Your turning Genre distiction into something else and using it to define Console game as casual....

No need for the quote pyramid. Anyway I find it funny that you think only PC games can be hardcore. Care to give an example?

We've got MMORPGs. Are they casual? No there's plenty of people that spend way too much time leveling their character(s) and preparing to defeat the hardest bosses as they're released or take out any other player in PvP. So are they hardcore? No, despite those examples, they are mostly comprised of players that will never see the end-content as it is added nor will never excel at PvP.

How bout the RTSs? Yeah there's tournaments with cash prizes for the best players, but there's also people that only play the single-player campaign and/or only play online against a few friends.

The same goes for FPSs.

I think that takes care of the main genres most people think of when it comes to PC games(Sorry Point&Click fans), and then there's the ton of freeware and flash games that get played by millions every day. But these too usually have leaderboards for those that want to be the best.

No, I'm not. I merely gave two examples to illustrate my point, but seems I did a poor job. So let me further illustrate what I think hardcore means in the context of games.

A hardcore game is a game that is not (primarily) meant to be fun and entertaining. It can be fun and entertaining to a degree, but then the entertainment comes from the player's self realization. A hardcore game can never be fun and entertaining when you pick it up and play, that defeats the "harcoreness" of it. If there is entertainment in a hardcore game, it needs to be found by the player, and it is found within the confines of the game. Take Go as an example. Is playing Go fun? Hardly, but it can be. Is it rewarding? Yes, once you understand the rules, the ways to play, once you get in the game to see what is going on.

Also, I didn't define console games as casual, I said consoles are casual (gaming machines). Where I'm coming from, playing a game often required trying different configurations, tweaking autoexec.bat and config.sys files (hurray for the boot menu and different settings!), reading a manual to know how to play etc. The plug-and-play nature of consoles IS casual compared to that. That was and still is one of the big selling points of consoles versus PCs.

Counter-strike is the most hardcore game ever. :O Of course you can play it casually but... you are not a real cs-player unless you are good enough. You are just a random noob at public servers. ;)

Today 'HC' game is all about kill, kill, blood, blood, kill, blood, kill, blood... Real HC game is game you need to learn to play more than 5-10 minutes.

Seems like you gave me an example of a game that has a large following of hardcore players. But you also admit that it can be played casually. There's nothing about Counter-strike that prevents Joe Schmoe, who is at least interested in FPSs to begin with, from picking it up, playing a few matches here and there with friends or on public servers. Of course playing casually like that he'll probably never develop the reflexes and strategy to challenge any of the hardcore players, but he doesn't care to.

Confirmed. Wii Music Hardcore.