Both are extremely important, most people wont buy a console for a single game, for most people a console needs a steady flow of games that interest them.

You are oversimplying things, there is alot more than just Zelda that is causing Switch to be more desirable than Wii U.

1. The overall hardware concept. The ability to seamlessly switch between console and handheld mode and play anywhere is very appealing. The same cannot be said for the Wii U gamepad which had like a 15ft range and really added little to the experience.

2. Marketing/branding/advertising. Switch is marketed to multiple demographics and advertised all over the place and the branding makes it clear its a brand new device. Wii U was marketed almost exclusively to kids/families and advertised almost exclusively on childrens television networks and continuing with the Wii brand (which was in heavy decline at this point) either turned people away or made them think it was an expensive add-on.

3. Software output. You're right that individual system sellers are important but a system also needs a steady flow of quality titles ranging from small, medium and big. Switch has had a medium-large sized exclusive basically every month along with a handful of smaller indie titles on a weekly basis. Wii U would generally go a few months between notable releases.

4. Price. You might be thinking they both cost $299, how is that an advantage for Switch? Well if a console has appealing hardware, a strong software lineup and well executed marketing/advertising than $299 is a great price, however if all those things are poor than $299 is expensive.

I agree with all of your points except we have a subtly different view on your #3.  It is the amount of quality titles that matter more than the pacing.  For example if a person bought a Wii U three years after release then pacing wouldn't matter at all, because there would be a 3 year backlog of games to choose from.  The main reason why a person wouldn't buy a Wii U at after 3 or more years is if they didn't really like the collection of games to begin with.  (Most people clearly did not like the collection of Wii U games.)  

Right now the Switch is on track to outsell the Wii U's entire lifetime in just 1 fiscal year.  What is the difference?  Most of the major games on the Switch are similar to Wii U games.  The only game that would make a difference is Zelda. 

I agree with all of your points though and I would say that #1 is the factor that will have the biggest long term effect.  Switch is going to sell to both the handheld and home markets.  But I don't think that is why Switch is selling so fast right out of the gate.  Zelda is accelerating sales.  Next year the Zelda effect will be gone, and Switch sales will slow down somewhat until Pokemon comes out.

Pacing is definitely a big factor, I agree that Zelda is a major system seller but if Switch had a 6-8 month post launch drought like Wii U had than sales would not have remained so high during the summer/fall.

As for Wii U library after 3 years, the damage was done by that point, the console had 3 years of negative press and it was pretty clear that it had no long term future. But even with all the issues Wii U had, about ~14 million people bought one to play about a half dozen major Nintendo games so they were in fact system sellers.

You ask what is the difference between Switch and Wii U, well like i said its a combination of superior hardware, marketing/advertising, software output, and percieved value.

Its not just Zelda, Splatoon 2 has sold nearly twice as much as Zelda in Japan. Globally Mario Kart is only a few 100k behind Zelda despite releasing about 2 months later and Odyssey will overtake it in the long run.

If 3DS sold before then weren't profitable, than the Switch only has to sell around 60 million at a profit to be better, not 80M

No, I have high hopes for the Switch actually. I think it's trending above Nintendo's average console and it has potential to do better than last-gen hardware.

I posted "Lmao." because the OP accidentally posted the thread before finishing it, so it was incomplete. 

That's the sneaky way of doing it. Very clever of you.

For profit probably game sales are more important. So lower profit on the hardware may be irrelevant if games sell fabulous.

Yes. I only realized when portable game sequels started to get announced for it.

I am pretty sure that everyone was seeing how the Switch was gonna do before putting all their eggs on it. Even Nintendo themselves.

But sure, we can pretend this was always a sure thing.

You may well be right.  I think we all just reflexively point to mobile as the killer or handhelds.  We could be wrong, at least to some extent. 

I think its a certainty that mobile gaming has had a negative impact on handheld sales.  But, I don't guess it is possible to know exactly how much impact.  It is certainly possible that a stronger 3DS launch would have resulted in much higher LT sales.  And, yeah, I have no idea about Vita.  

As to your other point about mobile's impact on home consoles......  That's a great point, and something that will be interesting to see over the next decade or two. The thing is though, there does not seem to be any end in sight to the power gap between portable and stationary hardware.  So, as long as there are gamers that care about "power", there will be demand for home consoles and/or PCs for gaming.   It will be interesting to see if the percentage of people that value portability over power shifts significantly though.  

For the record, I don't see any of the possible shifts as necessarily bad for gaming.  Changes happen, and the world still turns.  

I'll ignore you ignoring my post as I'm sure we all know why you did that, so now I'm only curious why you think the "Zelda effect" will disappear next year specifically. What's stopped it from disappearing sooner? What's suddenly gonna stop it next year, especially when it's selling like an evergreen title? Since it's supposedly the only killer app on Switch thus the highest selling game, you have to also be saying that proven evergreen series like 3D Mario, Splatoon, and Mario Kart are also gonna suddenly stop selling. Otherwise, they'd well overtake Zelda and cleary prove it's not the only killer app, heck not even the biggest one (though MK8D is gonna do that regardless).