The Atari games are fun for me because they offer an almost ios-from-the-early-10's experience. You pop a cart in, give your friend a joystick and the two of you are off and that's it. No bloat, no updates, no DLC, no waiting. Just instant fun. It requires no time investment. Play for ten minutes, or two hours, and it's still fun. It's that lack of barrier that I like.

As for NES and onward, that is just taste. I grew up with those games. It's what my DNA was formed around. Similar to the above, their design, sound, controls and philosophy are a thing unto themselves. It's sort of like its own food. If you like that taste of a particular type of food, it's only had there, no where else. For me, I happen to just love the taste of that food, nay prefer it, so that's why I can drown in them for the rest of my life and be happy. I like how I can put something like Ninja Gaiden in and instantly know my goal. I go from left to right, beat the boss, then repeat until I either can't go any further or finish the game. There's no wandering around, looking for things, no getting lost, no struggling to figure anything out. Just a super focused, super linear objective-based game that my ADHD (diagnosed) brain loves. 

In short, it's just about what a person gets the most dopamine from. If it's NES/SNES/Genesis, well... all the modern teach in the world just can't compete. They simply don't make 'em like they use to.

Focus on Gameplay. If I want to watch a movie, I'll go see a movie.

I can’t really complain about genres or gameplay styles or different design philosophies — only because there are SO many games these days. I mean, you are absolutely covered no matter your predilection.

So, I’d rather focus my hopes on other things. Namely, that video gaming as a hobby remains accessible to those outside the upper-middle class, and that physical media (and the idea of ownership in general) doesn’t disappear.

More AA games, less bloat.
Less trend-chasing and trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator; a game for everybody is a game for nobody.
There is no recipe for success, but there is a recipe for failure and that's trying to please everyone.

Content removed.

Also, enough with the live service slop.
And the overwhelming, short-sighted greed.
Find a sustainable long term business model that doesn't involve abusing your customers.

Nothing, I live in the past (play older games).

Sega saw this post and knew I was onto something.

Gimme a neural interface like the Matrix, for uh, strictly immersive purposes

You pretty much have the answer in your post already - "people ate it up because the games were good fun".

For example, there's plenty handhelds these days, in whatever price category you can imagine, but you need good 1st party games for any such device to really stand out and reach mainstream. And there's no such devices (there's Playdate, not that it made much of a splash).

They can also succeed if they provide you with access to your game library. There's plenty of higher powered ARM handhelds (which are lumped into retro handhelds category, though that's only one of the things they can do) giving you this, with access to Steam, though you have to jump through some hoops to get to it, since they don't come with actual Steam on them. But this will change in foreseeable future - Steam on ARM is pretty much around the corner officially, and once you have that, you will be able to buy those ARM handhelds as mini Steam decks and access your Steam library for those less demanding titles. This coupled with all those devices being classically pocketable handhelds (especially something like DS/3DS alike AYN Thor) is what will tip the scale, and while there won't be any of them that stands out and makes it to Nintendo/Sony category (due to lack of branding and 1st party titles), I think collectively they will make bit of a splash.