This is exactly the supposition that I think is very shortsighted. There is no line in the sand where everyone is off playing peggle and zuma on one side, and on the other side is everyone fragging each other in halo and tweaking their SLI setup to play crysis. Just because you do not play many "hardcore" games does not mean you only play popcap and flash games. There are so many games that cover a broad spectrum between the two. And there is a lot there that Indie games can target.
People who own a console typically go for the 'AAA' titles. Mostly because that's about 70% of the games available for them. My Brother got a 360 on Monday - and so far he's bought Bioshock, Halo 3, Assasins Creed and Call Of Duty 3. Obviously there are slightly more niche titles - I mean, White Gold's getting released on the 360 as well as Postal 3 - but most games sold are probably on the larger titles. Halo is definitely the Xbox's 'main' game.
Also, the way I took the 50% thing (although I only skimmed your post, sorry if I confused things here):
"The hardcore gamers that eat up the huge budget AAA console titles that pervade the game industry are actually a fraction"
"I would say that gamers are around 50% women if not a little less, so right off the bat most AAA big budget games are marketing towards only half of the total game playing populace. "