Could the Switch's success have been done earlier?

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Soundwave said:

Not really in that same kind of form factor. Even Switch 1, Nintendo's hardware designers in the Switch 2 Q&A mentioned they weren't happy with the Switch 1's (Tegra X1) chipset's performance.

Tegra K1 and Tegra X1 were still early days of Nvidia moving into that mobile space, now you see the Tegra T239 in the Switch 2 is able to run PS5 tier game thus far much better than the Switch 1 could handle PS4 games. Part of that is probably because Nvidia has simply gotten better with their chip tech over the years.

That said, I do always wonder if maybe Nintendo should have tried to pivot the GameCube into a semi-portable console that could maybe run off a laptop style battery. Obviously it wouldn't have been a handheld form factor really, but it probably would have been better than what they had going (could have included a Game Boy slot too).

Something like this?