@NJ5
Lets establish a few things here:
1) Do you agree that sex, voilence and overall visceral media attract a particular group of people? (ie: male teenagers and young adult)? The media certainly agree, everything from Hollywood to Comic.
2) At the NES era, games are considered for young children and the average age of a gamer was certainly younger than today.
3) Sega were the first to recongise that gamers were growing up, they were the innovators of the 16bit era and were not afraid to introduce controversy such as an uncensored version of Mortal Kombat (SNES version was censored, a by now accepted Nintendo policy). They appeal to the same audience that originally owned the NES but have since grown up.
4) Sony set the tune of the video game industry for the past 2 generation, their target audience have always been '18' in a broad assumption that everyone wants to be 18. They established a pattern with the PS1 that was emulated by just about every (none nintendo) system since. When you target a group of audience for that long and all the major games coming out are aimed at them and them alone, I think its fair for the audience to consider themselve 'gamers'
5) The wii has come! It has great innovative games, great alternative games but... where is the violence? were is the sex? were is the raw visceral appeal that have long been a gamer's domain? The wii is not an attractive console for many young teen and adult because it lacks the above.
Who are these new people that the wii is catering for? certainly not gamers! We afterall are the TRUE gamers and these newcomers are nothing more than hanger on!
We are 'hardcore' and they are 'casual'
QED (I hope)
note: hope the sarcasm in the last two paragraph came through. :p
