I don't even know what hardcore means anymore. One minuet Nintendo aren't the same and they're casual now and they've abandoned hardcore gamers... the next, none of Nintendo's franchises are hardcore in the first place. And that's only one example...

Until people can make up their damn mind about what this stupid word actually means i'm just going to sit here and play my great games instead of wasting time on ignorant individuals.

I am trying -- and failing -- to think of third-party exclusives that fit that definition.

Mike from Morgantown

You're forgetting that ps1 had FF7

I think it was probably the 1st party exclusives they were on about. Yes there were lots of good ones!

I see it like this,

hardcore takes a long time to learn and master and is very complex whereas casual games are very simple and don't involve much besides a simple gameplay which is applied to different scenarios.

So, to illustrate:

Hardcore is like juggling. You learn with a type of thing and get it to a certain number of those things. Then you change the object, and then start combining the objects until you're juggling a chainsaw, a cat, a bowling ball, a piece of paper, some lightning, while eating an apple and taking a shit. In order to master the game, you have to be aware of everything, which when done correctly, leads to some awesome rewards, and possibly sex with women.

Casual is like swimming. You learn to swim. You learn to do it in different ways either for fun or for profession. You swim at the beach, at a friend's pool, at a lake, or at a theme park. They are all different ways to swim, but really, you can only swim one way at any one time, and in order to master the game you really just need to beat a specific time or have a specific amount of fun :P. 

So, here you can see that there really is no definition for either, and if anyone tries to define either, you're just going to be listening to a joke or opinion. The only real way to tell is to look at who plays the game. Are the majority of the game's gamers hardcore or casual?

In this way Nintendo has kind of abandoned the hardcore, not because the games are different, but because there are fewer hardcore gamer nerds playing it as they did in previous generations.

I don't agree with your last paragraph. I think today's casual players are tomorrows' "Nintendo core" gamers.

You're forgetting that many of the existing fans of Final Fantasy saw Final Fantasy 7 as a "bastardization" of the series to appeal to a wider audience.

core is just a term describing the group that plays the most. If the core is casual, it's casual, if the core is hardcore, they are hardcore. Casual and hardcore are more like subclasses of core.

I am trying -- and failing -- to see where Xen used the phrase "third-party" in his post.

PS:  Ogre Battle 64.

Ok then. Todays Wii casual gamers are tomorrows' Wii "hardcore" players. I really don't like the terms "casual" and "hardcore" gamers anyway.