My nephew is a little over 2 and a half and he's been playing games for close to 6 months now and loves it. He's weirdly incredible at the 3D Mario's, like SM3DL and SM64, but has a bit of a harder time with the side scrolling ones, though he's begun to improve quite a great deal with those as well.
Honestly, his 3DS is his favourite toy. The things he seems to enjoy most are the NES and Gameboy Kirby games and most of the Mario games. Anything that involves too many buttons or weird Wiimote commands he has issue with, which is why stuff like Epic Yarn is a total brick wall past the first few levels. He enjoys watching people play stuff like DKC and Paper Mario, but has zero interest in playing them.
One of the best things about my nephew playing 3DS is that I've been able to pick him up games based on his favourite kids shows (stuff like UmiZoomi and Bubble Guppies) that can teach as well as entertain and he's more open to them because he sees the 3DS as "fun" and not as a chore. The huge library of games for kids is perfect in this case. Learning games on the Leap Frog or iPad he gets over pretty quickly, but he'll sit and play the counting and matching games on the 3DS for hours now, just because it's ingrained in his mind that it's fun to play.
Another important thing, I think it's important to let your kid come into games naturally. My sister never forced games on my nephew (I wouldn't blame her for not wanting him to be like his uncle) and I never encouraged him, but because he saw them around and had an interest in it, he grew to love it all his own. It's not really anyone's place to tell you how to raise your child, but I feel letting them grow into their own likes is important. Another important thing, if you value your own personal memories and love for some of these games, take caution, because I kind of never want to play most of the Mario games ever again.
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