Metacritic agrees, this console generation has alot less +80 games than the previous generation. I juxtaposed both generations and starting both from PS2's and X360's launch to near 3 years in:

PS2/DC/GC/Xbox: 322 games that are atleast 80%

Wii/PS3/X360: 231 games that are atleast 80%

That is a severe fall in quality console games. And if we removed the duplicates of multiplatform games it would probably make a 50% decrease of quality compared to the previous generation. This is not good for the consumers, that are losing choices and are stuck to a much smaller library and quality.

There has been alot of talk recently about RPGs, so I decided to filter quality RPGs with the above criteria:

PS2/DC/GC/Xbox: 18 Games

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Skies of Arcadia
Final Fantasy X
Grandia II
Phantasy Star Online
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition, The
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The
Dark Cloud 2
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
Suikoden III
Kingdom Hearts
Final Fantasy X-2
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht
Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II
Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2
Dark Cloud
Otogi: Myth of Demons

Wii/PS3/X360: 8 Games

Xbox 360: Fable II
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The
Mass Effect
Elder Scrolls IV: Knights of the Nine, The
Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles, The
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
Tales of Vesperia

This Console Generation has a decrease of over 50% of quality games!!!

It's not dead ... It just went portable (at least for RPGs) :)

Otogi and the Dark Cloud games aren't RPGs. Plus you basically listed Morrowind twice.

Anyway, the reason is that this gen represents a paradigm shift. Everyone thought that the HD consoles would triumph, but it turns out that they're both slow and expensive to develop for, while the Wii and DS surged ahead in sales. As a result, everyone is making lower-budget announcements for the DS, and to a lesser extent the Wii, left and right to recoup their losses.

My opinions:
The bar probably keeps being raised by the reviewer for a game to receive an 80+ score.
Also have the number of quality games released decreased due to the difficulty/time it takes to produce them for PS3/360.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance isn't, either.

The reason for the lower ratings this gen is because there's no 4th console to add a few more hits, and because Wii games get rated lower because of its lackluster graphical capabilities and reviewers tend not to be sympathetic.  I'm not saying that's "right," I'm just saying that it's true.

Actually, I thought about it a little on the drive home and this thread is nothing but flamebait.

I severely doubt you could come in here and honestly tell me you thought you were going to make a decent discussion on the decline on console gaming rather than have a giant PC is better console wankfest and argument.

Unfortunately, there has been a massive dearth of Japanese-influenced RPGs since the generation began. By 2003, you had a major Final Fantasy, and tons of supporting JRPGs around the grandaddy.

This generation, the biggest JRPG has been ToV or LO depending on your preferences.

But looking at that, inversely we've had a ton more/better WRPGs than last generation this quickly: Oblivion, Fable, Fallout, Mass Effect are all top-tier WRPGs that are incredible. Last gen, all we had was Morrowind and KOTOR up to this point. So the tables have turned.

Also, one should also look into the fact that there are more gaming websites reporting/reviewing games, which may have (if not absolutely did) water down aggregate rankings. What was 80% in 2001 isn't 80% now.