Hardcore is an arbitrary consumption level that can't be accurately quantified.

I see what you did there Viper1, and I'm laughing hard.

I'm too stumped to take the example a bit further... hopefully someone with a bit more witt can beat me to it.

*Scratches head*

two hours a week is not harcore...

I'm so hardcore I play 2 hours per hour.

My definition of hardcore woudn't be necessary based on how much time people spend playing per week but by how up to date people stay compared to the release of their console game and so on..
Typically the difference between a casual gamer and a hardcore gamer is that the hardcore follows what's happening in the gaming market and is a lot more aware than the casual gamer of what release is coming next ( this doesn't only apply to gaming and can be pretty much applied to any market).
For the publisher/developer it translates into the fact that you need to spend very little marketing dollar to make the hardcore gamer aware of your product, as opposed to the fact that you typically have to spend more money to bring your products to the eyes of the casual gamer....

The question then becomes do Wii games reviewed positively by the community fare well even without massive marketing campaigns or do they not sell so well.

Answering that will help us see how really hardcore the Wii owners are or not...

Everyone here is definitely hardcore--we're so hard core we spend more time on a website debating console and games sales than we do playing those games in the first place!

jalsonmi welcome to the cool table, all we do is talk about Halo sales and how hard core we are and what makes us hard core.

@Stratking

Nice touch up, short and sweet, but just not inspiring like Viper1's.