Before you ask, yes, that was partially a joke. But also somewhat true.

Once developers learn how to fully unlock the power of the cell Tegra everything will be fine.

It's not just a rumour. It's a report from a reliable source that not only accurately leaked Switch's design months before it was revealed, but also accurately leaked PS4 Pro's specs ahead of time.

I get that you don't want it to be true, but DF's record in this regard is excellent.

Nope, wrong. It IS, from a LITERAL STANDPOINT, just a rumor. Do you know the definition of a rumor? Or a hypothesis? Yes, it's an educated guess, but we don't know for sure. If it happens, I'll probably be called an idiot for disputing it - but that's the thing, I'm not. I'm simply saying we don't know. 

You're saying that because they were right about things in the past, they must be right in the present. But there are people literally developing for Switch that no doubt know more about the system that are impressed by it. Some of them might be payed off, others are much less likely to be. We simply don't know. I have a Playstation 4, an Xbox One, a PC, and yes...a dusty Wii U in my garage. I don't have a bias towards any console in particular, I didn't even play my first Zelda until last year. There's simply a lot of things that we should wait for, Specs are one of them. 

I feel this is a pretty good video explaining some of the problems with the rumor, as well as why even if this is true it's not the end of the world : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-3e2bpm3hg&lc=z13pz3pawsb1d11xx04cjheggni2xbxz0po0k

The reality is we're hearing conflicting things. I don't think the Switch was ever going to be PS4 levels, but slightly below Xbox One was expected by most people. I know people are bringing up that Skyrim is an old game and that Todd Howard could have been payed off, but man, I really never expected someone like him to endorse the Switch. I won't use the Dark Souls argument though - From Soft have terrible standards and it's just a rumor. Let's just wait a while. 

Also Curl 6, as I mentioned, that comment was somewhat of a joke :). The basic idea I agree with, I honestly just don't see this being THAT underpowered. If it is, i'll be disappointed, but hey, no skin off my back.

And you one of mine.

I'm not saying that fans of those franchises won't want sequels and I'm not saying that the Switch won't do better with those games than it would without them. I'm saying that the boost will not equate to approaching 3DS levels. The 3DS was in a market with the Vita. If you bought a 3DS, you bought it not just because it had MH, FE, AC, BD, YW, TL, SMT, PL, etc, but because the only competing alternative had absolutely nothing that could compare to that line up. PS4 and XBO do. That's what I'm saying.

Most people don't have a "buy both" attitude. Compared to Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Uncharted, Bloodborne, Destiny, Red Dead, Mass Effect, Nioh, Far Cry, Deus Ex, The Division, Watch_Dogs, Horizon, etc, that line up is nothing. It just is. With muliplats, the playing feild is way more even, and Nintendo's value proposition actually blossoms.

I never claimed that multiplats alone were the silver bullet to success. Wii U had a ton of problems preventing its success and the success of multiplats. It wasn't getting most new multiplats as they came out, multiplats weren't being marketed for the Wii U, and it wasn't getting exclusive software that convinced the audience of those multiplats that the Wii U was a viable place to get multiplats. And on top of all that, it was the Wii U, so it had all the issues that came associated with being that console.

If Nintendo wanted to be software independant from multiplats, they wouldn't have built a system who's value proposition depends on multiplatform games to resonate. Having portable Zelda doesn't appeal to anyone who didn't already want vanilla Zelda and didn't already but a Wii U for Zelda. It doesn't add anything, because they were already going to buy a Switch for Zelda, regardless of if it was portable. Having portable GTA can appeal to anyone who wants vanilla GTA because they can't (theoretically) have portable GTA unless they own a Switch. It does add something because before, they had no reason to buy a Switch.

Nintendo needs multiplats for portability to be a sellable feature to something you otherwise may not have wanted, rather than a bonus feature to something you were always going to get. And because it puts them on an even playing field with the PS4 and XBO, which the Switch is and will always be compared to so that their exclusives are actually looks at as the tie breaking reason to buy a Switch instead of the either or reason, in which case the PS4 and XBO will always win because they have more games that appeal to the western demographic that buy these platforms.

It's not a guess though, they didn't guess anything, they were told by developers.

Switch cannot be close to Xbox One in power, the laws of thermodynamics and electricity make such power in a handheld form factor unviable with today's technology. Anybody expecting that kind of performance was uninformed.

Whatever, if you want to make it so that no matter what it's underpowered, so be it. The reality is : we don't know. 

The biggest problem I think is that here in the West the concept just isn't profitable enough to sacrifice power. It just isn't. Almost nobody who reacted to the Switch that I know or anyone who actually plays Nintendo games in the west seemed to actually want to take it out. I think that if the system was a bit beefier(based on these rumors) it would be a nice medium, but this is straying to much on portables when the reality is that there just isn't a big enough market to justify it.

Competing poorly is not not competing. There is no denial. Switch is competing with PS4 whether you like it or not. Whether Switch becomes Nintendo's biggest success or their most crushing failure, it was always made and marketed to be in sales competition with the XBO and PS4, just like the Wii U was. If telling yourself they weren't helps you cope with the latter, so be it.