That's correct, Wii U's RAM was divided in half with 1GB for games and 1GB for it's OS.

I kinda doubt it would've missed out on Monster Hunter altogether given Capcom made MH games for the Wii and 3DS with their 88/128MB of RAM.

It just would've been more technically limited; lower res textures, less environmental detail, etc.

This is the primary culprit behind the Switch's minimalist OS. I can't remember how much reports said it uses in the Switch's early days, but it's an extremely miniscule amount of memory. A lot more of the Switch's available memory is dedicated toward actual games while Nintendo made a snappier, more efficient OS as well.

That's why things like Miiverse had to go.

Of Switch's 4GB of RAM, 3.25GB is available for games, with 750MB reserved for the OS.

Personally I love how snappy and minimalist the Switch OS is, I much prefer it over Wii U's slow and bloated one.

Its actually a shame the Switch doesn't have more RAM. We would probably get better ports with sharper textures.

Perhaps these "impossible ports" were never really part of the plan for Nintendo.

1) That article suggests that the 4GB of RAM is for a Resident Evil game.  Where is the Switch's Resident Evil game Capcom? 

2) With less than 4GB of RAM, Switch sales would have either been about the same or higher (depending).  If less RAM lead to a lower launch price, then they would have actually sold more systems by now.

However, if the launch price stayed the same, then Switch sales would have been about the same, maybe like 1 million lower at most.  That is because most of Switch's big selling games so far have been their first party games, and the article implies Nintendo was ok on their end with lower RAM.  The really big third party games on the Switch so far have been 1) Minecraft, 2) MH Rise, and 3) Momotaro (Japan only).  It should be obvious that Minecraft and Momotaro would be fine with less RAM.  MH Rise is designed specifically for the Switch, so I think they could have made that work too, even if it didn't look quite as good.

The main games that Switch might have missed are a few cutting edge ports like Witcher 3 or the Doom games.  Most third party games would be able to run just fine on the Switch even with lower RAM.  The main thing Nintendo needs on its systems is lots of games, which Switch has.  It definitely does not need AAA third party games.  Switch has not gotten many AAA third party games so far and it is on track to be the best selling system of all time.

So, what this article is basically saying is that Nintendo does go out of it's way to build relationships with third party developers.  All internet rumors to the contrary are false.  It definitely doesn't need the big budget third party games, but they upped Switch's RAM anyway so that the few AAA developers that put their games on the Switch could take advantage of it.

The rumored Switch Pro will almost surely add more RAM.

But I couldn't see anyway Nintendo would've launched a hybrid platform in 2017 with more than 4 GB RAM. Nintendo hates selling hardware at a loss or merely breaking even. Loading the Switch with 6 GB or 8 GB of RAM would've been very costly to Nintendo. It would've been especially costly and difficult in a mobile device. 

The world's first smartphone with 8 GB RAM didn't even launch until 2017. Smartphones with 8 GB RAM are more affordable and common now, but they're still not the standard yet.

I don't know if there's a way to split RAM between the the tablet and dock. If there is, I suppose Nintendo could've put 4 GB RAM in the tablet and an extra 2 GB or even 4 GB in the dock.

1) Maybe they meant a "RE Engine" game, which would be Monster Hunter Rise, lol

2) The Switch would have still been $300 at launch with less than 4GB of system RAM, and if it still sold like it has up until this point, it would still be $300. This is Nintendo we're talking about. I highly doubt even halving the Switch's memory to 2GB would've knocked off fifty bucks at launch.

I could have sworn that I read that the Switch OS is a fraction of that, but I'll definitely take your word over mine. Sounds more realistic anyway.

There were so many times with the Wii U that I wish I could have just turned off Miiverse and other things to make the OS faster. At least Nintendo kept working on it through the Wii U's heyday to make the experience better, like the ability to hold down the B button at startup to be able to skip straight into a game on disc and skip the OS, folders (HOW IS THIS STILL NOT A THING ON THE SWITCH?), and just general fixes to make it quicker.

Well, Digital Foundry confirmed 3.25GB for games, I can't say for certain that all of the remaining 750MB is for the OS.

The USB-C connection between the Switch unit and the dock isn't fast enough for this to work.

yeah RAM doesn't work very well in this manner, plus there is the matter of the fact that, if you do this, the system might crash if you pull it out while its usuing said extra RAM.

graphics cards are different since they only handle graphics output, hense why we have thunderbolt GPU enclosures but no RAM ones despite it being technically possible, though even PCIe isn't NEARLY fast enough to run ram at full throttle.

and at any rate, to even be fast enough to run external graphics, it needs thunderbolt 1 speeds at minimum, preferable thunderbolt 2-3. and that wasn't possible unless you are using an intel CPU untill very recently when intel and apple (the owner/developer of thunderbolt) decided to make the spec public and intergrate it into USB4(probably becasue apple is moving away from intel chips). which is a VERY recent spec.