Just to follow up on this comment, I'd like to point out that Punch-Out!! came out for the Wii a few months back, and it kicks a huge amount of ass. And it's as casual as casual games get.

Actually, if i may... Boom Blox is casual. Zack & Wiki is Casual. Puzzle Quest is Casual. Punch Out might not fit in that description.

Except, maybe i could say that for me it does. I never touched Title Defense simply because i didn't care enough for it...

And i learned that you can defeat Mr Dream with just some timed Dodged and a continuous left low punch timed right. What's up with that?

How the fuck is Zack and Wiki casual.

It's one of the most insanely difficult games out there.

Just what the fuck does casual mean.

You guys are giving me an aneurysm.

what I said, a simple, straight forward game, normally one meant for short playtime, that is designed to be accessible to everyone

Define accessible to everyone. Does difficulty make it inaccessible? Or is it controller schemes that use more than three buttons? If it's the first one then fuck you Pac-Man and Tetris are not casual.

P+C adventure games are hardly 'casual,' Monkey Island and Strong Bad proved that they can be bitchass hard sometimes.
Okay? I don't see the logic behind comparing 30 year old games to today since, in thirty years, things have evolved.

Oh, wait, here it is...
Nice strawman.

my point is this, what about casual games makes them bad? I hear people downing them, and the system many of them are on, but I dont understand why. Can someone please explain to me how the existance of casual games is bad?

I just said they weren't. And you never answered my question. The only bitching I ever hear about casual games is how many people have gotten the impression that Nintendo cares more about that market than their original market. If that was the case, a point I am too lazy to argue either side on right now, I can see them being somewhat frustrated as games that are marketed towards casual gamers, rarely appeal to core gamers, though that doesn't necessarily make them bad. The people complaining would just rather play another Super Mario Galaxy or something than, say, 'Mario And Sonic Go Golfing Oh The Originality!!!'

EDIT: The core gamers who bitch about casual gamers are just the gaming equivalent of fans of some band who bitch about people who just started listening after the latest album because 'They liked them before they were popular'. They aren't necessarily the majority, they just happen to be more vocal.

ah sorry, accessible is a relative term I admit. Basically your average newcomer should be able to pick up and play the game. It should be straight-forward enough that I dont need to explain what you have to do. Doesn't have to be so simple and easy a novice can beat it, but they should atleast be able to play it.

The only really issue I have with "focusing on casual" is that it implies that focusing on one diminishes what they put into others. I didn't look into it but aren't most casual games on the Wii third party?

I think it's mostly the Wii Balance Board and all the "Let's help old people and housewives think they're losing weight" stuff. Most of the casual stuff is third party, I believe.