I grew up in the NES era.... during the snes era. back then my family didn't have a lot of money, so i got an nes one year for some reason (it wasn't anyone's birthday or christmas. we just went to the store and got one one day)
This turned out to be a pretty good choice, since there was a huge nes library for me to choose from and prices on all the games had dropped. i acquired about 10 games in a few months and many many more since.
I eventually got an SNES because i wanted to play donkey kong country, but i still played my nes, and continue to do so today.
anyway, on appreciating systems from the past, i really don't think its possible for kids raised on a 360 to enjoy something like old school mario. its not that mario is a bad game, its just not what they're used to. they don't "get" it.
an example of this is that while i started on an nes, i can't enjoy an atari game. Its alien to me. the first time i actually saw an atari was only two years ago. i tried some atari games and just couldn't enjoy it. the graphics weren't on par with my standard, the nes. the games didn't really have any story. and i could care less about getting points.
what i'm saying is that the nes was a game changer. after its release, the goal of a videogame was to finish it to its completion rather than achieve the highest score, which was a major component of atari gaming. sure, Super Mario Bros. and a number of other nes games had points, but they were secondary to the experience, and eventually were dropped from games altogether. I can appreciate the historical significance of the Atari and its games, but i'm not likely to play a game of haunted house or Yar's revenge.
Contrast this to a kid playing the ps3 or 360, the game changer for them is online play, and one player modes are starting to take a back seat to the multiplayer experience. Not only that, but consoles can do more than just play games. Perhaps when they look at a system that "only plays games" and doesn't have an online component, they see it as inferior and therefore not worth their time. their loss, i suppose.