Nintendo's third party support was naturally phenomenal when they were on top in the 80s and 90s, but even then the games Nintendo themselves made were the big draw. This is a list of games by Nintendo whose ONLY console release was on the NES. Note that I'm not factoring in arcades, later re-releases, or the virtual consoles of Wii U, Switch and the 3DS.
What we can see is that while Nintendo produced a smattering of classics and a handful of games that still rock, a lot of it was shovelware, and some games, like the first Zelda or Metroid, now play functionally like proofs-of-concept for their superior SNES sequels. Other franchises, like Startropics, never even made it past that knife-edged gray box.
Dive into Nintendo's earliest console creations, and see how they stack up almost 40 (!) years later.
