I don't think it's so much older gamer vs young gamer that's the case here. I think it's more Casual Gamer vs Hardcore gamer.

Their was once an era when you called someone a "gamer", only one type of entity came to mind. He/she would spend countless hours trying to beat one game, be proud of how many games he's finished under his belt, brag on how skillful he is on all the games he's played, and see all his gaming accomplishments as something to be proud of.

Back then being a hardcore gamer wasn't a choice, IT WAS MANDATORY IF YOU WANTED TO GAME!!I remember playing Super Metroid where you have to jump and fly like a missile. I must have taken about 3 days to figure out how to do that but when I did MAN I felt I won the most L33T gamer award. Because the majority of games required you to figure it out!

Nowadays companies have SOO MANY GAMES coming out it's like "Okay, I'm stuck here so I'm going to play Angry Birds on my phone now"...

By saying that, now you have a choice between being a HARDCORE Gamer and being a Casual Gamer. A casual gamer would only pick up titles like CoD, Mobile phone games, sports games, and basically all shovelware that don't require much thought and reading, just DO, DO, AND DO. Unfortunately, this is making MILLIONS (if not billions) of dollars. Why? Because more people can "DO, DO, DO" than to "Think, analyse, Read, troubleshoot, solve". All games since the BEGINNING of gaming that has had that simple "DO, DO, DO" fomula (All the Mario Bros, Wii Sports, CoDs, the early Sonics, Halo, Donkey Kong) have sold more than their more difficult counterparts, regardless of "Old Gamer or Young Gamer". More people = More Buyers = More Money.

I started playing video games since the Golden SNES days. I played and finished all the classes (Super Mario World, A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Super Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country 1 & 2). What I can say is that not ALL those games were hard (SMRPG, SMW, and DK1 certainly weren't). Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, A Link to the Past sold 8.33 Million copies COMBINED while Donkey Kong Country sold over 9 MILLION copies! DKC2 is MUCH HARDER game than the Original, sold 5.15 copies with the sales down almost 40%! You see the trend? Easier games sell more than Hard games! Ergo, that's why they are more easier games for this generation, to please the masses = make more money

But then again, there are still very challenging games today. Take the "Tales" series or Xenoblade Chronicles. The length in those games plus the thinking you have to do to pass them is FAR more than what I had to deal with in my  SNES days. Also there are some young gamers here that I've met that have also finished hard games, so again it shouldn't be OLD vs YOUNG at all. Rather, more of HARDCORE vs. CASUAL!

Just like any game, it takes time to get better. Also the controls are way different. Lets also not forget that the games of today can easily be made as hard, or if not harder. So not sure I'm buying this rubbish.

I had the Original NES, I don't think the games are any harder really. It's just getting used to the controls and turning up your settings if the games of today are to easy. C'mon. The Achievements in today's games are extremely hard today and pro's of the NES would easily fail on new games with no practice as well.

Holding Hands

First, how do you come up with the conclusion that the entire Nintendo fanbase is older? Most people I know who plyed the first couple of Zelda games are mostly PlayStation gamers. While NIntendo definitely has older fans, I would say the majority of NIntendo system owners are younger gamers. Secondly, I don't have to take Eiji Aonuma's word for it just because he said it. I do since HE ACTUALLY WENT OUT AND DID WHAT HE SAID HE WAS GOING TO DO WITH A LINK BETWEEN WORLDS.

Easy Games

Then you make the argument that games should hold your hand since a lot of people have jobs and families and such. The problem is not everybody has a family. Some people have 40 hour a week jobs while others work part time. Kids don't don't work at all. So instead trying to make games appeal to an adult with a fulltime job and three children, the developers should instead just focus on making a good game period and whoever play will play. By your logic, a puzzle should have fewer pieces since somebody with a busy life wouldn't have the time to figure it out. 

Meaningful Endings

If you had that much trouble with MGS, then I can't help you with that one. The only thing in that game that stumped me were the unorthedox puzzles that required me to look on the back the game box and switch controller ports. But there is a difference between feeling rewarded at the end of the game and simply expecting an ending. 

