I agree this is a much more plausible reason. Not only was there less choice, there was less opportunity. Adjusting for inflation, I paid over $150 for Final Fantasy VI when it came out. Games were precious, and the good games were ones you replayed because–unless you were quite privileged–you didn’t have a big library to choose from.

That’s the kind of thing that endears players, and it takes truly exceptional products to get there now. There are also far more studios that have the game-making formulas to work with today, too. I don’t think that’s a bad thing in any way.