You nailed it. The show is definitely changing, and companies are looking to extend selling tails of fewer games overall. Agree with all you pointed out.
I think these things are going to continue for a few years, fewer AAA games, significantly extended marketing/promotion/content adds over time (heck look at the Diablo 3 announce today) all looking to extend/deepen engagement. Time is the new currency and all that.
Bigger picture, I think we could potentially hit an inflection point regarding resolutions, cost of content production and sales potential.
I think we're getting to the point where the number of AAA titles is being reduced to a point that puts longer-term mass market appeal of consoles at a bit of a risk for the next gen (yeah I know people here will disagree, but I'm thinking a few years down the line here). 4k resolution/support requires more investment. And since full game sales aren't really growing over time, $ needed to support that investment has to come from service components.
Question is how much DLC/MTX can the market provide? Is there some point where that ARPU will peak? Can these service games recruit potential customers that aren't already in the console market?
Games going service model, and the strong positive consumer response to this, is what is providing the opportunity for growth on the core consoles. Maybe everything will be fine with fewer games generating more $ per game due to the DLC/MTX. I just think that, in broad terms, more content variation in AAA allows the consoles to appeal to more corners of the mass market, those people that have no idea that games like Inside or PUBG even exist.
Still wrapping my head around E3 this year. I was surprised more by what wasn't shown/talked about than what was. It's certainly evolving, that's for sure.