I totally agree with your post. The 90s games were much more fun regarding the multiplayer feeling. Sure, they were small and very high level but the feeling of sitting on the couch playing with or against your friends was so much more fun.
It surprises me that these split screen games are hard to find nowadays. Back on PS2 it was a very common thing for games to have a split screen functionality next to the single player mode. Nowadays I own a PS4 and it seems the only way to play with my friends is using the PS4 network and all of us need a PS4 Plus account. With the exception of just a few games it saddens me that this functionality has somehow become less popular...
Yeah, it's kind of a bummer. Nintendo seems to still be on the local play train with many of their titles at least, and I'm hoping the Switch will have more great 'party games'. I just found out about a cool feature on Nintendo 3DS too! It doesn't work for all games, but some of them have a "download play" option where if you own a copy of say Mario Party your friend can still play with you on their own 3DS for local play even if they don't have their own copy. It's a pretty neat feature of the console that's not well advertised, but they really should!