The current generation of console gaming seems to be split between two camps. Sony and Microsoft vie for the more adult audience, the so called ‘hardcore’ gamers while Nintendo captures the attentions of the casual crowd or the social hangout gaming of the hardcore crowd. Though many of the more popular Wii games are pretty simple, Nintendo is confident that with some of their upcoming releases they’ll be able to bring more hardcore players into their camp.

“We think we [can] win over the Halo audience with something like The Conduit, a multi-player, online, shooting experience, or Dead Space Extraction. And you know what? Once those people buy into Wii, they’ll go buy Mario Kart or Wii Fit Plus,” said Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America.  Unfortunately so far the record for third party hardcore games hasn’t been good, with even the critically vaunted No More Heroes doing pretty poorly in sales.

WIth the recent announcement of a new Metroid game and more Mario and Zelda games coming along there is some hope for a Wii hardcore renaissance in the future, but it’s not guaranteed.