No, it hadn't. They have processors of the same CPU family, both based on the 6502... not the same CPU!

The Atari 2600 had a dumbed down 6507, clocked 1.19 MHz, with very limited memory access: the chip can only address 8 Kb memory and the cartridge slot limited it further down to addressable 4 KB.

The NES had a Ricoh 2A03, clocked 1.79 MHz.

You also can't just ignore the different co-processors and suggest that both devices had the same limitations, but Nintendo was better in optimization. 

Why exactly would that make them go back to a two system strategy?

Decreased overall software and hardware sales?

Thank you so much for helping me with my argument, which is that the NES hardware was considered weak when it was released.  In Japan it was released in 1983, while the Atari 2600 was released in the US in 1977.  As your post points out the NES processor was only 50% more powerful.  But according to Moore's Law it should have been 1600% more powerful after 6 years. 

Moore's law ain't about clock rates and only indirectly about performance... but I know what you mean.

Of course there were "next-gen" CPUs already available, f.e. the Motorola 68000 was released in 1979. But it took years to get these technologies into consumer products back then, especially into home consoles which were considered as toys.

The 68000 was used exclusively in expensive workstations the first years (Sun, SGI, HP, Apollo), then it trickled down into cheaper products: into the $2500 Macintosh in 1984, then into the $1300 Amiga 1000 and into the $800 Atari ST in 1985, then into the $700 Amiga 500 in 1987 and finally into the $189 SEGA Genesis in 1988/89. So it took almost a decade to reach consumer products below $500.

Nobody would have expected such a CPU in a $179 console in 1983 and Nintendo would have been crazy to plan with that in 1980 - 1982.

So which other options than a modified 6502 did they have in the planning phase of the NES? The Z80 and the intel 8085 were't that much faster (and a lot more expensive).

Wait, who's Link?

The actual official sales (as in actual sold to customers, not shipments) for the PS4 has been:

2013:   4.2M
2014: 14.3M
2015: 17.4M
2016: 17.5M
2017: 20.2M

So, VGC is overtracking it by a bit. In any case, the official sales figure for 2018 for the period of Jan. 1 to July 22 was 7.6M. After accounting for the different dates for Sony's mid-year updates in sell-through figures, the PS4 may be slightly up globally. Of course, we do have the holiday season coming up, and the results for Q4 are going to depend heavily on if the big Black Friday cuts produce as big of a boost as last year, and if supply constraints will be an issue during the holidays. Given that, I'd estimate that 2018 could end at anywhere from 19-20M for the PS4. And the PS4 can't keep selling at this rate forever. Despite the strong 2018 sales and a (very modest) upward revision in their forecast, Sony is still expecting overall fiscal year shipments to be down. This suggests that they're still expecting sales to decline, if not in the current quarter than at the very least in Q1 2019. The PS4 is already down YoY in Japan by 5.6% (and if you only count weeks 14-45, thus bypassing the Monster Hunter World boost, it's down 31% YoY), and is only up in the U.S. (and presumably also Europe) because of the short-term boosts provided by God of War and Spider-Man. I think this suggests that the the PS4 is cresting its peak, and if Sony's projections are on target I think we could see a fairly significant decline in Q1 next year. If I had to make a guess, then assuming a Nov. 2020 release for the PS5 I think we'll see similar to this for the PS4 for the next few years:

2018: 19.5M
2019: 15.5M
2020: 8M
2021: 4M
2022: 2M
2023-discontinuation: 1-2M

This would put the PS4 at close to 125M lifetime.

As for the Switch, I'm averse to making long-term estimates of yearly sales this early. It has yet to get a major price cut or hardware revision, and is still missing major titles like the first Gen VIII Pokemon game (due next year). Its hard to say whether its lifetime sales curve will more closely resemble, say, the 3DS or have a more typical sales curve for a Nintendo home console. However, my current lifetime sales guess assumes a maximum of 30M in the U.S., 25M in Europe, 20-25M in Japan, and 5-10M in other regions. I'm assuming it at least continues to outpace the 3DS by a healthy margin in the West, and does at most equal to the 3DS in Japan, depending on if it starts to catch up to it, which it has not so far. In fact, it's sold 45% fewer units so far this year in than what the 3DS sold in 2012, though to be fair the 3DS was absolutely killing it in Japan in 2012 (it was the third-best year for any system ever in Japan, following the DS's performances in 2006 & 2007) thanks in large part to the continued effects of the 2011 price drop as well as short-term boosts provided by the launches of the 3DS XL and Animal Crossing: New Leaf. The Switch meanwhile still costs substantially more than the 3DS did at this point in its life and has had no major hardware revisions. It still has the potential to catch up to the 3DS in Japan, but right now it's running a significant and growing LTD deficit that currently stands at about 2.7M units.

As for the XBO, there's really no way to make accurate guesses on worldwide sales without MS providing any information. The only truly accurate figures we have is for the U.S. & Japan, but those regions alone don't tell us the whole story. Assuming the U.S. represents 55-60% of the XBO's sales, it's probably sitting at most close to 40M units lifetime right now, maybe as few as 36M. At most, I see it selling roughly 60M units lifetime globally, though until MS gives us actual official shipment tallies we'll never know for sure.

The actual official sales (as in actual sold to customers, not shipments) for the PS4 has been:

2013:   4.2M
2014: 14.3M
2015: 17.4M
2016: 17.5M
2017: 20.2M

So, VGC is overtracking it by a bit. In any case, the official sales figure for 2018 for the period of Jan. 1 to July 22 was 7.6M. After accounting for the different dates for Sony's mid-year updates in sell-through figures, the PS4 may be slightly up globally. 

Helloplite said:
Nintendo has slightly missed a great opportunity for switchs second year.

Let's see if they can turn it around otherwise no more than GBA levels - which will prompt them to return to the two systems strategy.