Being simple yet lots of fun is not an instant recipe for massive success. 

Brand name helps more than a little bit.  People buy things that are familiar or familiar sounding because they feel safe doing so. 

The only thing that makes Gears of War or God of War more hardcore is there is a more limited audience for those games. A more mature, and by mature I mean older audience. These games are amazing games and worthy of AAA status but at the same time they are only bought by the older, 15-25 age audience while the MK Wii and NSMB Wii games are bought by the same audience yet also the 8-14 and 25+ audience because of the broad appeal and fun the games present to the consumer.

Fuck. I remember when we called people who played mostly stuff like GTA, Madden or console fps "casual gamers". Hardcore being hijacked is the worst thing about this gen, to me a "hardcore gamer" is still someone who spends all their time tinkering with Source mods or who imported a J-360 for Cave shooters.

Nintendo made a family console. Meaning everyone in the house can play it. And the most important thing they did is attracting girls in the video games world. I am not saying that there were not girls before, but Nintendo made sure that girls would have no problem playing the Wii. So why do you guys think that Titanic is the most success full movie out there? Well it's because girls went to see the movie tree times and even four times. The same things goes for snickers. Every time I go to footlocker you see those beautifull adidas, nike, puma for the girls and us guys with a bunch of ugly shoes.

I think that's a good point but the industry would want a word like 'harcore' which suggests 'tough' and 'cool' to be associated with GTA and FPS games.

After all, the person who spends their time doing the activities you suggested to most people would now be considered a 'nerd',  and that's definately a word developers want to keep far far away from the video game industry. 

Yep. Games that appeal to multiple demographics and boths sexes will in general sell better if the games good and marketed correctly.

Nintendo software sells so well because their consoles are aimed at a much broader demographic than Microsoft or Sony's. Banjo N&B, Viva Pinata, Kameo, etc, etc, in the case of Microsoft just didn't sell well because the audience isn't there on that console to get huge sales. The games do come out on the 360 to cater for a younger crowd but they're not interested in the experience the 360 offers, for Microsoft to alter this perception they would need to adjust the marketing of their product.

I think Microsoft tried this gen to target a more mature crowd realising they have more disposable money for entertainment and it has shown in the 360's good attachment rate. Natal is a obvious concession that they would like some of the crowd that the Wii has captured now, which was obviously a market they hadn't considered as existing previously. Sony have from the off tried to cater to a broad demographic but the expense of the console I think is the main reason it struggle to penetrate as broadly initially.

Nintendo consoles always gave me that feel that no other platform could.

I'm not exactly shure what it is, but I want it to stay like this. If 3rd parties have to "fail" for this to continue, then let it be.

I prefer a Nintendo console with assured Nintendo quality and unique titles, than depending on the thirds.

I gotta quote this. This is Iwata-san level quote. My honest congratulations dude. Even Jesus is clapping right now.

Haha, exactly.  I love how publishers keep pumping out action/scifi games and going out of business, and they never realize that 90% of the market doesn't want 10% of the genres over and over and over.