The gamecube wasn't underpowered.

It will sell. And it will sell well. In Japan. I just refuse to be a part of it. Weak hardware pretty much guarantees that 3rd party efforts will be token at best, and once the launch window passes, they will be where they have been for the past decade. On their own.

Making a 720p tablet is probably the worst decision they could have made. It might have worked 5 or 6 years ago, but now? Tablets have grown, peaked and waned in popularity. Nintendo late to the party as usual. Late to accept disc media. Late to the internet. Late to HD, Late to tablets, and even late to their own design. Morphus even beat them to that. Lord help us they still don't know what a HDD is.

People saying people are carrying tablets today when commuting and whatever, but are they going to carry a second one? You're basically asking for people to lay down their iPads, a mighty challenge for Nintendo. Will be especially hilarious when it turns out this thing doesn't have a touchscreen (though to be fair I think it will have).

Lets not forget the hardware is weak. It won't be long before the game reviews come in showing how dire they run on the big screen. We will see horrible aliasing, limited textures and a huge number of missing features. The heavily compressed cartridges will probably be slow to load. After probably good launch numbers reality will hit the consumer that this is another over-priced ultra low spec system of limited performance. It will struggle to sell and even Nintendo's brilliant games won't be enough to justify the high purchase price for most people.

It may become fashionable like wii and sell despite its limitations and to be honest looking at forums there does seem to be a lot of enthusiasm for it so that is possible but I think for the mainstream clued up gamer we know the only thing that will justify its purchase will be Nintendo's own games and until it has a good library of such games its probably not worth buying. Third party games especially ports will be awful.

However for those who want 360/ps3 performance on the move there is more justification. I'm not prepared to pay £40 for a skyrim cartridge just to play the 360 version on the move and it may well be only a few such games are released before low sales mean publishers abandon doing such games.

Games is what matter

Monster Hunter, Pokemon, Fire Emblem, Zelda, New Mario, 3rd party games like Dark Souls series, Mass Effect play on portable console, etc ...

I agree with some of your assessments but I think there are several oversights.

Firstly we keep talking as if handheld and console audiences are mutually exclusive, as if someone who picks up a Nintendo handheld has no interest in playing on a Nintendo console and vise versa. It's portable shortcomings are not without a gain, and vise versa to their home console short comings. We are yet to see price but if Nintendo manages to hit $250, they are offering a hugely convenient device for people who only have a casual interest in Nintendo, and a great value device for those with a strong interest. At this point in the game if you like Nintendo it's because their games, let's not beat around the bush. This hybrid approach will offer the best value where ganes are concerned, especially from Nintendo's own financial perspective of creating and selling them.

I like Nintendo but I'm not crazy about handheld gaming like I was 10 years ago, meanwhile the Wii U never justified it's cost to me and didn't have enough games to get me on board. By Nintendo combing those 2 products into one, and selling it for under $300, im more likely to purchase the system compared to individual systems which I only have a partial interest in.

Especially where the home console is concerned Nintendo was NEVER going to steal Thunder from PS4/XB1, not 3 years into the generation. Especially not with the Pro/Scorpio being announced (I'll be getting myself a Pro). This dream that Nintendo was going to come into the core market after one of the worst consoles in years and steal PS4's momentum needs to die. At most Nintendo could have improved upon Wii U sales and come a fairly distant third.

People acting like they need to see the big AAA third party titles on the NS for it to get their purchase yet haven't adopted a PS4/XB1/PCare kidding themselves. You are in a tiny minority, looking for Nintendo to fulfil a niche Sony and Ms have been owning for the last decade. Buy yourself a PS4/X1 this holiday and put yourself out of your misery. The only reason you would wait years for Nintendo to do something Sony and Ms are already doing is because you value Nintendo's games more. Am I wrong?

The great thing about NS is that it is highly adaptable. 2 years down the line, Nintendo can offer you a standalone $179 handheld or a $99 streaming/gaming box. For those who actually like Nintendo games, I dont see anyone being disappointed by the end of the generation, so I dont agree with your trajectory of succeed then fail. More likely succeed, slow down, then peak 3-4 years into its life. Sure you won't see Zelda in 4k or with Horizons level of fidelity but the vast majority of Nintendo's game will look stunning regardless and run smooth as they typically do.

The last mystery is really whether it functions as a tablet. If it does Nintendo may have just produced the go to present for kids in 2017, because I know most parents aren't about to spend $500 on an Ipad for a 10 year old. Having seen it though, I'm happy to admit it not going to get much traction in the adult tablet market.

Its really hard to try and predict the sales for this system. I would be very surprised(and sad) if it does under 30M though.

What i see as a big plus for Nintendo unifying their console and handheld, they don't have to split up their development teams any more and they all can concentrate on getting out games for a single platform.

There will be so much first party support for this.

That is true. However its not like they can really make handheld like games for the Switch. Its a home console as well, so people expect home console games for it. So it probably wont have anything near what the 3DS and WiiU got combined.

Yet wasn't a reason people gave for the Vita failing that it tried to offer home console experiences on the go? That the experiences it offered were basically home console games not handheld games and that was a problem?