"Are hardcore gamers as relevant as they have historically been in the gaming industry?" asks Forbes columnist Chris Morris.

Morris, in turning his attention to the crowd of hardcore gamers, has clearly kept a keen eye on internet gaming discussion: "They obsess over games before they're released and then often savagely rip apart the very thing they were so eagerly anticipating. They argue passionately about the most minor of details, and they demand to be catered to by developers."

"At the risk of alienating all of the people who paid my mortgage all these years, they can't be," answers legendary game designer Warren Spector. "We are in a commercial art form, which means you have to focus on the mainstream if you are playing in that game space," added the Deus Ex director.

Moreover, gaming's biggest financial successes--Myst, The Sims, the Wii--haven't involved the hardcore at all. Morris argues that as far back as 2002, "publishers began to realize they didn't need hardcore buzz to have a monster hit."

In spite of the hardcore crowd's shortcomings, Morris concludes they're still relevant, just less so. In response to the boom of mass-market games like Wii Sports and Rock Band, the hardcore are heading back underground--and independent developers like Braid creator Jonathan Blow are following them.

"The hardcore is completely safe," asserts Spector. "They are less relevant to major publishers, but they are more relevant to independent developers."

Responding to criticism that the Nintendo's E3 showings lacked a major first-party Wii title aimed at the hardcore gamer, president Satoru Iwata has apologized to those who felt betrayed.

"We are sorry about [the E3] media briefings, specifically for those who were expecting to see Nintendo show something about Super Mario or Legend of Zelda," Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told Forbes.

During Nintendo's recent E3 press conference, the company appeared to focus on casual-oriented titles, such as Animal Crossing: City Folk and Wii Sports Resort, and quickly glossed over major hardcore announcements, such as Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on DS and word that the teams for Mario and Zelda were working on new, unspecified titles.

"If there is any perception that Nintendo is ignoring the core gamers, it's a misunderstanding and we really want to get rid of that misunderstanding by any means," he continued. "The so-called big titles need a long, long development period...we really didn't think this year's E3 media briefing was the time to... Read more

Though Nintendo has been uncharacteristically mum as to its upcoming Wii and Nintendo DS releases, the company has stated that it will soon reveal several new games that should entice hardcore gamers.

"We will be announcing several new titles that core gamers will be interested in around the time of E3," public relations director Marc Franklin told GamePro.

This year's E3 Media & Business Summit runs from July 15-17. Though no games have been revealed, rumors suggest the company may unveil an online Animal Crossing title, a new Kid Icarus game, and/or an entirely new franchise.

Despite many attributing the success of the Wii and Nintendo DS to a focus on casual-oriented titles such as Wii Fit and Brain Training (DS), Franklin maintained that "core gamers" represent an extremely important audience to Nintendo.

Nintendo marketing VP Cammie Dunaway made a similar statement, claiming that "Nintendo has something for everyone," following the recent arrival of the May software sale figures, which saw a mix of seven traditional and casual-oriented Nintendo titles rank among the ten best-selling games of the month.