i dont think it has ever happened

I don't think the Wii is taking away the Xbox's share but rather that different people like the Wii and underestimate how badly RROD has damaged the Xbox brand.

The Wii doesn't appeal to me.

I don't like cartoon graphics and Mario game number 45693.

xbox 360 is a hardcore gaming machine its a machine strickly for games and games only and it does pretty damn good job of it i might add. but the Wii just appeals to more people ages from 3... 4... 5... to 100 or whatever piont being the Wii is for everybody. i personal think the ps3 has the best multi-media and could appeal to everybody, but i think people still look at it as a hardcore gaming machine or just a bluray player

Have fun with you $1,000 for maximum graphics capabilities and stale, motionless, generic FPS# 16245738.

Thanks for your useful contribution to this thread, we really appreciate it.

Hardcore gamers have always been a vocal minority on the internet. I'm sure even the majority of 360 and PS3 users are casual too.

You have to give kudos to Nintendo on this one. For the first time in my life, I have actually made people interested in the games I play when I show them the Wii. Every parent who hasn't heard about it, is very impressed. Even a 73 year old woman was impressed with Wii Fit. This would not happen with the 360 or PS3.

What tends to get overlooked is that Microsoft is a big, greedy and hungry corporation (shock, I know). They want the same audience as Nintendo - why else did they buy Rare and what else explains the likes of Viva Pinata or Scene It? If that isn't courting the casual market, I don't know what is. Trouble is, they pitched themselves at the hardcore, sport and shooting market. They have bound themselves to it. Courting the same demographic as Nintendo is very dangerous, as it may alienate its core demographic. It is also likely to fail.

The cheapest option for Microsoft was to buy Nintendo (as they have tried before), but success has probably sealed that possibility for a while.

PS 1 & 2 were the weakest consoles and won so I would say that gamers have always been pretty casual and not that they are becoming more casual now if anything it seems more casual because of the vast new users flocking to gaming.

 Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner!

The Wii is not a new thing; it's the true separation of the "casual" and "core" demographics. During generations 3 to 6, both of these were combined into the winning consoles' sales figures. In this generation, the casuals have gone to the Wii (in general) and the cores have chosen the Xbox 360 and PS3. We can now see the true sizes of each market, but the split was always there.

During the PS and PS2 era, Sony looked at the top ten selling games and they were mainly core. They focused their next console on that audience. Unfortunately, the next 100 games after those top 10 were generally casual and actually made up a far bigger total than the top ten. The PS won not because of the ten, but because of the hundred - it's width of market, not hype or large day-one sales that drives an install base.