People who buy a console for more than $200 will (overwhelmingly) be conventional gamers who owned a previous generation console or a PC capable of playing videogames. What a lot of people miss is that their image of what is a "Hard-Core" or "Casual" gamer or game is not representative of gamers or their game choices. There seems to be an effort to force the market into parity and only have two groups battling it out, when the market is really much more complicated than that and people's decisions are not that trivial.
A videogame like The Legend of Zelda or Super Mario Galaxy is bought for a ton of reasons:
- Older gamers buy these games because they have a history with the series, have a connection with the characters, and enjoy the (often) nostalgic gameplay.
- Younger and new gamers buy these games because they are simple to pick up, not (overly) intimidating and have very accessable gameplay.
- "Core" gamers buy these games because they're typically one of the best games in the generation, and their gameplay tends to define the genre for years to come.
- "Casual" gamers buy these games because they're popular and well known games on a platform they already own.
There are dozens of other reasons why someone would choose to play these games, and their reason to play it will (often) define what type of gamer they are.
Overall, the best selling games tend to be "Crossover" games because they appeal to a broader demographic than most games and can thus pull in more gamers. Certainly, there are very specialized games which do alright for themselves but they're a very small minority of popular games.
