Well given that this generation largely abandoned RPGs and such as a major focus for the consoles and instead decided to release wave out of wave of almost identical shooters, intended to appeal to the "frat" demographic of low-IQ male gamers, it's not surprising that some of the following fell off, including women, who in general have not been attracted to that kind of thing in large numbers (though some are, make no mistake about that).
People won't like this, but the key to making successful products for women is to largely create games with a relational, as opposed to rational, path of progression and underlying principles. A lot of people don't like it, and find it "sexist" when you look into what that means, but it's a basis for psychology as well as something exploited
by advertising, both to the tune of billions of dollars.
To put things into perspective, women like all the action stuff the same way guys do for the most part. In many cases it's not about the violence on a basic psychological level so much as the fact that it's a simple case of bad guy (or just antagonist) shows up doing bad things and good guy (or just protaganist) picks up his death weapons and goes out to shoot them in the face until the threat is gone. Very simple, straightforward, and perfectly rational in response to the situation. You'll find this kind of principle is at the core of male-oriented fantasy along a numer of mediums and generes. When you start looking at successful fantasy for women on the other hand, namely in terms of the so called "paranormal romance" genere which is a misleading name, you'll notice that the female protaganists like say Rachel Morgan (heroine of Kim Harrison's ongoing "The Hollows" series, which is pretty good) are by definition incredibly irrational and wind up basically doing all of the wrong things, and then generally weaseling out of the repercussions. This basic genere being the kind of thing where a female protaganist is going to wind up doing the horizontal bop with a bunch of evil supernatural beings that she's also tenatively fighting (for example), with such relations playing a key element in problem resolutions (ie double dipping, and playing all sides) where in more male oriented fantasy it tends to be a more straight forward "the monsters are bad, let's go kill them" it tends to end in the same place oddly enough, but the path getting there is entirely differant. To use "The Hollows" (as it's a series I still follow to an extent) when you get past the romantic aspects, the bottom line of the series generally comes down to how a witch isn't supposed to use black magic and deal with demons, over time Rachel breaks pretty much every rule set down in the series, and should by definition have become the bad guy (or a hell-slave) like 3-4 books in, but always manages to weasel her way out of the repercussions, even while running around freaking people out with a pitch black aura. In a more male oriented fantasy it would TEND to follow a more rational response of "you do the crime, and break absolute rules, you face the penelties", female oriented fantasy tends to wind up breaking or subverting the rules based on constant mary-sue like exceptions. Indeed this is in part why the "Mary Sue" term exists and has become such a stereotype, and something that most rational authors try and avoid... in mose cases such "Sues" are not always
painfully obvious and overtly perfect... but at the end of the day that's the kind of protaganist, one way or another, you see a lot of women creating or reading about. Fiction directed at women not generally getting into genuinely flawed characters (unless that flaw is an advantage), and while it makes occasional pretensions of angst, it's generally faux-angst that exists largely as a plot point.
A lot of people won't like this, but it's something that I've seen broken down more than a few times, and I'm not the best at explaining or argueing it. Also I'm not "knocking" the creations by and for women, despite how it might sound, as I've said before I've read some of this stuff, and am a fan of at least one series I'll admit to (which is a series that admittedly walks the line I'm pointing out here, I use it mostly because of where it steps over). You can also see some of what I'm talking about in the divide between say "Shonen" and "Shoujo" anime and manga and the way things develop, even when covering very similar kinds of stories. Like the Shonen/Shoujo distinction you'll find plenty of people of both genders who cross the line and become fans of works in the other gender genere. Something of an example (understand this comes from the time where I more seriously followed Anime) would be say "Tenchi Muyo" Vs. "Fushigi Yugi: The Mysterious play". They both cover the same basic format with a nearly useless protaganist surrounded by attractive, super-powered members of the opposite gender who are at least applied to have some romantic feelings for them, usually with one or two characters (say Tamahome in Fushigi Yugi, or Ayeka and Ryoko in Tenchi) standing out and being paticularly overt in how things play out. The protaganist typically has some great destiny which justifies this. In both Fushigi Yugi and the Tenchi TV series I saw (there is more than one) it follows the same basic path where all of the super-powered protectors pretty much seem to die or are defeated along the way towards the climax, which ends with the character doing what they have to, sometimes in an indirect way. We have crossdressers with super stength fighting beastmen and dying, superhuman space pirates apprently dying in heroic attacks on planetary defense rings, and all kinds of awesome action scenes, along the way with a very similar kind of resolution, but how it's done and what desicians the protaganist makes and why are quite differant. Tenchi might have some reluctance but in the end more or less decides he needs to do the whole "Jurai Prince" thing right and heads out to directly confront his nemesis, in Fushigi Yugi, well, let's say it's a little less straightforward and it would probably take a wee bit more explanation as to how we arrive at the climax and things play out.
