Eh. When did "Hardcore" games become
"Mature themes/lots of violence" anyway?
GTA games i'd call casual because they are laughably easy.
I remember when Hardcore meant the game was tough, and you had to play it alot just to get good enough to get through the first couple levels, or a game that was just in general tough to get through. A good game mind you but a chore to get through.
For example. Rampage for the NES. My dad and I stayed up all night playing through that game and got all the way to level 99 and beat it. My reward... the game restarted at level 1. That's a hardcore game.
Or Double Dragon 3. Which isn't as hard as a lot of other games. But has a great "1 death and you lose" rule, that applys per character. You do get one continue but you have to get over halfway through the game to earn it.
Hardcore games to me have always been games that were fun, but so challenging that very few people actually "beat" them. Sure they arn't for a "casual" gamer. Not because they are of any genre or theme... because there are plenty of casuals in all sorts of markets. My aunt for example loves first person shooters and adventure games.
Nah, Hardcore games aren't for "casual" gamers because "casual" gamers are going to give up on the game because they suck at it and seemingly arn't getting any better.
I'm guessing the change has to do with a lot of people losing their attention spans... or something.
On topic, I don't think Nintendo needs to put out as many "New audience" games as other titles because they need to be "worked" into playing their systems a lot. Starting with those games. I think it's a plan by nintendo to release just enough "New Audience" games to get by and hoping they will branch into the other genres of games... like my aunt did when she stumbled into action and FPS genres. She'd never played a videogame system before to my knowledge, but then she played a Tomb Raider game one day and was hooked. (It doesn't always take good games!)
