If you enjoy playing games on any system, you're a gamer. That's it. If you use the term 'hardcore' for playing video games, you're a teenager.

@ Ragebot. I co,pletely agree with you. If you look at my last couple of sentences on the OP it says i think it's more the way games are played that makes them hardcore than the actual games and consoles. I do believe though, that once people pick up Wii fit then they do become "gamers." Especially if then they graduate to other games. Perhaps i should have explained my OP better. I'm interested in if the people on this site PERCEIVE the consoles to be "hardcore".

As hardcore as hardcore can be.

First you have to understand that what would be considered "Hardcore" in the N64 and Playstation was quite a bit different than what would be considered "Hardcore" in the current generation ... For the most part, older gamers have always respected what Nintendo has done, and a lot of the negative attention Nintendo has gotten for not being "Mature" or "Hardcore" comes from the young gamers who began playing videogames with the Playstation or PS2.

Yeh not sure if the terms "casual" and "hardcore" were used much before. I think they are used more this gen to discredit the Wii. Although as i said before i don't think Nintendo purposefully aim their games towards any particular "group". They just try and make their games appeal to as many people as possible.

I thought "hardcore" meant "non-Nintendo."

After all, most people seem to use it to separate themselves from Nintendo consoles and games on those consoles.

It is the replacement for "Sega does what Nintendon't"

Therefore, nothing from Nintendo can be hardcore, by definition.

Mike from Morgantown

Good point. Although i think people retrospectively see the N64 as fairly hardcore. Personally, thinking of the N64 makes me nostalgic.

They were both hardcore, but they had to compete with sony.

Sony was more casual than hardcore, but it was also more hardcore than the nintendo systems.

I think a lot of people forget that.

Hardcore enough to get some downright excellent exclsuives that are still very much adored today...

I don't think the Ps1 is seen as being more hardcore than the N64 was, though perhaps at the time. I think the PS2 is perceived as being more hardcore than the GC. Just the impression i get.