Oh hey perfect dark is coming to XBLA

[Alpha Six]

not to mention that even on 4 player splitcreen, where you could only see a fourth of the original viewing area, worked just fine before.
Not to mention that TVs were also smaller then, so it was still harder to see.

Yet it still worked.

Yeah, but you see, with the introduction of a better way to play your game with multiplayer and still see 100% of your screen, people are obviously going to downplay local multiplayer. Especially those with SDTVs, unless they have big screens.

And even still, the whole "screen watchers" thing still applies. Online play is just generally more convenient as a whole.