If it's not here, it means we don't. For now at least. Sorry.

Also, the PS2 launch was terrible in terms of games and nothing interesting came out before Onimusha or GT3, which were both released long after the Japanese launch (even in Europe it took months and months to have games that were worth the price of the hardware).

Where they always are, bottom of the game after the YouTube versions. 

Visual leaps between generations were much easier in the past, that's what people don't seem to get. You'll never have the same gap today as between a PS1 and a PS2 or between a PS2 and a PS3 (but mainly because of console players discovered HD for the latter - I don't remember being impressed by any PS3 launch titles at the time personally). 

Now when it comes to the idea that Covid is a poor excuse, don't forget that some of the games you seem to find unworthy may have been released way sooner if it weren't for the pandemic. Cross-gen titles were already a thing back in the days, so I don't get how people can still act surprised. Now true, console exclusives were not, but it's not like Ridge Racer V, Street Fighter Ex3,  Eternal Ring, Tekken Tag Tournament or Fantavision were especially great on PS2. And don't even get me started with the PS3, Resistance wasn't particularly impressive technically and the other games were average at best, at least in my book. That's why I never bought those systems on day one at the time. What about PS4 and Knack? Should we talk about it? It was specifically designed for PS4 but I don't remember people being especially happy about the game (after completing it, I can say it was much more fun than I had expected though). Killzone Shadow Fall was also criticized a lot. 

Now I see where you're coming from and what you're getting at, but the thing is, today you can't expect the big publishers to go out on a limb with brand new franchises or bold game designs with new ideas the first year, even less so when there is so much money at stake. Games take more time to be developed, they cost more and more so what more could we expect from the first year of the new consoles? Personally I can't complain about the exclusives Sony released this past year, but I am indeed disappointed that we had to wait almost a year to see new games developed by Microsoft (and 2 sequels...).

I think that considering the overall context, despite the very fact that for the first time, very few games make me tick this end of year (fingers crossed for Dying Light 2 but that's about it), I don't feel cheated by the new consoles. Sure, it has made it easier on those who haven't bought them yet, but ad the owner of both systems, I've had a great time so far.