Games most definetely are easier - take a look at some of the franchises. For example, Far Cry 2 is way harder than the new ones. Same with Splinter Cells, and so on. The casual gaming culture is to blame in my opinion.

Interesting point of view -thank you for sharing.

To be honest, I think online gaming is toxic itself. I know this isn't really retro, but take a look at GTA V. Sure, one might say that you can always just play offline, but there's no heists. All the cars in a particular group have similiar performance for balancing reasons. It just can't be hidden...

Yup - the ultimate bargain console now, and the standard for quite a couple of years.