Thanks for the summary.

It's called fudging the vernacular, the second phrase is what I intended to convey. And I assume you're getting your words mixed up as well, now? Because I've said multiple times that BotW is a killer app. I just don't believe it is specifically a Switch killer app and instead believe it to be a Nintendo killer app.

By that logic you were "forced" to buy a Switch if you wanted to play it on a platform that wasn't trash and had a future, and if you wanted to play it on the go. It compelled the purchase of Switch units in vast quantities, even attaining an attach rate of over 100%, by being so desirable that people bought a Switch just to play it. Therefore, by definition, it was a killer app. The fact it also got a Wii u release is ultimately irrelevant.

If you say so, doesn't change the fact that you didn't need to own a Switch to play the game. You can add all these qualifiers of "if you wanted to play it on a platform with a future", but you still didn't need to own a Switch to play it.

Only nonsensical if you really want to defend BotW as a Switch killer app instead of a general Nintendo killer app. Good luck with that.

Is "case closed" the new thing to say?

Of course botw was a switch killer app it helped to sell millions of switch consoles. It didn't help sell millions of any other console.

Here's an easy way to tell if something is a 'killer app': Would the sales of that particular console have been much lower if it didn't have that game?
If the answer is 'yes' then it doesn't matter whether the game was exclusive or not.
Would the sales of the Switch have been much lower if it didn't have BotW? Yes, therefore it's a 'killer app'.

I personally own a Wii U. I bought BotW on Switch because I wanted a Switch and that was like the only good game for it. In fact, it was a great game for it. Kinda like when I bought The Last of Us on PS4. I had the hardware and I wanted something great to play on it. Hell, my first PS4 game was Tomb Raider Definitive Edition.

It's hard to tell who bought a Switch because of Zelda and who bought Zelda because they had a Switch. Same as with Wii Sports on the Wii. If Wii Sports didn't come with the system, I'm not sure I would have purchased it separately. Not knocking Wii Sports at all. I played it a lot with a lot of people. It's just tough to gauge if it was the hardware that sold the game or the game that sold the hardware.

This is my view as well WS was packed in with the platform so it's hard to tell if it really was that big a system seller of the system selling itself and the game, Wii was cheaper than even second hand hardware available at the time and was a revamp of the motion control concept it had the tools to sell fine. WS probably would have sold well but I doubt it would have sold 82m if it wasn't packed in I imagine it's numbers would have been similar to the likes of MKWii and NSMBW instead.

I tried to justify voting BotW over SM64 because BotW is inarguably the better game,

BUT

BotW didn't do anything new, didn't bring anything to the table that we didn't already have. It just did what it did magnificently. One of the best games of all-time, to be certain, and my love for it is surely illustrated in the fact that I've personally sunk over 300 hours into it.

But SM64 was simply groundbreaking. Game changing. And it proved that the platformer didn't have to die just because of 3D gaming. And even today, 23 years later, I can still go back to it and enjoy it.

BOTW did though it's the only game that allowed for actual absolute freedom in both approach and mechanics as the result it does what many games have tried to do in the past and lets the player decide how the game plays out whether you go straight to the final boss, play through the story, play the game as an action title etc... It's the only game that does this many games before like Mass Effect and so on tried doing this with locked in choices but it wasn't as free as people hoped.

Edit: An example of the freedom to approach situations how you like.