How can you say that when clearly AAA games have  much better sales. Most gamers Even on message boards are talking about AAA from the biggest developers.

High sales is more indicative of casual than core.  The Honda civic sells more than a Subaru STI.  That doesn't mean the civic is for car enthusiasts and the STI is for casuals.  

I disagree that high sales is more indicative of casual then core, it's usually more that the game does  something special that  core and casual can both really enjoy.

I looked over your posts and see what your confusion stems from. You seem to equate core games with AAA games. But both terms are completely independent. One could argue, that because AAA means per definition big budgets the companies need to make their money back, and therefore target bigger markets, which is at odds with core gaming which as definition targets gamers that are more involved, willing to invest time and effort in games. To reach broad appeal AAA games often simplify themself - this makes them more acessible to more gamers, but less core.

Let's just take an example. We learned recently through the leaks, that Ratchet&Clank incurred losses with sales of 2.2 million units. This is a good sign how b´ig an appeal AAA games need (and R&C isn't even that big a series, others must gotten more budget). But 2 million is the roof of sales expectations for most CRPG (the C here usually stands for Computer, which is a stupid classification, but I realized this works just fine if I replace the C with Complex). The Divinity games, the Pathfinder games, the Pillars of Eternity games, the original Baldur's Gate games, Icewind Dale, Torment all sold in the ballpark of up to 2 million copies. Now Baldur's Gate 3 is a breakout hit that sells more, but this exception highlights the rule: that games of a complexity of these games - isometric view, party instead of single heroes, turn-based or pause-based combat, lot's of options - have usually a sales roof that is too limiting for most AAA productions.

So yeah, most core games aren't AAA and in your confusion equating both terms you made the blunder of these posts in this thread. If I replace in your statements core games with casual AAA games, then yes, I agree: Nintendo consoles are missing out on most casual AAA games. But foxusing entirely on AAA games is nothing a core gamer does. They are the hobbyist with invested interest in the field, so they know about smaller releases fitting to their tastes. In cinema the comparison to core are the enthusiast watching David Lynch movies or the Daniels movies. While exciting these are hardly the movies setting the box office on fire.

"Majority" and "core gamers" are a contradiction. Core games are usually niche.

The purpose of this discussion as per thread starter is core games. And as core games the enthusiasts with invested interest in the hobby they tend to have more than one device. But my argument is: if you are a core gamer with limits to time or money, you can focus on one system and be pretty happy, depending on your tastes of genre. Obviously PC would be the best choice fopr one system owners, as it has a plethora of indies not available on any other platform. But Switch has sufficiently core games on offer.

Minecraft, madden, fortnite and CoD would like to disagree.

Meanwhile Hades probably sold way less than most games, but Hades is definitely hardcore.

Actually COD and Gran Turismo are easily accessible, you can pick them up and have fun without having to invest much time. Which makes them popular. That *some* gamers invest a lot of time to get better than others is a different thing altogether, because that happens to every popular game and is possible in every game. People became skilled beyond everything in Dance Dance Revolution. People make a Nuzlocke challenge run in Pokemon. That makes neither a core game in my opinion. What matters is how much time you have to invest to play, not how much you could invest. Because latter means every game ever made is core.

The NPD Group defines a core gamer as anyone who plays at least five hours a week on a Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, or Mac

Yeah, they have better sales, which clearly means they appeal to more than core gamers obviously.