The term was coined by gaming culture, and not by manufacturers or publishers. He is technically correct a definition for a hardcore gamer is someone that can take a simple proposition, and transform it into a convoluted challenge. Thus you have hardcore gamers that time trial their games in an effort to shave a second off a play through, and will dedicate hundreds of hours to their quest.
That however does not mean a game is necessarily designed to be hardcore in nature. There is a fundamental difference between a found object, and one that is crafted. You can turn a brick into a hammer. That does not necessarily mean that was the intent. A hardcore game is crafted explicitly for the purposes of being played in a hardcore fashion even if some that play it do not follow the path to that distant conclusion.
In this instance saying he can find a few really stupid hardcore players to waste over a hundred hours on an obviously very casual game does not mean the game is hardcore. Instead it either shows a severe lack of understanding about the terminology, or a desire to try and repackage the product. There are only a few games that I would credit to Miyamoto that actually span onto the hardcore gaming scene.
I would say the last couple titles he made that I felt had that dynamic would be Mariokart 64 for its battle mode, and Starfox 64 for its kill counting. I would also say those only flew, because Mario Kart was ridiculously addictive, and complex enough to actual involve a great deal of mastery, and Starfox had a built in high score system. Even so this is at the very low ebb of the spectrum.
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