Amiibo support is not worth mentioning in a conversation about "additional performance". Because Amiibo use an NFC reader, and not additional processing power. Nintendo could make an Amiibo attachment for the 3DS if they wanted to, or if they had the forsight, included one in the Circle Pad attachment for the 3DS.

So you're telling me that N3DS got the SNES emulator, and not the 3DS because the 3DS might not be able to run all SNES games well? Well that's a simple solution, isn't it? Just lock the games that the 3DS cannot run well to the N3DS instead of locking out the entire thing. People would understand that. Still, let's not judge the capabilites of the base 3DS in emulating SNES games by the performance of homebrew emulators. These emulators are made by fans in their spare time, and not by Nintendo themselves, which means that any poor performance could be due to a lack of knowledge and skill that the fine folks at Nintendo would undoubtedly possess.

The SNES classic is a prime example of this. Fans struggled for years to get Super FX/2 games running well on their emulators. Nintendo? Easy peasy.

To properly emulate most systems, the emulating system doesn't need to be as strong as the system it is trying to emulate, it has to be several times stronger. To put it clearly, due to the architecture of the PS2 most PCs still can't emulate those games perfectly. The PS4 can't emulate the games on the PS3, despite being stronger. So what you said about the 3DS simply doesn't make sense.

To emulate something, and do it well, you have to be able to run an entire SNES and an entire 3DS OS at the same time. That takes significantly more power than you might imagine.
If they were to make the games available to the OG 3DS, then yes, some would run. The problem is, many wouldn't. I think Nintendo is just trying to avoid confusion by making allSNES games a N3DS exclusive.

That actually really depends more on the architecture than anything else. The Xbox One X has no issues emulating a Xbox One, for example (and yes, it is emulating the Xbox One). I also remember many people (myself included) saying it would be near impossible for the X1 to emulate X360 games. But here we are. As it turns out, when you have intimate knowledge of all of the hardware involved, the seemingly impossible might be far more possible than you think.

Even then, no emulator is perfect. For example, the PS3 originally had a PS2 CPU and GPU within it, and it still was only emulated 96% of PS2 games correctly. The next generation PS3 dropped one of these chips and emulated it using software, and this had an even lower compatibility rate. Somehow no one seemed to mind. But Nintendo can't have the 3DS emulate SNES games because Super FX games might not work, and that would be "too confusing" to fans or some nonsense? Sorry, I'm not buying it.  Every single SNES game that Nintendo has released so far on the N3DS Virtual Console works perfectly on SNES9X on 3DS. So this is a non-issue up to this point.  Besides, some of these homebrew emulators like SNES9X run over 85% of SNES games perfectly with amost every exeception being examples of games that contained supplementary processor chips like the Super FX and the SA-1 , and again these are made by fans in their spare time for free. Check it out for yourself

http://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/Snes9x_for_3DS

Somehow I don't imagine some Nintendo exec saying "welp the homebrew community doesn't have PGA Tour 96 emulated perfectly on the 3DS, we better not bother trying to emulate SNES games on the base 3DS ourselves!"

You don't have to explain emulation to me, I understand the concept perfectly well. But I can't make the long and short of what you're talking about with why a GPU can't render 2D images (are games like Shovel Knight figments of my imagination?). That is completely nonsensical it literally makes no sense. I can get it might not have the operating modes in the GPU's API to easily render 2D images or processing pixel maps in the way the SNES does. But do you know who created that API? Nintendo. I bet they could find a solution if anyone can.

If someone wants to spend $250 or whatever the price is on 512GB card, that's their own decision. Buying 2X 256GB cards, especially on sale, would be cheaper than a 512GB and would also give you two separate storage devices. Best graphics they can be is what I said, meaning downgraded to whatever level is necessary to be portable and have a worthwhile battery life based on whatever tech they may end up using. With PS4 getting many smaller indie games, I don't see why the portable wouldn't get them, and why they wouldn't increase with a PS portable on the market. Vita also has plenty of smaller file size games for it, and they may not be compressed quite as well as Nin games but they are still small, and their level of graphics and quality is of course up to the user to decide if it's worth the purchase. Do I want them to constantly be switching between cards? Well that's up to them again, and your the one who said all digital won't work because portable gamers and gamers in general really want physical games, which means bringing them with you on the go and constantly swapping them out if you want to play another. I'm not sure why it was a good thing the other day, and a bad thing today for some reason. Being a PS Plus subscriber, you also would have access to cheaper online store games to begin with, plus your member discount, plus sales, and there are plenty of online sales, so the extra cost of the card ends up the same if not cheaper than buying games on a cart for $50 to $100 each, that is set in stone for good and has no room for extra content on it.

