The definition of what it means to be a 'core' gamer seems to change every generation, so it´s confusing.

Nowadays, I guess 2D Mario is not considered a 'core' game, but back in the NES/SNES days, was it?

People who play 3D Mario but not the 2D versions, are they considered 'core' Nintendo fans?

But then, wouldn´t the people who play 2D mario, but not the 3D versions, be the "true" core Nintendo fans?...since Nintendo as we know it was built on 2D Mario..you know, the company sometimes is referred to as "the house that (2D) Mario built".

'Core' gamer is a term that changes over time, so personally, I don´t like to use it.

The term "core" is not nonesense. Some are probably in denial because the term was incorrectly used to bash the Wii.It was probably incorrectly equated to "Violent FPS shooter and oversexualized fighter game players".

The trad core gamer, we all know what it is, we all know it exists, we just don't know how to define it.. I like to define it as a person that is serious about his/her games, and is dedicating committed time to playing them, no matter the genre liked. But one thing is for sure, a poseur is not a trad core gamer. If we define a poseur, we could more easily define what a trad core gamer is not.

Having said all that, there seem to be two judging categories, and I provided them in my last post. The barometers for them, imho, are Smash-Halo for the strict verdict, and NSMBWii-COD for the loose verdict. The reason is NSMBWii gamers may be serious gamers, but probably not as serious as say a dedicated Smash fan. COD, the reason why it's loose is because we have a lot of marketing for that game, a lot of word of mouth, so lots of people play that game because others do (either casual gamers or poseurs, your pick), but some though they are less dedicated than say a Halo fan, will play their COD in dedication.

One thing is certain is that no matter which barometer used, the rules apply to all console makers, and with that it's impossible to say one console maker lost interest from the trad core audience.

You really shouldn't start talking about things that you cannot know. I am one of many vocal Nintendo fans on sites like this that considers the Gamecube to be Nintendo's worst home console. The Gamecube was that much of a dissapointment to me that I stopped gaming for over 2 years...

Any Nintendo console is defined by it's major franchise entries, and Metroid aside, every major series has been bettered on the Wii. Just look at Mario, the Gamecube's Sunshine is the SMB2 of 3D Mario games, meanwhile on the Wii we got the two Galaxy games and the return of 2D Mario to home consoles.

You seem to strike closer to the definition. I would call your definition the "enthusiast" or "hobbyist" gamer, one that takes the entertainment medium and makes it into a proper hobby (much as how everyone can own movies, perhaps an extensive collection of movies, but not necessarily be a movie buff. The difference is in dedication and how one approaches the activity), but the enthusiast gamer works only in small capacities, the definition of a vocal minority, and there is where your definition based on sales is flawed. Brawl and Halo are mainstream games, as are Call of Duty and New Super Mario Bros. NSMBWii also makes overtures to the expanded audience, a market on the periphery of the mainstream which is where we find the elusive, so-called "casual" gamer

Certain types of mainstream gamers disliked the Wii, as well as a dedicated core of haters amongst the enthusiasts, though many in the enthusiast subgroup also embraced the Wii quite strongly

For identity purposes, the Wii haters in the media boiled it down to a simple dichotomy, one that has skewed our perceptions ever since, leading to all this time i have spent arguing those who still labor under the fallacious dichotomy here today.

When streaming video gaming would be good (I don't know about OnLive quality) consoles will be dead, that's for sure.

That's when ISPs won't charge so much for unlimited bandwidth too...

Though flawed, it is one of the only measures we have, added to forum goer count for specialized forums (smashboards), online services (battle.net, live) and a few other measures. That's why I use it in tandem with the others. All in all the figures for strict harcore dedication would, in my humble view, not exceed much higher than 10 million people per plat...

But still, good post ;)

@italics That's why I mentioned the looser and stricter flavors of judgement, and explained it in dept. For Smash, I conceded the appeal to casual to a certain extent in one of my prior posts, and that goes for Halo too as you mentioned. I conceded that here. It doesn't affect the barometer's power to indicate since the appeal to casual affects both Brawl and Halo, and to a relatively small extent as far as I understand.

@underlined I share the sentiment. Too bad it took us this long to figure it out. Lesson learnt for next time in my book.

I strongly share this sentiment.

A simple check of the sales of mario games over the years will instantly point you to the answer.

