Hardcore gaming is about competition, fame and profit.
Casual gaming it just to spend time gaming.
Besides, let's not forget Wii attracted many people for the interactivity innovation. That's all.

Being hardcore means you have to spend more on your games and you gotta be the first. That's why people has turned their look over the Wii.

then why aren't people "turning their backs" on PS3/X360? Those consoles too are aimed at a more casual oriented crowd that doesn't even bother to play fast-paced games and don't care much about playing against the best and hardest players, nor do they care about more complex games like Civilization IV or many of the awesome simulation games around.

Because publice in general see X360 and PS3 as they biased hi-spec platforms for hardcore gamers, whose the market portraits them as the only ones who would spend the extra money.

It's like the stereotypes. People has already a picture of what the consoles has to offer. Moreover, let's remember the Wii interactivity was enough to allow people who thought videogames were complicated, to actually jump in.

C' ya round!

And in any event how many such huge series are there?  I would say less than 10.  Which means such sales are open to very very few developers.  EA, Ubisoft, Konami, Take Two, Activision, Capcom (but they had to convert Resident Evil to a 360 shooter to join this group but sales are still nowhere near super casual Mario & Sonic Wii).  Everyone else that makes hardcore games is faced with hugh cost and low sales which to me seems a very unhealthy state of affairs so huge incentive for them to go Wii casual.

what i was saying is all on the first post


Wii hate rises from the fact that Wii expands casual gaming which decreases hardcore % let's say, but it's not killing hardcore, for god's sake

also, wasn't the Wii supposed to be doomed, or supposed to be "not competing"

LoL, it's kind of funny

No, that's because the Wii had a revolutionary control scheme, and appealed to casuals even more than the PS2 did.

Yes, the large majority of PS2 owners were casual gamers.

EDIT: A casual game and a casual gamer are two very different things.

A casual game is something like DDR, Guitar Hero, or Buzz. Something not inherently...violent, I suppose. Something which could appeal to non-gamers.

A casual gamer is what you described. Somebody who games, on occasion, to have fun. Someone who loves Halo and has no idea who Bungie are. Somebody who plays GTA4 a hell of a lot, without knowing that it got a 98 on Metacritic.

The 360, in that sense, has more casual gamers than the PS3. The Wii has even more, just due to its userbase.

But you know, somebody who plays The Sims, or Guitar Hero, or DDR, or Buzz, for five hours a day, knows who makes them, what reviews they got, has read up on them prior to release and posts on a forum about them...he's a hardcore gamer.

So the PS2 had casual games and casual gamers. The PS3 doesn't have much of either. And that, above everything else, is why it is in third.

It seams that one of the bigest dangers to hardcore gaming is cost if the cost of making games is to high fewer will be made.

As the ps360 have pushed up costs game makers are put under pressure games are made to profit if not dev's go broke.

When you spend lots of money you need to make much more there are a limits to how many hardcore games can make money so your base must grow or your costs must be lowered.

Plenty of niche films are still made, I doubt hardcore gaming will ever die, the market will expand to eclipse hardcore gaming though.

Hardcore will probably become very niche, mostly thanks to Nintendo & the Wii. I don't get why people are surprised. Nothing lasts forever. If Wii didn't send it into decline then something else would have. Nothing is infinite (except maybe space?).