I was 14, and I can sum up what it was like for me, someone who never had a home system.
It was a general 'dropping off the radar' of home videogames in general. The overall interest in the CV, Inty and Atari was low. I didn't care anymore, and there was no excitement attached to the systems any more. There was NO talk of new, more powerful systems, nothing. People who had those systems considered them 'old', and my view of them was much the same, I loved arcade games, and would have loved to play them at home, but it looked like it would never happen. I'd hear about 'new' other systems, like the 5200, or the upcoming 7800, but there were like 'phantom' consoles, never saw 'em in stores, never saw 'em advertised.
I never really thought about home videogames again, until I was 16, and I saw an NES on demo display in a city department store. I stopped, and my jaw dropped. I picked up the weird little controler and started jumping.
Very Cool, I thought as I walked away....