The sales of NSMB-DS, a REMAKE of MARIO 1, is the best selling mario since mario 1. The people who bought NSMB either way, are nostalgia-gamers, lapsed gamers, and hipsters, along with the expanded audience, plus it was bundled this past christmas.

Mario 1 was 86-87? I'm not sure, but that would make someone in the 25-35 year old age range. Think about it. Mario 2d sells less and less over the course of their lifetime. Then Mario 3d comes out. Instantly, it's 5m less than the next mario 2d. 3d sells less and less over the lifetime. Suddenly a revival of mario 1, and it's the second best-selling mario platformer of alll time.

These are people buying for their kids, buying for their own nostalgia, the 10m core that stuck around since NES, SNES, and N64, etc.
You could also look at this list of how many buy in every gen. It's always in the 8m +/- 2m. It's a traditional core of roughly ~8m +/- 5m based on overlap of genre taste.  Notice that the sales of NSMB Wii is incredibly heavy loaded in the USA, where Mario always had the most popculture appeal. Every other mario sells proportionately within their regions, usually, USA-~25%=Europe, Europe-~25m=Japan. USA NSMB is over 50% of the other regions.

Sorry, but you're not looking at traditional core gamers, despite NSMB being a traditionally-core game.

Furthermore, again, Halo-CoD is looking at one aspect of the system among a hundred other fan favorites. The average 360 owner owns about 10 games, and there are more than 10 different genres among their top selling games. You're looking at, say, racing fans, who buy a 360 to play racers. You don't have that kind of demographic on the wii, because nobody buys wii just for racers because there is really only mkwii. The same goes for platformers, there is really only mario. What that means is that, if you're a wii traditional core, you're buying all the best names they put out. Metroid, zelda, mario, mkwii, nsmb, galaxy.

Not to say that wii doesn't have great games, because it does. It's just that they get drowned out. I personally love games like Muramasa:demon blade, and little king's story (so glad it's coming to vita). It's just too bad that your typical Nintendo gamer is pretty superficial and doesn't stray away from mario and zelda. It's even shocking to me that metroid gets as little attention as it deserves.

EDIT tl;dr

The difference between a console like wii, and the HD twins, is that if you're a fan of racers, you can subsist wholly on racers. If you're a fan of jrpgs, you can subsist entirely on those. If you're into shooters, look no further. Platformers? They have tons! On the wii, those demographics just literally cannot exist singularly. They have to overlap, because there isn't enough.

I understand what you're saying, but there is one thing you can't find on the HD twins: Nintendo games, PC exclusives (Blizzard games, others), and interchangeably the exlusives of one or the other, depending on the sole console you chose (if you go single-plat). So even if you have all genres in massive catering, you also have alot of content you don't want, since most trad gamers are generally fans of a studio or type of studio. e.g. Not all racers will appeal. In other words, there are many cases where a trad gamer may not be singularly satisfied on the HD twins. Some may be, but many aren't. I as a Nintendo, Capcom, Sony and Blizzard fan would not be singularly satisfied on an xbox. Then again, that won't stop me from enjoying the COD experience on the 360, since I find it has the best trad controller, but point remains that 360 doesn't singularly satisfy me. So this post snippet doesn't hold for a majority of gamers as far I as understand.

Of course it does, that's part of our shared understanding of why trad gamers would care about the little Wii! ;) Drowned out or not a mature trad gamer would understand not to get entangled by shovelware, so drowning out doesn't matter. Most trad Nintendo gamers enjoy games from Capcom, Konami, Squaresoft et al. because they mostly made their subsistence on the NES, Nintendo's console, where many of us started our love for the company, as fans. So no, most fans don't just stick to Mario and Zelda, we also enjoy exclusives from other companies like capcom and others.

I had a personal discussion with Rol on NSMB DS, a mario game. You will be hard pressed to find how massive its appeal was in Japan.

Maybe a good comparison would be NSMB DS versus NSMB Wii, to show how much of NSMBWii's sales volume is due to multiplayer/bundling/console_vs_handheld and other such factors. Nonetheless, the same can be said about COD being played by kids and multiplayer, marketing and whatnot. That's why I lump them together (NSMBWii-COD).

Understood, but not completely relevant in light of the simple fact that Halo, being the flaship title, will most likely appear in the games library of all 360 trad gamers, though all other games in their libraries may vary. That's wh y I like it as a barometer. Don't lump Halo-COD, COD appears in the libraries of such varying types of gamers. Halo does too, but to a much lesser extent.