I think super duper hardcore anything needs to be purged for the sake of everyone else. But in general having normal hardcore games/gamers is fine.
Like take Magic the Gathering for example. That game is great. But eventually it comes to a point where you can't even compete if you're hardcore. You need to be super duper hardcore by throwing all your money away to get every possible card etc etc... And then the Card businessmen cater to those super duper hardcore fans and it just gets very hard to even enter into such a medium.
Same can be said of gaming. But if this current environment says anything at all, it's that all types of gamer can exist. Each platform has a fairly big chunk of the market with the HD twins and Wii having very different kinds of gamers. So if there is a hardcore that is out of hand this gen., it doesn't mater because it opens up a market for just as many softcore people. Last generation may not have been that way, but this generation certainly is a good one with people of all backgrounds.
