I started hardcore gaming in 2015 when The Witcher 3 released it revitalised my love for gaming so much it took me from the upper levels of casual gaming right into Hardcore gaming and year after year I'm gob smacked by how great it is to be gaming in this day and age. This year I've only bought one new game, Metaphor Refantazio as I was living on sales and older games, that's why it's so great. You can enjoy titles releasing now or dive into any game released in the past (bar MP games). It's simply better because it's all at our finger tips and games can get as low as five euro and produce near infinite gameplay and fun. Sales go hard and they come fast after release. Libraries are more full than ever with much higher amounts of top rated games. Etc. Etc. Etc.

What do YOU think? 

(y'all about to read my dissertation of LegitHyperbole's question.)

In mathematics, there's a concept known as totally ordered sets and partially ordered sets. The former refers to a collection of objects in which any two objects may be "ordered" under a given relationship: As an example, the real numbers can be ordered in the natural way of "1 < 2" (i.e., 1 is less than 2).. The latter refers to a collection of objects in which there exist two objects which cannot be properly ordered: As an example, the complex numbers cannot be ordered under the relation "a < b" as defined on the real numbers in my previous example (e.g., "1+i < 1" makes no sense, nor does "1 < 1+i". Hence, "1+i" and "1" lack ordering under this relation).

That being said, to apply to concept of partially ordered sets (shorthand: posets) to real-life, it seems reasonable to come Mario Galaxy 1 to Mario Galaxy 2, though it's unreasonable to be comparing Kirby Star Allies to Baldur's Gate 3. Similarly, it seems reasonable to compare gaming in 2022 with gaming in 2023, though it's unreasonable/very difficult to sufficiently be able to define a relation which allows one to compare gaming in 2003 to 2024 in a sufficient manner.

So, to asnwer the question: Do I believe that now is the best time to be a gamer? In some ways, yes. Being a Nintendo fan, this couldn't be more true!: The NSW is still riding its wave of monumental success, NSW2 couldn't been more exciting, the catalogue of games never lets down, etc. However, in other ways, no: How many fresh, new *single-player* IP have emerged since the year 2018? Not a lot. Game development is longer than ever before, with P5 -> P6 taking near a decade, MK8 -> MK10 taking over a decade, GTAV -> GTAVI taking 12 years, SMOdyssey -> SM(?) taking eight years, etc.

This is why I take the approach of not comparing each individual period in gaming, but rather appreciating each period for what it was. :)

Best time to be a gamer? Debatable
Best time to associate as being a “gamer”? Absolutely the fuck not.

No. Industry is in a creative drought.

This years TGS was the most Subpar event in my memory. The most exciting stuff coming out of Japan are remakes of games from the actually best times to be a gamer. China and Korea are going to overstake Japan in the next 10 years.

I've been gaming since 1991 when I got a SNES gifted to me from my parents.

Since then....

Super Nintendo - 1991
Nintendo 64 - 1998
GameBoy Color - 1999
Gamecube - 2001
Game Boy Advance - 2001
Playstation 2 - 2003
Playstation Portable - 2005
Nintendo DS - 2007
Nintendo Wii - 2008
Playstation 3 - 2011
Gaming Desktop #1 - 2012
Nintendo 3DS - 2013
Gaming Laptop - 2014
Nintendo WiiU - 2014
iPhone 6 Plus - 2015
Playstation 4 - 2015
Gaming Desktop #2 - 2019
Nintendo Switch OG - 2020
iPhone 13 Pro Max - 2021
Xbox Series S - 2022
Playstation 5 - 2023
Xbox Series X - 2023
Nintendo Switch OLED - 2024

Out of all the generations and years - its the best time to be a gamer, anyone who says otherwise - only look at a smaller picture and not the bigger picture which is in front of them.

