Xavier is specifically designed for deep machine learning, so most of it's power would get lost in a gaming scenario unless you work very long to get the power out of the machine, similar to the Cell in the PS3. This would make porting games potentially a nightmare to realize as the power is there in theory, but unlocking it would need druidic knowledge of it's inner workings.

If Switch gets an upgrade, then what it needs is

1) A longer battery life
2) A bigger harddrive
3) a better processor that prevents framerate drops

It doesn't need better graphics. All of this focus on graphics is kind of a red herring.

I’d be in favour of incremental hardware updates on the Switch that offers a performance enhancement with a higher tier version of new software. Perhaps some bell and whistle non-core features. I don’t like the idea of calling it “The Switch Pro” though, that’s tacky. Call it something like the Switch S or the Switch 2. Then for the 3rd gen hardware, assuming it is out around the 4-5 year mark, allow software devs to begin dropping support for Switch 1 if they wish to do so, and then when gen 4 comes allow them to drop gen 2... note this probably won’t happen in most cases because they would be losing market share; but some higher fidelity games will require it.

A shrink would save power, no doubt about that. But 30W is about 10 times what the Switch is consuming, one shrink alone wouldn't cut it. It would need a 5nm process at least to get it to consume less enough to not drain the battery too fast. Add to this that Nintendo is very conservative in that regard (They want proven hardware and nodes, hence why their hardware tends to be older already at releaser than Playstation or Microsoft's internal Hardware.

Where did I ever say it could play 8K games? It can be happy to run major games in FHD even after the upgrade. I just wanted to point out that, while it's still LPDDR4, the bandwith is closer to entry level GPUs than what we have normally with CPU and hence can support a bigger GPU part without getting bottlenecked so early as LPDDR4 may have implied to other readers here.

I know directly comparing Flops is meaningless, but it can give a rough direction as to how powerful the GPU part is

I'm leaning enhanced dock, myself. It would be possible for the raw mathematical data to be sent from the console itself and translated in a secondary GPU in the dock to output in 4K without needing to patch games. Problem would be the unchanged textures, though. They would be hideous.

Don't get me wrong either, I think an enhanced dock option is a great idea too - particularly for those who play a lot in docked mode.

I would personally prefer an update to the handheld unit. I usually only play in docked mode 1-2 days a week, while playing in handheld every day. But I don't think this is a situation where the only options are an updated device OR a powered dock - I think both can be done each Switch generation.

Your basically talking about an upscaler in this scenario. It is pointless to upscale bad textures as you said.

Any upgrade the switch gets would be pointless.

The dock solution needs to be designed from the ground up with the next system to actually make it worth while. a small boost is a waste of money. It needs to be a big boost like a xbox one to xbox one x kind of boost.

I doubt that. If the games are already made with scalability in mind (Switch undocked/docked, XBO S/X, PS4 Slim/Pro, dynamic resolutions and dynamic effects), adding a third or fourth configuration should be very easy, especially if the additional version is more performant than the base version.

I don't think working with Nvidia Tegra was the right decision if they're NOT making it backward compatible; updated compatibility is kind of the point of the Tegra.

I agree that Nintendo is leaving a lot of money on the table by not supporting established bases leading up to new hardware. It would be WAY more financially beneficial if they continued supporting older hardware for at least 3 years after the launch of next-generation hardware and would establish a lot of consumer confidence in upgrading hardware down the road; it would also mean that there's no huge rush to get the killer app out - with Switch, Nintendo NEEDED to get their killer app at launch because their entire fanbase was waiting for the next console - it was make or break. BUT, if that fanbase isn't waiting, and there is instead a multi-year window for them to update, that's a much healthier way to shift between generations; and that's why mobile and PC manufacturers are so successful - you get an iPhone 5S for example, you don't HAVE to upgrade to iPhone 6 the moment it releases or lose all future software support; you're basically getting all new software for 3 years after the iPhone 6 launches, and you can upgrade when you want - and it probably won't be iPhone 6, but 7 or 8.

I'm getting flashbacks of people clamouring for a HD Wii with HD Zelda and AAA 3rd party support.

Mario Party has already given us an idea of how portable 4K can be done with Switch.