The OUYA is the most hardcore console, by your definition.

You can never assign the term hardcore to a specific console, and most of the time, not even a specific game. The "core" audience on the PS4 could be just as high or higher than the core audience on the Wii U, even though the casual audience is much higher on the PS4 than on the Wii U.

If the PS4 sells 120 million, maybe only 20 million of those qualifies as "core" gamers, while the other 100 million are just gamers/casuals, while the Wii U sells 18 million, and 12 million of those are "core" gamers, then the % of core gamers are higher on the Wii U than on the PS4, but the total amount of core gamers is still higher on the PS4.

IMO this is kinda a stupid question though.

meh core gamers are a kitten when compared to us hardcore gamers who actually keep all the games we buy. We don't trade in shit cause we don't have the cash to buy more game. Instead we make sacrifices to spend all our money on games.

Jokes aside a core gamer to me is anyone who is abused by their family and friends for playing games too much.

I think one game can be core or casual depending on the player...

Ex : - Mario Kart 8 can be played casually with daddy, granny and the little cousin. However, I doubt you can beat the world record on any track without playing hardcore.

       - You can complete Hyrule Warriors legend mode in 10h and be done with it or sink 150h+ in adventure mode to get everything.

Overall, my definition would be : trying to get everything you can from games you buy. And I think one person can play some games casually and some games hardcore...

simple,.. contains nudity.

A core gamer is a person who spends a lot of his time gaming. No matter what kind of game, PS4/XB1, WiiU, PC, Handheld whatever ...

Core gaming is usually associated with one or multiple points of the following:
* learning needed to play
* skill needed by the player
* more time needed in single sessions (casual games can add up to a lot of full playtime, but you can play a 10-minute-session)
* something that has to be remembered over the full game (usually storylines, but also other stuff that makes it hard to pick up playing in the middle after some months)
* higher difficulty

I think the term "core" refers to players as opposed to the games themselves.

Basic Gamer Categories

• Nongamer - Person with little to no experience with games, aka my grandmother who has trouble opening Solitaire. Unless you're doing a "Blue Ocean" kind of thing, they are mostly irrelevant. Though my grandmother did help me get my first console when I was a kid, an N64. That was nice of her.
• Casual - Person with experience with games, but with minimal time or money invested into the medium. The iPhone owner who ocassionally whips out Angry Birds fits here. This is a large category, and can be considered as an untapped market that can transition into a new game/genre/platform given the incentive.
• Core - Buys and/or plays games on a regular basis, and may actually follow games media and anticipate releases, but has a limited amount of knowledge outside of a few favorite games or genres. They are often responsible for the bulk of a game's sales, especially many of the big AAA releases that come out on a regular basis.
• Hardcore - Typically consider gaming to be one's primary hobby, and typically are the leaders in purchasing the newest hardware. These guys are most important early in a product's life, since their nod of approval is often necessary for the product to become better known among other categories.

There are another few important categories, which are less mutually exclusive than those above.

• Professional - Gamers who play games with an intense knowledge of a game's workings, to the extent where they may be paid for their efforts. This mostly includes those who compete in competitive tournaments.
• Retro - Places an emphasis on playing older games, typically ranging from the late 70's to mid 90's. They are more likely to play games using the original hardware, such as playing Super Mario World on the SNES as opposed to a Virtual Console or GBA port. Retro gamers may simply enjoy the older games, in which case they are more likely to use emulation in order to play more games, or might prefer specific genres and/or styles that were used at the time, which may result in them buying newer games with Retro elements.
• Elitist - A sort of mixture of Core and Hardcore elements, the Elitist plays games as a primary hobby, and thus spend both larges amounts of time and money on gaming, but is remarkable for staying within a fairly small range, possibly based on genre and style. This often occurs alongside with a derision for other categories of games, but could simply be a case of highly specific taste, like somebody who watches tons of action movies and little else. Common centers of "Elitism" include realistic shooters, games developed in specific countries, indie games, MMO's, etc. Despite the term "Elitist" sounding derrogatory, and encompassing widely disliked groups such as "Weeaboos," "Bros,"  this category mostly exists to show particularly narrow investment as opposed to passing a judgement.
• Roleplayer - Often, though not always, associated with the RPG genre, these gamers make extra efforts to immerse themselves in a game by modifying their behavior to act in hoiw they their avatar would behave. These are fairly common in open world RPG's, such as recent Bethesda games, as well as MMO's, where they may congregate on specific servers.
• Challenge - Usually a sub-category of another form of gamer, Challenge Gamers place specific extra rules or conditions on a gaming experience. This ranges from people who still care about high scores or want to complete a game without killing any NPC's to speedrunners who will put the knowledge of many Elitists to shame.

Games can only be judged based off of how well they do appealing to these groups.

There's a big difference between core games and core gamers as several posts have already mentioned. Core gamers are gamers who not only game frequently on consoles / PC rather than mobile devices, but also follow the industry very closely. It's similar to core vs casual sports fans... the core fans know the roster of their favorite team, its history, and are generally knowledgeable about the sport / league that their fav team belongs to, while the casual sports fan will watch a big playoff game and know a handful of marquee players, but don't generally follow teams / sports beyond that.

Now as for "core" games, that's up for debate... alot of people seem to equate "core" to "niche" or "unpopular", and limit its definition to specific genres like fighting games or JRPGs... i.e. GTA and COD are uber popular games and franchises, therefore they are not core games because there's some overlap in their audience between mainstream / casual and core gamers. This isn't the case though as most casual / mainstream gamers would be lost in both of these games, as they are still both challenging and require a decent amount of gaming knowledge and coordination to complete.

Mario and Zelda games too for example were once and still can be considered "core" games because of their easy to learn - difficult to master design. Are they not core games simply because they are uber popular as well?

Hardcore: Starcraft 2. Everything else: pussy shit. I kid, I kid.

I would say you purchase a certain number of titles per year (say 10), game at least weekly (for those of us too busy other than weekends), and check out gaming sites on a weekly basis or so.

I don't think system has anything to do with it but if you're only getting COD, BF, AC and sports games then I would exclude you.