@leo-j
You define a hardcore gamer as someone who buys the best system, plays the best games, and dedicates all of his time to them?
What??
Aside from dedicating all of his time to games, you pretty much described a casual gamer whose basic knowledge of what a "Good" game is comes from magazine reviews.
A true "hardcore" gamer will most likely own every console within a year of their launch and spend their time enjoying games from every genre; particularly games that others might not find as enjoyable. Ya know...like the guys who max out their Xbox live gamerscores. Or the guys who have a save file right before the final boss of every RPG known to exist with their characters at max level....for each different ending.
I won't proclaim myself to be hardcore, but I spend more time playing as many games as possible as opposed to the ones that everyone has in their collection.







