My argument is there are fewer and fewer year in and year out.

When there are far more games being made in the first place, good and bad, I do not think you are correct at all. There are still tons of great games coming out, but you don't seem to want to look for them as you've already shot down previous comments bringing up critically acclaimed modern hits.

I think nostalgia has you remembering the best games of the past, forgetting about all the slop that used to come out back then too, and losing perspective of the actual time scale in between those hits. If you compare the very best games from a full decade to just the average game that came out last year, that comparison will be very misleading.