The current state of Nintendo - and if can they mess it up techwise or follow it up successfully

[farlaff]

Doctor_MG said:

I think that Nintendo could definitely follow up with the Switch. Using Nvidia and DLSS technology they could vastly improve upon image quality too while still retaining lower spec hardware for portability. However, my concerns are that Nintendo regularly sells less with successors to their consoles. Gameboy sold 118M and the Advanced sold 81M. The NES sold 61M and the SNES sold 49M. The DS sold 154M and the 3DS sold 75M. We all know what happened with the Wii and the Wii U. I'm fearful that Nintendo will either A) Avoid making a sequel console out of the drive to be both unique and avoid past failings or B) If they do make a console it will perform significantly worse than the Switch and put them in a precarious predicament. 

Bolded: completely agree with the possibility, which is very much in line with the original post. As for the other concerns, they could be an issue, but we can sum up reasons for that not to happen now. 

From NES to SNES: Nintendo arrived way late to the party and had to play catch with the success of Mega Drive/Genesis. They had no competition in the 8bit resurgence era, which did not happen the following one. The quest is, nowadays as back at this period, Nintendo had no direct competition and it almost cost them a lot to not make the right move at the right time. And even though gaming wise I think the SNES to be the best console ever, tech wise it is far from what it could have been and Nintendo kind of cheaped out on some of the parts, and even though it was far superior in general to Sega's 16 bit machine (graphics, effects - mode 7 mainly -, and sound), in some areas it was inferior, what should have been unacceptable and I fear for what might happen if they cheap out here once again.

The GB to GBA: GBA had too small a window to try and catch the predecessor and even then sold very, very well. The rest (DS) is history and now we can see that was a correct call.

For the other cases, there are many specifics, but except for the time of the transition from NES to SNES I don't remember Nintendo being in such a favorable position moving forward.