Yeah, my first console was a Famicom rip off called the "Golden China", it played 8-bit Nintendo games, then later on I got a "16-bit" that aped Sega Genesis. It had no branding on it, just "16-bit", was shaped like a Genesis but it looked better.
Where I'm from very few people know what an NES is, but damn near everyone above about 20 years old knows what a Golden China is. The term "Nintendo" used as a blanket term in the States is replaced with "TV Games" over here. Which was replaced with Playstation later on.
The heart break of getting a 1001 in 1 cartridge only to find it's 50 or so of the same games copied over and over in the selection menu

.
I only started buying "real" consoles with the PS1 (although it was chipped and my entire PS1 library was pirated, hell I only realised in high school that original PS1 games came on black discs).