This is very true. It's not just that Nintendo makes good games, it's that a lot of their games are wildly unlike anything else on the market. The reason I'm losing my mind over a Kirby Air Ride sequel is because there hasn't been any other game like the original from 2003. I've waited 22 years for another game that could scratch that itch.
So it's not a similar device. Comparing to phones is rather misleading, given that phones do not have active cooling and wouldn't actually be able to run the kinds of games the Switch hardware could without catching on fire in the process. They aren't gaming hardware.
Exactly what hardware at a similarly competitive price point and form factor are you comparing it to when you say it's behind?
The Switch 1 didn't use the very best top of the line parts that money could buy, but if that's what you're fixating on then you're missing the fact that neither did the Steam Deck. The Switch made compromises to hit a $300 price point in 2017, and the Deck made compromises to hit a $400 price point in 2022.
The Deck is targeted squarely at enthusiasts. While it's a fantastic product for that niche, anyone who thinks it's going to capture a market the size of Nintendo's any time soon is living in a fanboy bubble.
Hell, right now Valve isn't even capable of manufacturing half as many Decks as Nintendo will manufacture Switch 2s. They literally can't sell that number because they can't produce that number.
The Vita had far more problems than just memory cards. You came very close to identifying what the real problem was, Sony couldn't sustain supporting two separate platforms at once. And conversely, Nintendo unifying onto a single platform was what saved the Switch.
What "standards" are you comparing it to? The Switch 1 was behind home consoles, but that's not really a fair comparison. There was nothing similar on the market to appropriately compare it to, no "standard".
Five years later the Steam Deck outperformed the Switch, because of course hardware from five years later would. But the gap between the 2017 Switch and 2022 Deck is not so vast that you can definitively claim in advance to know that the 2025 Switch 2 definitely has to be worse. You don't know that and can't go claiming it as fact.
All we know so far is that the Switch 2 does beat the Deck in at least one major attribute: it has a 1080p120 screen, in contrast to the Deck's 800p60. And it is not unlikely to expect the rest of the hardware to reflect that.
Puyo Puyo Chronicle, the last good installment in the series, don't @ me. I'd like Sega to make a proper new game, but they're clearly never ever ever ever gonna do that, so the next best thing they could do is port a good one. What I need most is a game that's on all major platforms with crossplay.
Any of the classic era Tales games. Destiny DC/2 both finally got fantranslations, but Namco keeps teasing that they want to bring over the games the west never got. Eventually. Someday. Maybe. Hopefully by the time I finish the rest of my JRPG backlog.
Re: Super Metroid, it's a short enough game that even if a remake does happen, I'd say it's worth playing the original now and then playing the remake too whenever one happens. Though I'm also hard-pressed to see what a remake could bring to the table honestly, it's pretty much perfect as-is. Not like 1 and 2 which have aged horribly and needed a complete overhaul. I think I'd be concerned if they tried to mess with it.
I'd also add Mario 64's use of a controllable third person camera - all the games @Agent_Karyo mentioned are first person, and I don't think movement in those types of games is at all comparable. The camera was the key point to making a 3D platformer even possible at all, and it immediately became vital to many other genres too.
I know that by today's standards that camera is known for being rather antiquated, but it was revolutionary for its time. One detail I think deserves more credit is how they tried to anthropomorphize the camera as Lakitu to introduce it to players.
Most of the games I play are so niche that 'matchmaking' simply consists of whoever's available. Or sometimes it even requires pinging people on Discord.