How much a 64GB or higher cart will cost is also a question. Right now Nin won't use them because they are too expensive and Nin/the pubs aren't ok with having to eat the extra cost and don't want to add it to the cost for the consumer. Which is also holding back games they could have now if they just left the decision up to the customer on whether to pay a little more to have access to those bigger games. When Switch offers more storage in larger carts, or micro SD becomes cheaper, or they launch a newer Switch model with more internal storage etc, that will be a good thing and I hope they do, because storage and battery are lacking and holding Switch back some and they could really benefit from a newer model. Their sales are going so well right now though, I don't know if they will feel the need to upgrade so soon. If a PS portable hit the market though, it could potentially mean an upgraded Switch, sooner than later, and for a reasonable price as well, which would be a good thing.

Even Wii U and Vita can't run Hyper Light Drifter with graphic look like late NES game so because it is 2d mean nothing

I suppose it would be possible if they made the PS5 like a Switch, although I doubt they would do that. I don't think it'd be able to handle running even PS4 quality games, or the system would cost a lot. They'll likely do a traditional console for the PS5, which is fine.

Making a Switch style PS4 I figure could have some success, but not the same sales as the PS4.

But they can both run Shovel Knight, Shantae: Half Genie Hero, and Steamworld Dig, all of which are 2D games. The 3DS also has games like Super Mario Maker, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Mighty No. 9 and Super Street Fighter IV, which are also 2D games. I'm not sure why you have the impression that the 3DS can't run 2D games.

Besides, Hyperlight Drifter was cancelled for Vita and Wii U not because it couldn't be done, but because it turned out to be too much work and not worth the effort. Besides, Hyperlight Drifter.

https://www.polygon.com/2016/9/9/12853072/hyper-light-drifter-wii-u-ps-vita-canceled

"Heart Machine spent months trying to optimize the game for the [Vita], Preston told backers, but doing so would require essentially starting from scratch.".

At the moment, none third party is willing to use 32GB cart for Switch, let alone 64GB, that is developers's choice, not Nintendo so ok or not is meaningless if no one use them. Your portable is digital only so it is necessary for several micro sd cards for both AAA, DLCs and indies. Switch at least use cartridge that can fit 16GB game and use cards for multiplayer. Outside Nintendo games, none buy Nintendo system for Western AAA online multiplayer games so no need for many cards, one 256GB card can be enough. Finally, your handheld will come out next year or even 2020, you would think Nintendo won't release a new Switch with stronger chip at that time when Xavier - X3 came out this year already. 3 years later, it will be a lot cheaper

That is why i said 2d or not is meaningless if the hardware is too slow and cost too much time to optimize. If Nintendo try to optimize old 3ds hardware to run SNES VC, then maybe in 2018 it can happen with 75% games at full 60 fps in 3D, 25% left is impossible. Meanwhile, let's ignore New 3ds can run all 100% at 60fps in 3D and takes only one-third of years to work on, sound reasonable

I never made an argument that the 2D nature of the games were meaningless. We are however, talking about Super Nintendo games that are almost 30 years old. Let's not pretend these are demanding games on par with 2D games that were released in the past few years.

Again, we already have a homebrew emulator in SNES9X for the base 3DS that already has perfect emulation in over 85% of Super Nintendo games. There's no reason to suspect that Nintendo can't do even better than that with their own in-house developed emulator considering a) they have an technical team with far more combined expertise and b) they understand the SNES and 3DS hardware better than literally anyone else on the planet. Why would we expect Nintendo to be less successful than you can.

Also, please provide a source that the SNES emulator Nintendo built for the 3DS plays 100% of Super Nintendo games perfectly, and provide a source that Nintendo spent 4 months working on it. Please note that 100% of the games released on the N3DS Virtual Console are already emulated perfectly by the SNES9X base 3DS emulator.