Playstation eco system which lets you play
-PS4 games
-PS5 games
-PS1, PS2, PSP classics
-PS3 games through PSPlus/PSNow or whatever its called now
-Playstation games coming to PC so you have more of a choice to buy a game on Playstation or PC
-Playstation Portal - which allows you to stream a game from your console
-The choice to buy a cheaper digital version, the original disc in tact one for middle users and the PS5 Pro for premium users

Xbox eco system which lets you play
-Xbox OG games
-Xbox 360 games
-Xbox One games
-Xbox Series S/X games
-The choice to buy a cheaper version of the platform for budget users or a premium version for those that want the better performance/graphics of the two
-Xbox Cloud streaming
-Xbox Play Anywhere which allows you to download games you bought (not all but a good selection of them) through your Windows 10/11 PC
-Xbox games on PC so you can choose to play it on Xbox or PC

Nintendo eco system which lets you play
-Nintendo Switch's great first party line up of games
-A decent number of third party titles , the best line up of games since the SNES.
-Have access to classics from the NES, SNES, N64, GameBoy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance and more
-Some Nintendo IPs have moved to become available on mobile devices, something that never happened before
-And with the chance that the next Nintendo system being b/c you have all of the above with whatever is to come
-Choice of buying a full fledged portable version (Switch Lite), Regular budget version (Switch OG) or a premium for portable users (Switch OLED)

The PC eco system which lets you play
-Steam store which has games that were released in the last 25+ years available for purchase
-GOG which includes some unique releases of games that you cant get anywhere else on PC such as the Resident Evil ORIGINAL trilogy and is also DRM FREE
-Alternative stores if you are into that kind of thing like EGS, Ubisoft Connect, EA, itch.io, etc
-Access to multiple third party retailers that you can buy games for cheaper prices than the respected stores mentioned above - Humble, Fanatical, IndieGala, GreenManGaming, etc
-Free giveaways from places like Prime Gaming, Steam, EGS, SteamGifts, etc
-Great bundle purchases that let you pay $12-$20 for a bundle of 8 or more games from Humble, Fanatical, etc
-The ability to use controllers from Nintendo, Playstation and Xbox which was not a thing in the past
-Playstation and Xbox games available
-The ease and availability of buying a pre-built or the multiple options you have to build a lower tier PC, mid tier PC or a high end PC. You dont need to fork out thousands of dollars since there's games from multiple generations available you can play especially if you are new to PC gaming.

General Stuff
-There are numerous websites that dedicate themselves to finding deals so you dont have to buy games at full price or know when a game or dlc goes on sale that is far better managed than any wishlist from Playstation/Nintendo/Xbox/Steam/etc - sites such as Dekudeals, Slickdeals, PSPrices, trueachievements, CheapAssGamer and IsthereAnyDeal.
-You can get several games for cheap prices, even Nintendo games physically (at the least) go on sale from different retailers at some point unlike the past.
-Variety of different types of game systems you can buy for any of the platforms, its not just the PC platform you can buy multiple types of builds of systems
-b/c is more accepted and easy to achieve due to the infrastructure of how systems are made these days
-Games are getting remastered, ported and remade more than ever before so for those who missed out on older games, its a perfect time to get into games you missed out - games such as Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, Resident Evil remakes, etc

Edit: You have to be pretty miserable if you think its a terrible time to be gamer or a consumer of video games.

Graphics wise: Yes

Quality wise: No

Money wise: No

The 'No's' have it.

I've been gaming since 1979.

Best time to be a gamer was either the late 90s or PS3/360 generation. For creativity, quality, originality.

The fact that so many people go on about BC and being able to play all those older games proves this gen is lacking on many counts.

A PC gamer? Yes. A console gamer? Absolutely not. The amount of games available on PC at the moment is just incredible, whereas console gaming has never been this expensive with so few high-profile releases. Nintendo might be an exception for now, but I'm not familiar enough with Nintendo's release history to be qualified to assess the situation properly.

Well, as a PC gamer I'm enjoying this gen.

But I think I enjoyed the 16-bits era more, because I still think the SNES has one of the most incredible titles ever made, just behind the PS2. And even so, they're quite close in my opinion.

Prior to COVID-19 was one of the peaks of gaming. But I say that as someone who isn't even 30, started gaming in 2003, and started gaming a lot in 2015.
A lot of games themselves can still be pretty cheap on digital distribution and using subscription services. Consoles are getting more expensive even taking inflation into account with no price drops in sight.
It's easy today to build up libraries of hundreds of physical and digital games. Much easier than the early 2010s and before.
So no, it's not. Software is super accessible, but hardware should be a little cheaper and games are taking a while.