I'm not sure that "lowest common denominator" means what you think it means.

Oh, I'm quite sure I know what it means in this case.

You do realize, of course, that that elitist attitude means that once anything goes "mainstream" it becomes uncool, right? Appealing to the most people possible, under that philosophy, is always a bad thing.

Not necessarily, although more complex games might become casualty in the future. The new demographic wants easy, accessible games.

What is wrong with easy, accessible games?

Lack of depth in most cases. Not that the demographic mind - most of them just want quick fix, not games like original Metroid.

There's nothing wrong with other types of people getting into gaming. The world's not going to end, "hardcore" games are not going to disappear or reduce in quality or quantity... everyone acts like since the industry is expanding companies will have fewer "hardcore" games because they will make more "casual" games... that won't happen. They hire more people, and produce more games. Every market does this (at least markets that grow), and new companies emerge. Only when "hardcore" gamers stop buying so-called "hardcore" games will those types of games stop being made.

There's more than enough room for everyone. ALl this does is make people more accpetable to gaming (which is good because politicians may be more easy with regulations... we can hope), and keeps the market healthy. I doubt many here would rather see gaming disappear than see it expand to the more "non-gamers" and "casuals." Note though that "casuals" have been around since the PS1 era... Sony was the one brought them in the first place. The SNES was probably the last true "hardcore" gamers system... since back then it was still consider niche. Let's not even go into how Sony and Microsoft (especially Sony) advertise their systems as "multimedia centers." They are just asking for all those people that don't play games often to buy their system for non-gaming reasons, such as blu-ray. Course, price is a bit high... but oh well. Let's NOT get into a price discussion though! I don't have the strength.

Worst year ever? Really? We saw three huge games come out this year and a fourth that guarenteed will be huge. That's not a banner year by a long shot, but if you think that's the worst year ever you don't know much about bad years.

There were multiple years on the N64, Saturn and Gamecube that were worse. And countless worse years on the lesser known consoles (was there ever a good year on the CD-i?). Even my beloved Intellivision had worse droughts than Wii's 2008.

@astrosmash: It was very good for the new audience, but for the core gamers and for people who bought their Wii mostly to play nintendo games, it wasnt. That's why I said IMO, I felt like it was the worst year in all of my years of console ownership since the SNES.

I want to be hardcore. Can somebody teach me how to sneer in derision whenever women, children, or my grandparents come around?