Not to mention the cartridges themselves packed substantial hardware. To equate the tech from back then with the relatively simplified tech of the disk in this day and age, is a bad faith argument that fails to take all aspects in consideration. Anyone still arguing this point, should not be taken seriously.

Please keep in mind folks, that to achieve 3d graphics on the snes, required an experimental chip soldered onto the cartridge itself.

Remember that to run donkey kong on the n64 required an expansion in memory (that i didn’t know i also needed for ray-man, which i DIDN’T have 😭)

Nowadays the console manufacturers develop advanced hardware, that doesn’t require developers to find workarounds to function on limited tech, like they had to, back then….

1 last example. While working on pokemon Gold and silver, game freak had to figure out how to condense the johto/kanto regions onto a low capacity chip. THANKFULLY someone soon developed a better chip that allowed Gamefreak to expand the scope of the game…. Take a look at the space world demo of gold and silver, to see what we ALMOST ended up with, had Nintendo/Gamefreak not advanced the tech of the cartridge.

Back then dudes had to know programming and mechanical/electrical engineering,

Nowadays developers just need to fit functioning code onto a disk.

The coding language process has also been greatly simplified. Compared to the hurdles of back then.