We will have to agree to disagree.  I don't see a new hardware announcement right after the holidays, bad PR.  And I don't see an announcement followed by a launch a few months later.  I just don't buy it.  

And the difference is the holiday sales are significantly higher than Q1.  So there would be more unhappy consumers if they announce right after the holidays.  

I just want a powerful Nintendo console. Bring back old Hiroshi Yamauchi.

It is possible the Switch's successor is announced not that long before launch but the PS5 doesn't really support your argument since while it was fully shown off in June 2020 it was announced and talked about quite a bit in 2019 so anyone paying a bit of attention knew well in advance the PS5 was coming late 2020.

Yep. Hardware isn't announced and released months later. It doesn't work that way.

I didn't remember those details off the top of my head but yeah neither support it. Nintendo might announce it not far from launch but with historical precedence it definitely can't be expected. 

We know it will be fast enough to run Nintendo games but will it be enough to run current gen games? Cyberpunk 2077, COD, Ass Creed? Nvidia better develop a chip set that isn't outdated in the first year. I'd say at least 12GB of RAM (better 16 like the steam deck), an 8-core CPU and a decent GPU with DLSS should to the trick.

Switch reveal is how 90%+ of people found out about the product, believe it or not most consumers don't live on video game message boards or read Nintendo's financial year end statements. Nintendo announced "NX" in 2015, sure, but gave no idea of what the system was or any detail beyond the name "NX" which is like ok ... you're going to pre-order a system because you like the letters "N" and "X"? It was done more to appease stockholders at the time because Nintendo's stock was tanking on the Wii U's failures and they had to say we are working on the next system. 

For "Joe Average Consumer" the Switch was announced in late October and released the first week of March. So basically yes, a little over 4 months of actual marketing time. I doubt even 3% of Switch owners know if was initially announced under the codename "NX". October 2016 is the first time they saw anything about the system and could make a judgement on whether they wanted it or not. PS5 announced in June 2020 and launched in November 2020. Switch OLED announced in July 2021 and launched October 2021. 

Times have changed, you have a thing called social media these days which spreads information and news rapidly to people and since Apple made product unveils a mainstream news event more than a decade ago, news outlets pick up on a big product unveil instantly these days. 

Even 5 months I think is a longer than needed time span. iPhones get like a week of lead time, you don't need months and months and certainly not years of lead time to build "hype". People can look at a product on Youtube or their social media feed and decide very quickly if its something they want or not. 

Where are you getting this from? 

It seems highly unlikely that the Switch 2 is going to release with a chipset that is "roughly a base Xbox One." GCN 1.0 is pretty ancient compared to Ampere (about eight years older), this Switch 2 likely will have far faster memory (LPDDR5 > DDR3, and no the 32 MB of eSRAM doesn't totally make up for it), and of course a much better CPU than the Jaguar in the XBO. 

Even if we looked at theoretical performance of the rumored, hypothetical Switch Orin Chip, it is estimated to compute 1.9 FP32 TFLOPS, whereas the XBO only was estimated to compute 1.3 FP32 TFLOPS. And again, with the much better CPU, newer architecture, and better ram bandwidth this theoretical performance likely will be better realized in actual games. 

The Switch 2 likely won't be able to play at 4k, but 1080p (or close) and with DLSS 60fps (or higher) definitely is doable. 540p -> 1080p seems to only be a scenario that will happen for the seemingly inevitable Series S to Switch 2 ports, akin to what the Steam Deck does, but likely better if these specs are true or to improve battery life by running games at lower power settings. 

Switch was unveiled for marketing purposes on Oct. 20th, 2016 and launched on March. 4th, 2017 ... which is like 4 1/2 months of actual real marketing. I don't think Nintendo announcing NX in 2015 really means anything, they give zero details on the product or wouldn't even comment what kind of system it was or what games it would have, it was meant to appease stockholders that something other than the Wii U was coming and don't dump the stock please.

Switch Lite was unveiled July 10 and released on September 20th, 2019, basically 2 month gap there.

Switch OLED was unveiled July 6th, 2021 and released October 8th, 2021. About 3 months.

PS5 was unveiled on June 11th, 2020 and launched on November 12, so basically almost 5 months exactly from reveal to product launch. That's actually probably a more equivalent relevant for Switch because Switch (unlike the Wii U) is actually successful like the PS4 was, you don't want to announce a successor like 1+ year in advance or cut off a holiday season for no reason, that's just stupid. 

You really only announce game systems way in advance these days if you're existing system isn't doing that great (Wii U, even XBox One). If you have a very successful console you shouldn't be revealing a successor system or even a new model very far in advance any more because all you're doing is killing your own sales momentum, if you don't have sales momentum, then sure, announce away.

4 months even is plenty to build hype. All you really need is basically a good launch trailer and good launch titles these days, that basically is all the Switch had, Nintendo went from having a shitty brand rep with Wii U and even the 3DS not doing that great to only needing 4 months to build big hype for the Switch. It just takes a good launch trailer and a big ticket launch title and you're off to the races, it's not that much more complicated than that.

The early adopters are forum/twitter users though, or at least people who follow gaming news a bit more closely. Average consumers hardly buy a gaming console at launch, it's more expensive, has few games, it's sometimes harder to find at stores and sometimes it's just someone who is used to adopting late, people who buy consoles in the middle of their lifecycles since always and don't want to buy new hardware because their older hardware is still perfectly functional. 

Companies need to keep those gamers engaged and updated, they are the ones more likely to preorder hardware