It’s portable.
Even then, there are a ton of games that are available across all platforms, including some AAA ones: Mortal Kombat 11 The Witcher 3 Assassins's Creed (multiple) Skyrim Resident Evil (multiple) Monster Hunter Rise Overwatch 2 etc...
The reason Microsoft and Sony sign exclusive deal is mostly the keep games off each others platforms. Graphics-intensive “AAA” games aren’t going to run on the switch. Nintendo undeniably operates in a distinct segment, even if it’s capable of supporting some limited amount of overlap with the other vendors.
There’s a plethora of articles stating the exact opposite, such as this one:
https://afkgaming.com/esports/guide/is-call-of-duty-coming-t...
It’s something MS has been saying numerous times, including in the FTC court case.
The number of games that are exclusive to a platform that are paid to be that way is actually quite small. Almost all platform exclusives come from companies that are subsidiaries of their respective platform company (343 Studios, Naughty Dog, etc).
The argument of graphic capabilities as something that defines the Switch to be in a different market that’s that of Sony/MS is a straw man argument, IMO. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere in these comments, it’s still competing for peoples’ video game time.
> As I’ve mentioned elsewhere in these comments, it’s still competing for peoples’ video game time.
Penguin and Scholastic are both competing for peoples book reading time, yet they quite clearly compete in different market segments. Your argument is contrived and ignores the fact that consumers understand how these products are differentiated to appeal to different preferences.
Is Sony monopolizing the God of War market because God of War fans understand how those games are differentiated to appeal to their preferences?
The FTC's case that PS and Xbox exist in their own "high-performance console" market is the contrived argument. Honestly, it's dated to even consider consoles their own market. Product planning practice in the games industry these days pretty much looks at 2 markets: the mobile market and the "HD market" (PC + console).
The Switch simple can’t do the same things that an Xbox or PlayStation can do. Many of those consoles top selling games would not be playable on a Switch, because they’re high performance games that require high performance hardware, and the Switch simply isn’t a viable substitute for that. Even for the most graphically demanding games that can run on a Switch, they can only do so with comparatively low resolution and frame rate, which in case you didn’t know, are major selling points for the segments that Microsoft/Sony are competing in.
If you don’t want to accept these plainly obvious facts, why don’t you go and inform r/NintendoSwitch that it’s a viable substitute for a PS5, and see how many people you can convince?
Absolutely no one is arguing this and it's not the point. You should give the commentators on this forum more credit than thinking we aren't aware of the power/capabilities differences.
The "high-end console gaming market" is what is what people are taking issue with. It's such a limiting segmentation and is arguably not a very good definition. There's a console gaming market as a whole, with a subset of it being high-end, that competes on user's gaming time. In my view, that's how it should be defined. There's also the mobile gaming market. Are we to now say the Switch shouldn't belong in the mobile gaming market because of screen size and power capabilities? It doesn't make sense to define the Switch in its own, standalone market. What would it be? Mid-tier portable gaming market? One that has no competitors and it has a monopoly in? That's not practical nor reflective of gaming purchasing habits.
Segregating the market based on capabilities breaks down in many ways. The argument shouldn't be that the Switch should belong in its own category because many people who own an Xbox or a Playstation also happen to own a Switch. Nearly half of Xbox owners also happen to own Playstation console (myself included) so does the fact that there's an overlap now mean that Xbox and PlayStation should be somehow in their own category? Of course not. Nor should the argument be about how it's played. One can that the Switch can be played in a portable manner but I just as easily play on my Playstation or Xbox through my iPad locally or even the cloud. Yes, it's not a popular option but the capabilities are there. All that's left is arguing about whether or not something can play AAA games in higher fidelity. If fidelity is something a gamer is truly after, they'd be buying a PC.