Even today with the massive development and marketing budgets of most games, there is a reasonable chance that a tiny developer can produce a high-quality game that will resonate with the gaming public ...
One of the reasons why the Playstation and PS2 were so dominant is that a large portion of the third party (often licenced) shovelware sells to a reasonable level and attracts people towards the system. Most "core" gamers will avoid games like Pimp My Ride: The Gameizzle, but many people will see a wall of these crapware games and because they're familiar with all of the licenced properties they will think the library is very good; I knew a few parrents who choose an PS2 over a Gamecube for their children because it had more of the (awful) licenced Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks animated movie games.
