Erik Aston on 17 February 2008
Casual and mainstream are unrelated terms. Mainstream merely denotes success. Casual denotes a particular play style of a game; "short-session game" or "social game" are more descriptive terms.
Neither are demographics; even hardcore gamers play casual games. This suggests casual is a genre, but it is still a poorly defined one, often a catch-all for these short session and social games.
"[Our former customers] are unable to find software which they WANT to play."
"The way to solve this problem lies in how to communicate what kind of games [they CAN play]."
Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President. Only slightly paraphrased.
