Yes, Nintendo could be successful selling a powerhouse system.

A system with the most commercially successful exclusive franchises in Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon which would be able to play all the major 3rd party games at the same quality as their competitors while adding GTA6? Nintendo wins by default. All systems around the same price, Nintendo's in-house games would carry them to a win. None of Playstation or Xbox's exclusives can compete with Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, and all of Nintendo's other exclusives.

The N64 and Gamecube made the mistake of being bad for business for 3rd party publishers. The cartridges and Mini-disc were a bad deal compared to what Sony offered pubs at the time. Make a powerhouse system without replicating these mistakes and they dogwalk their competition even moreso then they're doing now. Make it like the gamecube where it doesn't do anything but play games.

With all that said, F#$% that! They don't need it because they're already winning.

If it is Nintendo's only option for a home console and has worse third-party than Xbox and PlayStation, it would do similarly to GameCube. Maybe similar to N64 in a better sales situation
If it got most of the third-party games, it would probably at least match or surpass the competition in sales with quality Nintendo titles and most third-party games available.
There is an enthusiast market for an extra more powerful SKU. That would be a better idea for Nintendo so that they can still get the majority of customers to buy the cheaper standard model.

The thing is: going forward the entire concept of a powerful console doesn't make much sense anymore.

PC is so far ahead and a console, being much more restricted in how much power they can draw, simply cannot compete on that front.

On the other hand, turning down ray tracing and especially path tracing allows to play the same game with much weaker hardware. Hence why the Switch 2 can run most games getting released right now, as games are much more scalable than they were even just 10 years ago.

The X360 and the PS3 were kind of that back in 2006. Of course, that was when the 150W $600 GTX 8800 was considered just about unprecedented in terms of size, price, and power consumption.

If you wanted a comparable console nowadays, it would probably cost at least the price of a 4090/5090 and draw just as much juice.

Nintendo did try following PlayStation once before with the GameCube, and it ate up nearly all the profits from their handhelds, and resulted in Nintendo’s first quarterly loss since the early 1960s. The other thing is the PlayStation style console is a relatively small niche, outside of the PlayStation brand; there has only ever been once exception to this historical reality: The Xbox 360. And that was more a result of a massive fumble with the PS3 launch. One more consideration: the overall demand for those types of consoles has declined compared to its peak around 2008 to 09 (when PS2, PS3, and Xbox 360 were all capable of good annual sales).

I Nintendo didn’t win with power in the NES/GB and Wii/DS eras, they won with lateral hardware advancement.
However, I think Nintendo should explore expanding the Switch 2’s platform to include both budget handheld and home console models while keeping the hybrid model as the core of its business.

And the above is just from a philosophical standpoint. There is also the technical standpoint: I suspect jumping into X86 architecture would create massive hurdles for Nintendo given the Switch is on RISC-based architecture. Someone who knows hardware might be able to clarify if this is the case and to what extent.

As for Nintendo’s next logical advancement, I think that’s into the realm of VR and AR. They’ve already pioneered in both with very limited success, but the tech will be there one day where it will be feasible as part of the Switch platform… similar to how they really just needed to wait until they could do something like Breath of the Wild.

Before this year I'd say there was one yeah. Nintendo's IPs are so incredibly strong that a single platform with all of them on it is bound to sell well. If the Switch 1 was a home console instead that was like PS4 Pro level with a better CPU and a launch year as strong then I'd imagine it'd have done at least as well as the 3DS. A huge reason the Gamecube and Wii U both flopped is that people that wanted to play Nintendo games had another option but a home console with no handheld wouldn't have had that issue.

The other issue is while Nintendo is wealthy, they are not one to be able to have that kind of hardware selling at a loss. Most likely scenario they lose money and best scenario they are in the black like Wii U. Tho even Wii U was under powered.

It's a flawed statement that was pushed because the was basically a market for a Nintendo platform that suits Nintendo's needs their best platforms have been under doing what suits them.

I am happy with the switch 2 and the graphics it can display. Ff7 Remake or cyberpunk play well. Sure a higher framerate or resolution would be beneficial but I don’t think it will get enough people buying a new or second console. I rather have the portability factor instead.

Are you referring to Wii U profiting while still being underwhelming?

In the black means profits, in the red means a net loss.

Wii U was typically sold at a loss (if not sold at one almost its entire life) to subsidize the GamePad which is rare for Nintendo.