successful to this day (as did Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and many others). Nintendo has had a ridiculously huge influence on the gaming industry ever since they jumped into it. The original Mario is still a masterclass of game design. I think Nintendo appearing on the gaming landscape changed it forever, and I think it started the modern era of gaming for the reasons I listed above.
That's the reason Nintendo can still sell roms that are over thirty years old and make mountains of cash doing it, while Commodore, Atari, Amiga et al are either competely dead or dried out husks.
Edit: to be clear, I grew up with an Atari, C64, Amiga, and DOS/Windows PCs growing up, and I loved and love all of them. I just think Nintendo entering the industry was the start of a new epoch. 90% of the indie games out there are straight homages to Nintendo properties. *Every* developer knows their games, and EVERY developer has learned from their games, even if it's indirectly.
There was music before Bach started composing, but there was
music after.