My parents where just like this. They grew up on board games, books and toys of their youth, but video games was so foreign to them, they were like this famous moment from The Simpsons.
And yet I could empathized with what that all felt to them. Video games were not the most important thing in their lives and certainly weren't going to matter at all as it became for us Gen-X'ers onward.
EDIT: In some way, I suppose we became more visually aware as video games and computers have trained us to do than the passive experience of simply watching a TV set was for our parents.
Not to digress too far from the topic, but I chalk it up to the fact that Nintendo/Sega was the first time there was a competitive rivalry among systems of the same generation... every one before that had come, lived, and then died off to a casual observer (Magnavox begat the Atari 2600 which begat the NES, which itself, briefly, was the only game in town, literally) .
Therefore, it was natural to boomer sensibilities that there was only ever one "video game" on the market at a time. The idea of having brands of video games didn't register. Or if it did, the idea of proprietary design didn't.
Sure, there are different brands of basketball, but they all are the same color and size, so, random basketball at Hills Sporting Goods is the same as random basketball at Kay-Bee Toys.
It was the same with all other kids toys at the time. Matchbox and Hot Wheels were so close as to be compatible. Even if the makers would never admit it, kids knew it, so you couldn't be mad at Mom for buying you "Hot Wheels" and getting those instead, or cheap Korean knock-off brands, they'd fit the track, so what? Just like how Bachman and LifeLike HO trains would run fine together, slot cars from different sets would work together, and Star Wars figures would fit in your G.I. Joe tanks.... (let's see the Cobra Commander deflect a lightsaber! Or Roadblock get out of the Sarlacc Pit!)
Makers of kids toys would deliberately do this so that "confusion" purchases by parents wouldn't be returned as unusable..... To parents of that age, vidya was a toy, and toys were pretty much all the same..... the evolution of the game system into distinct brands was something they didn't notice. "Video Game" was a format to them, like VHS or 35mm film.... cars were cars, action figures were action figures and games were games.
Brand wasn't important as they assumed the end product was being built to some universal standard.
And that view wasn't helped by the fact that Atari saw the rise of 3rd-party development, meaning you got vastly different looking game cartridges, with different font and labeling styles, from dozens of different makers, yet, they all would plug in and work.
Though the idea of "brand" also was something she never got down pat either.
She had a Ford Explorer and lamented how she couldn't afford the Lincoln Navigator she had wanted instead... and refused to believe both were the same things, superficial styling cues like grilles and taillights aside. She just couldn't believe that the chassis under the sheet metal was identical and a shock or water pump from one would fit the other, even when I'd go to the Napa or Rock Auto website and show the identical part number returned for both.
Her reasoning? "But, it's a
Lincoln!"
Yeah, and you are just paying extra for the brand and maybe a legit upgrade of the interior, other than that, you bought the same car. "But, the Lincoln, like, goes faster, right?" No, they have the same engine in them and same gearbox, they're identical. Performance and handling-wise? You have a Lincoln in the driveway right now, just sans leather seats. "No, that can't be right, if they were the same one wouldn't cost more, not without being better!"
Bless her heart, she was a sweet person to me, and a smart one too... but there were just those one or two things that would and did FOREVER escape her cognitive grasp....
To tie this all back into the Simpsons, the writers themselves may have been acknowldeging this when in that ep where Bart shoplifts a "
Doom"-like video game, at the end, to reward him for learning his lesson, Marge buys him one that's utter shit (a golf game), but he can't bring himself to tell her she's clueless.
Ball is in .... parking lot..... would you like to try again? 
