[michaelbrave]

Most early console games had a heritage from arcades, which made more money if it was difficult but teased the chance of progress. So higher difficulty was more profitable, then when ported to console or when the same game designer designed for console it inhereted some of that. It was also more niche to be a gamer then, and those who did leaned more hardcore.

[ahartmetz]

Difficulty was also a way to make a game take long to finish without taking too much storage (and/or time to create levels and art assets).