predict when the hype stops

[whatever]

game_on said:

pezus said:

Wat. I'd say it has only grown, as seen in PS360's later years. This is opposite to the casual crowd, that has gotten much smaller.

No. It's not. You can tell by the slow sales of the Wii U which is targeting a more hardcore audience than the Wii. The hardcore gamer is a relatively small group and the casuals have long gone to tablets and smartphones.

Sales of the Wii U tell us nothing about the hardcore crowd.  Just because Nintendo targeted a more hardcore audience, doesn't mean they responded to it.

The hardcore, for the most part, waited to see what was coming from Sony and MS.  I don't know if there will be as many consoles sold this gen (the Wii really skewed the numbers last gen), but the hardcore audience is certainly larger now as more kids have grown up with video games.