Lots of people getting a little heated here, over something that's not too important in the grand scheme of things.
I think "fanboy" bias often makes these threads combative and that skews perspective. I've been playing video games at home since the Atari 2600 was a current gen console, and whilst I don't claim that makes me an unquestionable authority (age=/=wisdom), I have observed a few things over the years that are pertinent to this conversation.
On the Switch home console/hybrid/handheld question: This is a semantic argument and could roll on for pages with no resolution. You could hook a SEGA Nomad up to a TV and it played Geneis games, but it was definitely a handheld. PSP 2000/3000/Go also had TV out, and played PS1 games perfectly, but I never heard anyone call them hybrids (there's even an official dock for the PSPGo). maybe a hybrid console is actually a new thing, that does happen sometimes you know.
If we accept for a moment that the Switch is a handheld, does that mitigate its low (compared to generation rivals) performance specs? Well, the Vita is a powerhouse of a handheld (or does the existence of PSTV make it a hybrid?), that can produce some remarkable graphics, but that's not something I've heard talked about much, most conversations about the Vita revolve around how it's failing and has no good exclusive games (which is not true IMO, but off-topic).
This leads to my next point: So many threads on the temp are dominated by people chucking technical specifications around and using them as some way of divining the fortunes of a console, but history just doesn't support this theory, there are plenty of examples where a weaker console has emerged as the clear sales leader in a generation. For example:
PS2 massively outsold XBOX, Gamecube and of course, the poor old Dreamcast, but graphically it's the weakest of the group. When the first PS2 imports arrived in the shop I worked in back in 2000 we set one up playing Tekken Tag Tournament next to a Dreamcast playing Soul Calibur, same developer, same genre and not one customer who saw the two side by side thought the PS2 was the superior machine. Dreamcast and XBOX had visually stunning games while developers were stll trying to cure the "jaggies" on PS2. Nonetheless, PS2 absolutely owned that generation (and every other generation if you just count units sold).
If you put handhelds under the same magnifying glass: Game Gear, Lynx, NeoGeo Pocket were all considerably more graphically impressive than GameBoy, but most people know how that one played out.
Last night, after reading a thread on the subject of Metroid games elsewhere on GBATemp, I sat down to play Metroid: Other M, a game I'd ignored up until now because I had heard it wasn't such a great game , especially compared to the Prime trilogy. Well, the game is actually pretty fun, a little simplistic and easy compared to most Metroids, but enjoyable enough that I sat in front of it for four hours. Now I was playing this game in 480p resolution on my 40" TV, and not once did I find myself thinking "this game would be way more fun if the graphics were running at 60fps 1080p".
So, don't get hung up on power, that alone doesn't make or break a console. 3rd party support on the other hand is important, as is marketing and public perception of a console. I think Nintendo has taken some missteps with their Switch marketing thus far, and I maintain their pricing is borderline delusional.
Will the Switch's failure kill Nintendo? Not as long as Pokemon is a thing. That said, it might be the last "home" console they make if it doesn't do well. Sega had fails with the 32X, Saturn and Dreamcast and had to abandon hardware manufacture to stay in existence, which they've managed to do. Nintendo has a ton of valuable IP, they've already swallowed their pride and released on a non-Nintendo platform (Super Mario Run), I'm sure they have a contingency plan should the Switch "experiment" fail.
JM 
