@Dodece: If you mean by "real skill" that you have the patience to sit through a game, i do agree.
The problems exist anyway. Or are you trying to point out that they don't know how to make games these days.
Games today use the excact same methods to create challenge as they did 20 years ago. Difference is, that todays games have "energy" instead of "lives". Basically the energy and refills make sure that you don't easilly die in the game.
The challenge is created by some random guy jumping out of nowhere by surprise, adding the number of enemies, making enemies resist more damage, making them move faster, having them do more damage, having a "hot spot" that is the only spot you can cause damage, then there's the seemingly random "AI" element, which is only a couple algorithms how the enemies behave under indirect fire, when the battle "AI" is still the same that bases itself in waiting a certain amount of time between actions.
Doing something new is often to repeate the games generic levels, with a random "side mission" in between.
Point of the games isn't to make a game to last as long as possible, but to get the people who play the games to enjoy the game as much as possible. As an example, i've propably used as much time to Super Mario Bros as you said you did to games you mentioned.
Ei Kiinasti.
Eikä Japanisti.
Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.
Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.
