Reported, Just for the lulz.

Everything would be so much simpler if every consumer could tell the difference between quality and shovelware.

Doesn't work anywhere else in life, so why would it work with videogames?

I know.  I consider the possibility of educated consumers to be wishful thinking on my part.

Please do not start this. The average consumer - yes, even the average consumer of video games - is considerably more educated about their purchasing decisions than you give them credit for.

I always wonder about those who put words into the mouths of others.

The fact that different people enjoy different types of gaming should be celebrated, not ridiculed.

It was not too long ago that first person shooters were thought to be simplistic, bordering on the idiotic. Today, it is a dominant (if not the dominant) type of game.

Innovation requires creativity. Unfortunately, there are -- and always will be -- people who think today is good enough and only what they like is acceptable.

But if you stop growing, you die. And I for one do not want gaming to die.

Just think about that the next time you are critical of a type of gaming. It may not be for you. But no true gamer wants to see anything not succeed.

Mike from Morgantown

I don't think the problem is Nintendo fans hoping for the downfall of hardcore gaming, i think that Nintendo recognised that hardcore gamers don't necessarily like violent games.
For all the people who played Halo, i can bet that games like minesweeper, solitaire, tetris, chess, scrabble, sudoku or bejeweled have clocked twice (if not more) the hours of Halo. My mom, for example, won't not be considered a hardcore games, but she spends over twenty hours a week playing the games like the ones i mentioned on her PC. Since she got a DS last year, she must have clocked thousands of hours on it playing games like Brain Training and Picross. To some these games may be considered shovelware, but to my mom, Halo, and even Mario platformers are shovelware, and Picross is hardcore gaming.
So my question is who is the hardcore gamer? I can promise you that my mom will have clocked in more gaming hours in her life than anyone under 25. Unfortunately, until the DS and now the Wii, no console was catering to her hardcore demands.
So may it is not that we are seeing hardcore gaming failing, but maybe hardcore gaming is finally on the rise!!!

Some of us like to joke about it, because of the hilarity of the whole "The Sky is Falling!" mentality that cropped up amongst self-procliamed "hardcore gamers" after the Nintendo press conferences of E3 2007 and 2008

Some of us might believe it, but it's not like Nintendo fanboys are in a union. Hell, i shouldn't call it "us," I certainly can't speak for the desires of other Nintendo fanboys, but i do like poking fun at those who troll about screaming "WII IS KILLING TEH INDUSTRY"

The rational people know that hardcore money isn't going to evaporate, and so long as "hardcore gamers" have money, people will make "hardcore games" to fit their tastes

I didn't like where this post was going but I must say it makes a little bit of sense (somewhat)

My mum also plays crossword games, brain training and other puzzle games on my DS and thinks that guitar hero is stupidly idiotic. As she says 'red, green, red, blue, yellow, red, green, orange, blue, red, green...' and I can see her point. She went out and bought a Wii game before christmas on her own though, at random, she came home saying she thought it'd be fun for her and my younger siblings, that game was Boogie Superstar. Why'd she buy it? Because she liked the track list, thought a singing and dancing game would be fun and looked the best quality for what she was willing to pay.

'Casuals' won't go and buy just anything and they aren't stupid... They look for games that they believe will have a high replayability and are simple fun. Mario Kart Wii is my favourite game this gen coz i can pick up the controller and jump into a few online races and leave and i have fun. I agree some games that are supposedly casual I don't like and I don't know how some games are said to be casual.. HSM? It's a game aimed at younger girls, I can remember HEAPS of PS2 games that I looked at and thought wow what crap but now that I'm older I can see that it was just aimed at a different demographic.. 

I get immense enjoyment out of games like Zelda, I just got Phantom Hourglass a few weeks ago and I'm loving it although some of those puzzles were tricky I got through them. I also love a bit of Wii Sports when I'm bored or some SingStar at parties. 

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I hope hardcore gaming does crash and burn. I want people to just be gamers no matter what they're taste.

You can game casually but you can't play casual games

Of course. Mario 64 and SMG are tough games, but you also have bad Mario stuff like Mario Party and Mario Super Sluggers. I'm just saying Mario is as mainstream as it gets. He appeals to everyone.