Gamer Skills

You mentioned how games back in the day were hard to beat yet easy to grasp. I agree with that. That's how a game should be. A game should be easy to engage while having a good challenge. I also have an issue with simply addding a difficulty option. As I mentioned in another thread, games more often than not are designed around a general difficulty setting. This is why most of Snakes moves in an MGS game are completely useless in the very easy setting. A game is better when the difficulty is integrated with the overall game design and gameplay. Games like this usually start off easy and then gradually become more difficult allowing core gamers to have a challenge while allowing the more inexperienced gamers the chance to get used to a game. Also, you say that gamers today do not need the skills of older gamers for modern games. I think games today would be much better if those skills were necessary. There would definitely be more of a game in each game. Personally, I don't want to simply interact in a game. I want to actually play a game.

Mainstream Games

First of all, I'm not bashing the non core gamer. I think everybody who wants to play games should. What I am bashing are the development choices made for those games. Unfortunately, the industry has become a low risk industry and the creative direction behind a game is often dictated by marketing executives who think they know what's best for everybody. Unfortuantely, pie chart demographics are only a one dimensional perception of people and hardly represent real people. This often means appealing to the lowest common denominator. By contrast, back when the industry was less developed, there was no demographic to base games on. A lot of genres were still being invented. Therefore, the devlopers would make what they felt like were good games and them the marketers would come up with ways to sell those games to children. If developers back then were really asked to make children's games, we wouldn't have challenging games like Ninja Gaiden or Contra. Many popular franchises that we know and love today wouldn't exist. That didn't stop them from developing those games though. An example of a more casual game that's very good is Picross 3D on the Nintendo DS. I spent a lot of hours playing that game. It started off easy and gradually got more difficult. The game required the player to carefully think about their decisions while completing puzzles in a limited time. The game also encouraged more experienced players to go back and do better on older puzzles. 

Finally, I'm not deciding anything. I'm just giving my opinion based on my own personal observations and experiences just like Rich from ReviewTechUSA. Honestly, I don't even have a one-sided opinion on all this. In my opinion, the 4th and 6th generations are the best gaming generations. The 4th generation mastered 2D gaming with the 16-bit systems while the 6th generation mastered 3D gaming by ironing out all the flaws of the 5th generation. The 7th generation was a mixed bag. A few things got better while a lot of things got worse including the whole user experience of a gaming console got worse. 

And you know what? Just saying that these skills aren't necessary or games don't need to be that challenging, you're proving his point! You're actually mad and claiming that he has a superiority complex just becuas he pointed out something that you apparently agree with, even though he's a gamer who still plays all the modern games that everybody else plays and still enjoys a lot of them. Persoanlly, I don't see anybody having a superiority complex. I just see you feeling insecure over somebody else's opinion that you agree with.

I think in some genres videogames aren't better nowadays than in the past.
By that I mean that 2d platformers and 2d fighting games are not better nowadays than in the 90s. The same goes for turn based strategy or turn based rpgs.

3D games, be them shooters, action adventure games are probably better nowadays. But I can think of more great games from 1994 or 1998 than great games from 2013 or 2014.

Street Fighter IV (in all its versions) is a great game. But it really isn't a better game than Street Fighter Alpha II.
The same goes for modern 2D platformers and say, Super Metroid or Super Mario World or Donkey Kong Country 2.
In the 90s 2D platformers and fighting games were in their peak of popularity, had the most talented developers working on those games, and they got to be as good as they could be.

3D games are better nowadays, think of the old Tekken or Virtua Fighter games, or the old 3D games of PS1 and N64.
In spite of that I do consider Mario 64 to be a masterpiece, almost a miracle, to make a game that does so many things right when doing something so new.

The controls are simple, but the motions are not that intuitive.  Releasing jump in SMB causes an abrupt drop which is not that intuitive, and differs from other games.  The acceleration and apparent jump lag take practice to compensate for.

It's the differences from other games which make SMB/NSMB tricky to play well.  For example right after playing through SM3DW and then playing NSMBU I fell off edges while trying to time certain edge jumps countless times.  When that happens: "I pressed jump close to the edge but Mario just walked off the edge to doom" it doesn't make the game feel challenging in a good way , it feel limited and dated.

A simple example is Resident Evil with tank controls.  They're restrictive, they make the game harder by slowing you down, and they feel dated.  These days we expect controls to not get in the way, and difficulty should be built in different ways.

I agree with 95% of your post... But you should have said Street Fighter Alpha 3... That's as good as it gets...

So you say it's more of a "I was -blank- before it was cool!"? That would explain things... those people are anoying, too

Honestly I think even 2D platformers and 2D fighters are better today than they were back then. It's just... you've played "a guy running forward jumping over stuff" so many times that the next time you see it, I doesn't feel very engaging anymore.