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Pfft. I'm a switch owner, and while I do agree the dual nature of the Switch looked gimmicky, it turned out to be surprisingly useful, more than I expected. But that's besides the point.

The thing about "performance" is that, in the end, nobody gives a crap about that. Really. What the customer cares about are what games are available, and how much fun they can get out of it. The console market is one where walled gardens fight with the IP they have, not with the performance of the consoles (though that does help strengthen the IP). Now Nintendo is in a super strong position there : They've got Mario and Zelda, basically the icons of video-games. They also don't exactly target the same age-range. Nintendo is all about family games, targeting a very wide age-range. From what I've seen of the "lead" games of Sony and Microsoft, they've all but abandoned that segment.

I don't think Nintendo ever really declined. They screwed up with the WiiU, but that's basically the only screwup in recent history.

I guess the benefit of the mobility is highly dependent on the user, but from what I have heard is that for many people the system might occasionally travel with a user, but it is played while attached to a TV an overwhelming majority of the time.

Regarding your other points, everything you said there has been true about previous Nintendo consoles. However the Wii U sold worse than the Gamecube which sold worse than the N64 which sold worse than the SNES which sold worse than the NES all while the industry grew as a whole. If you are looking at the success of Nintendo's home consoles, the Wii is a huge outlier. I don't think the focus on "fun" and "family" has yet been proven to be successful in comparison to Sony's and Microsoft's strategies.

> but from what I have heard is that for many people the system might occasionally travel with a user, but it is played while attached to a TV an overwhelming majority of the time.

Why go off of anecdotes? In a recent investor Q&A Nintendo revealed their own figures that show 30% of people primarily use it in portable or tabletop mode [1].

Personally, I primarily used it in portable mode until a few weeks ago - and now I use it docked to a TV much more due to Mario Odyssey benefitting from using separate joycons.

> If you are looking at the success of Nintendo's home consoles, the Wii is a huge outlier.

Only if you don't consider portable consoles like the 3DS, where Nintendo has been dominant for a long time. Even against the technologically superior PSP/PS Vita.

[1] https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2017/171031_2e.pdf

Edit: it's also important not to confuse sales volume with profitability. If modern, 4K console games are as expensive to make as EA and Activision claim the underpowered nature of the Switch is a benefit to Nintendo as it keeps their development costs down.

The NintendoSwitch subreddit polled their userbase on how they used the console, they got 7192 responses, and it looks like TV use versus handheld use is split fairly well down the middle.

Graph here: https://i.redd.it/j0ogxk7b6lly.png

Discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/5zju6a/rnin...

Anecdata: it's around 50/50 in our house. We'll play a multiplayer game, and afterwards undock it so one person can play while someone else watches TV.

> The dual mobile/console functionality of the Switch seems to be almost as gimmicky as the motion controls of the Wii.

As someone that was extremely skeptical of the Switch but ended up grabbing one anyway: it's not as gimmicky as it seems. The truth is that while the Switch is being advertised as a hybrid, the real strength of this console, to me, is that it's super agile to use, while still being a console in the traditional sense. Like a smartphone or a modern laptop, you can wake it with the press of a button, play for a while, then put it to sleep with the press of a button again, then resume playing instantly later. That's less about the gimmick and more about what a modern videogame console ought to be today, but it's not immediately evident to the naked eye until you start playing with it regularly.

I personally find that I play more often with my Switch than with previous videogames consoles I've owned, simply because of that agility, because I can fit it in my life without making time for hours long sessions.

People including yourself have been missing the point with Nintendo's raw performance for decades now. The Xbox, Playstation and Switch are all using off-the-shelf components, the days of console companies developing custom hardware really ended in the 90s, at best the early 2000s (PS3).

This means that today the fact that Nintendo has a slower console is purely a pricing and strategic decision, not some lack of ability to execute. Nintendo knows that when they release a console they might get some AAA games released on it in the first couple of years, but after that devs of AAA will leave it behind for more powerful consoles.

They're fine with that, if you want AAA games you buy an Xbox or a PlayStation. Nintendo's comfortable in their market segment. They're willing to ignore the AAA market to bring their costs down.

There's a name for the 3rd console that tried to compete on performance with the big boys, the Dreamcast.

> The success of the Switch sales are largely built off two amazing games in Zelda and Mario while the Wii was built of the excellent of Wii Sports.

I mean, the Switch does not seem to have an issue with its library. There are several multiplayer games right now: Arms, 1-2-Switch, Mario Kart, Splatoon 2. They have huge first party franchises (Mario, Zelda, Super Smash Bros, Pokemon, Metroid) and less huge franchises (Kirby, Donkey Kong, Fire Emblem, etc, etc) to draw on. Plus, the Switch has already seen great third party dev support with Skyrim, Rocket League, Mario/Rabbids, and others receiving Switch ports.

It's just up to Nintendo to not botch it's first party releases. But given how incredibly polished both Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey were, I don't see that being an issue.

> It is also worth noting that those Switch games are single player compared with the multiplayer Wii Sports. It is therefore unlikely to have the same type of viral growth that the old console had when someone would have fun playing the game on a friend's system and immediately want to purchase one of their own.

Really? As mentioned above, there are plenty of multiplayer games for switch. Plus, the Switch is portable. You can take it on vacation, kids can bring it to a friends house, and so forth. I don't think either exposure or lack of multiplayer is an issue it currently has. I personally played a co-worker's Switch at lunch during work (3 people playing Mario Kart at a lunch table) and plan on picking one up for myself for Christmas.