lol, you downplayed the system every thread you could for 3+ years here, now you want to act like it never happened. That's on you dude, not me. I don't point it out much at all. 

People who also try to fashion themselves as "Nintendo experts" here might also actually want to do some basic homework and understand "Nintendo" of today was always very different from Nintendo of 10 or 20 years ago. The board of directors is completely changed, the president is completely different, the hardware division is headed by completely different people. It was telling in the Switch 2 "Ask A Developer" segment that one of the heads of the Switch 2 hardware said they weren't happy with Switch 1 hardware performance (essentially they chose the off the shelf Tegra X1 for time/cost purposes, there wasn't time to make a bespoke chip and they likely got a heckuva deal on that chip) and they stated they wanted better for Switch 2 ... most people have no clue that that is Nintendo's current hardware division philosophy, they still think the same people from 20 years ago run the hardware division. 

It's like having a discussion with someone who wants to talk NBA or NFL or NHL ... OK fine, but they still think teams have the same rosters and players they had 20 years ago ... like lol, you don't have any clue what you're even talking about, almost all the players you think are playing retired years ago. A lot of people would be a lot better off simply admitting "I don't know much about this new Nintendo president, and I didn't even know they had a new hardware team essentially, so it would be hard for me to say what the next hardware could be". For whatever reason some people think they know everything about Nintendo to make wild predictions with complete certainty, they don't even understand who is running the company. 

By taking advantage I'm referring to being able to do things that are just not possible on a CPU that weak or a hard drive. For the former one example is Act 3 in Baldur's Gate 3 being really CPU demanding to where the most demanding area can drop into the 30's on the PS5 even after the optimization work they've done and for the latter you have Rachet & Clank: Rift Apart where you get transported instantly to completely different areas where with a hard drive it takes way longer and destroys the creative intent.

On the GPU side ray tracing and DX12 Ultimate features like mesh shaders are things that don't work at all on hardware that wasn't built to support them which is why games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Doom the Dark Ages can run on a 3050 but not a 1080ti. Generations are for sure way less of a thing than before but they're not fully dead yet since there will be games that come out next decade that would not be able to run on gen 9 consoles, there will just be less of them than before compared to this gen and gen 8.

It's too early to discount anything at this point. 

Secondly, you're not even correct on what you're talking about, Nintendo had upgraded DS model as well (DSi) which had more RAM and a new CPU design, they also did it with the Game Boy Color, so that's 3 times, not once. The 3DS was not the first or only time they did that at all. 

But even that is relatively meaningless, the new hardware team is nothing like the DS/3DS era, they're not honor bound to do anything the same way. They can do whatever they want. The people who were primarily making the final decisions for hardware 20-25 years ago at Nintendo are largely long gone. Even Miyamoto is basically semi-retired from the game division these days, he mainly focuses on the movies and theme parks at this point.

Even the name "Switch 2" a lot of people went on and on and on about how "Nintendo will never do that! Only Sony does that! Nintendo will never copy something Sony does" ... uh wrong. Nintendo will do whatever is good for Nintendo in the moment, the younger leadership and designers at Nintendo today grew up also with Playstation 1 and other consoles too not living in a bubble, they don't have any kind of aversion to copying things from Sony or anyone else if it stands to benefit Nintendo of today. 

While the GBC is counted as a GB model that scenario is unique in that the new model was essentially a new platform to succeed the old model which is different from the context of a Pro model here in the execution of the PS4 and PS5 which have to coincide with the base model where as GBC was to fill the void left by the failure to release the GB2 project which eventually was inherited by the GBA.

DSi is no different to the 3DS example as the changes were very inconsequential to the big picture that few games required them especially as it came in the last two years of the DS' life and it certainly did nothing in regards to closing the gap in the power difference between the DS and the PSP that job went to the 3DS which ironically all of this backs the point being highlighted in that no Pro model like the PS5 Pro is coming because Nintendo would rather just release a successor instead even back with the GBC and different people in charge the same philosophy was present as it is now.

S2 name makes sense because it makes marketing much easier that was never an issue, what Nintendo chooses to copy is often executed in a manner that maintains their business model.

Fair points.  I suppose cross gen might hold back some developments  but it seems somewhat negligible at this point.  Plenty of games have optional RT, so the ps5 could push RT on cross gen ports.  Heck isn't spiderman one of those examples?

And all hardware eventually will be obsolete, that is a good point, the window is just much larger.  

It's easy to say after the fact "oh yeah that was always going to happen". 

The fact is people should probably avoid making sweeping generalizations about things they frankly aren't very clued in on. 

I have no idea what Microsoft's game division is doing with the next XBox. I know someone named Sarah Bond I think is running the division (is that even correct?) but I'm not going to make sweeping statements about what they're doing, I don't know who the fuck is in charge of their hardware division or what their priorities are at all and I'm not going to sit here and pretend I would know what their philosophy. 

Nintendo's business model is to make money, period. How they accommodate that radically changes from decade to decade, if you told people here 15 years ago that movies and theme parks would be a core pillar of Nintendo's business and Miyamoto would be working more on movies than games, most people would say "no chance in hell". If you said they'll have a paid online network, people would always "no way, never". Well shit changes, Nintendo has completely different leadership that grew up in a completely different time period of time with completely different ways of looking at things today and the market conditions are completely different from what the market was 10 years ago, let alone 20. 

GBC is a separate system with BC, not a "pro" model of the GB, it has many exclusives, as many games as the Nintendo 64 had in Japan, if I recall it right. It just had a crossgen period which was new back then, but it's like other systems have since some time now.

Devs wanted to support the old system with games because of its existing userbase, just the same as they want now. It's even the same with Switch 2 where Switch 2 games carts that are crossgen can be used on Switch 1 physically, as were the black carts for Gameboy Color back then.

Even the best game on GBC, Pokémon Crystal, can't run on a GB, people that say both are the same say because Nintendo combined both system sales, but they are definitely two separate systems, like the Switch 1 and 2 are now.

Game Boy Color was doing the Pro model thing decades before Sony and Microsoft did it and no it's not a distinct hardware system, Nintendo does not list it as such or even show what the GBC alone sold, its sales are included with the Game Boy, just like PS4 Pro sales are included with the PS4. 

There wasn't even any deep thought process in making the Game Boy Color anyway, Yamauchi basically just insisted on having for the holidays (lol) rather quickly. The Game Boy successor at the time (Atlantis) stuck in development shit and they quickly just created a different Game Boy model and gave zero fucks that it could run its own games or not. It's whatever Yamauchi felt like that week. 

Not that any of that means shit today. Nintendo's hardware designers of today were in high school or college when the Game Boy Color came out, they're not going to make hardware decisions because of arbitrary rules from 1998, lol. That means nothing to them.

MS don't even know what they're doing tbh where as Nintendo do as the latter have a core identity and philosophy that they stick to in all their eras of being, nothing has radically changed at Nintendo they've just found a modern way to execute their usual approach, movies have always been a thing it's just until now where they could be executed well unlike the 1993 Mario attempt, media was always a thing with SMB animated series along with Zelda, Pikmin shorts, Kirby etc... People never dismissed them having paid online if anything people said they'd pay for better online I remember that sentiment from the Wii days, Nintendo's current President said in an interview a few days ago that the films, media and theme park are to introduce and increase exposure for their IPs in other words divert more people to their platforms to buy games which is their core philosophy as licenses on the platform are their main income.

GBC is a pro model hence why its sales are counted together with the GB it was just handled as a separate platform to fill a massive void as the Atlantis project which was the GB2 was too expensive to proceed with, rumoured that it would have cost more than even consoles if released.