Since the advent of the PS1 the whole gaming scene has become more casual, i recall an old copy of Edge magazine that covered the shift and it was generally greeted with negative comments. Games seemed to suddenly change from pure gaming to gaming with hours of pointless presentation, fmv, gimmicky extras and so on.
10 years later these people that were attracted to gaming by those things sit on message boards and tell everyone else whats casual and hardcore now.
To me, the hardcore value of a title depends on the player. Like others have mentioned, guitar hero could well be very casual, anyone can play it but if the player is devoted enough he can play it at an insane dificulty level, something you would have to be hardocre to do. the same applies to DDR, Elite beat agents, Beatmania and so on. Its more of an expansion of themes, not a casual/hardcore divide.
If you take a look at games 15 - 20 years ago, people may say that they were the golden years, no ddr, no wii sports, no gimicks etc but thats just backwards thinking, as more and more genre of games are invented, its common sense that some are easier,simpler or just plain unusual. It doesnt make them any less of a game.
It makes me laugh when they try to class the xbox and the 360 as a hardcore console, mainly becasue of its limited appeal and sales, a hardcore console was the neogeo and to me, the ultimate hardcore gamer would have been the neogeo gamer back then, Anyone willing to pay £150 - £250 on one game must eat, sleep and bleed videogame.
I spent much of my pocket money in pacman and galaga machines, and 20 years later im still here playing wii sports and resistance. I dont see why everyone is so keen to point at a gamer and ridicule him (or her) for playing a certain type of game.
