I heard the FDS eventually died due to piracy, but most major franchises we know in the US got their start on the FDS. Obviously I know very little about the FDS, but I've played plenty of pre-FDS Famicom games, and most of them are pretty awful. I'm talking Urban Champion awful.

Again, I can't imagine the Sega CD being a failure with 7 hardware revision, and five years of support.