Donkey Kong was created when Shigeru Miyamoto was assigned by Nintendo to convert Radar Scope, a poor selling arcade game in the U.S., into a game that would appeal more to Americans. The result was a major breakthrough for Nintendo and for the videogame industry. It was likely the first game with a "hero", a "villain", and a "damsel in distress". Sales of the machine were brisk, with the game becoming one of the best-selling arcade machines of the early 80s. The gameplay itself was a large improvement over other games of its time, and with the growing base of arcades to sell to, it was able to gain huge distribution.
MCA Universal sued Nintendo over copyright violations, claiming that Donkey Kong was a copy of King Kong. If victorious, this lawsuit would have crushed Nintendo of America, and the history of videogames would be drastically altered. Nintendo's lawyer, Howard Lincoln, who would go on to become a Senior Vice President of the company, discovered that Universal didn't own the copyright to King Kong either, and was able to not only win the lawsuit, but got Universal to pay the legal costs; ironically, it was MCA Universal that won a lawsuit declaring King Kong was in the public domain. This incident earned the #20 spot in GameSpy's The 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming.
Due to the huge success of Donkey Kong, Nintendo of America was able to grow and release many more games in succeeding years, and had the resources necessary to release the NES in the USA.