Europe (at least continental europe or southern countries, in my experience) was basically Sega and Sony land for the most part, pretty much the opposite of the US.
Totally anecdotal personal experience:
(In Portugal) I had 1 friend with a Super Nintendo (he didn't even like games), everyone else had a Megadrive.
I did previously own a fake NES, before I even knew what an NES was. We called them "Family Game" over here, mine came with 10 thousand games built in (maybe 30 or 40 different games total, the rest were just variations in number of lives, levels, etc). It had Mario, Contra, Ice Climbers and a couple more recognizable Nintendo games.
Mario was rather succesful (don't know if actual NES or the clones), because for a time older people called every console "a Nintendo".
Then the Playstation(s) came out and it basically owned the market. I knew exactly one person with an original Xbox. Probably 3 people with a 360, this one was a bit more successful, but it was still PS3 land for the most part.
I think I actually knew more people who owned Dreamcasts than Xbox.