I think it's because of popularity. Be it music, movies or now games, it seems like anytime something gets crazy popular, it gets dumbed down to cater to the largest audience - whether it needed to or not. The console was the means to cater to that large an audience due to it's price point. If gaming on the PC could have been as widespread, the same thing would have happened. So yes, consoles made it happen, but the root cause, as usual, is people.