Fenixp: Oh I'm not saying 90% of new games are crap - I'm saying 90% of all games are crap, new and old. We just had the fortune to forget about those 90% in case of older titles.
Both yes and no.
For example, I have every number of CD Action (polish gaming magazine) since 1997 to 2003. And there were a lot more reviews of the games. Like 20 different PC games a month and many of them got solid ratings.
I even spoke with people who worked in that magazine since the beginning, and thet say that as much - there were much mainstream games than are now., so it wasn't a problem to find 20 good games a month to review
It's easy to explain. Production costs. There were many many more companies making mainstream games, because it was cheaper.
For example, today you have one Football Manager and pretty much nothing more except some niche shit and Fifa manager. Back in 1998, you had like 3 different managers a month (at least few of them good ones :P). There were much more RTS games, historical RTS especially.
Today, to make an AAA game you need millions of dollars. So there are less AAA games released a month, but they are higher quality, it's harder to step on a unplayable turd like in the past.
But now we have an indie scene that looks pretty much the same as mainstream companies back then.
btw. of course there was a shitload of crap back then released as well. Maybe even more, but less people knew about this, because the internet was still kinda new.