The amount of ignorance regarding hard- /software and Operating Systems in this comment section is just ... wow

I wonder why Nintendo wouldn't just release all these GC and Wii ports in the west. Ppl. woud go crazy about them, especially LoZTP (yeah Mario as well..).

Yes, the nvidia shield is basically the blueprint for the switch, with the switch having a slightly customized, optimized chip and more RAM. But basically, they share the same Tegra X1 SoC. Also, the shield 2017 is basically exactly the same as the 2015 edition, only with a smaller footprint and case.

Regarding operating systems. It's funny claiming that ppl. who think "playing on Linux is superior to Windows" are Linux Fanboys and regarding "Android a superior system" (for Gaming I assume).

Problem is, ppl. do generally not understand what an Operating System is. An OS is said to be many things, but in it's core, it is only the first layer of abstraction of the hardware and manages the hardware resources. That's called the kernel and that's it. You don't see an OS, you don't use an OS.

Now what Systems like Windows, Android, Mac OS, and GNU/Linux do, is they add libraries and Interfaces (also user interfaces) on top of a Kernel, to give Users and Devs the possibility to interact with the Hardware and actually do stuff. But that stuff is not the OS. It's auxiliary and complements the OS to provide sth. usable.

In case of Android, the actual operating system IS Linux. Android uses the Linux 4 kernel line for hardware abstraction and management. Android itself then adds an optimized Java Virtual Machine called Dalvik and brings with it all the required Java libraries to interact with all the stuff you find in mobile devices, like touch screens, sensors, gsm modules, and so on. But still, all hardware drivers are written for and integrated in the underlying Linux kernel. So on top of the kernel, Android adds another layer of hardware abstraction in form of the Dalvik Virtual Machine. Code is not directly compiled for the underlying hardware, but for the VM, and then interpreted by the VM to run on the actual hardware. The obvious advantage is, that you do not need to write your apps for a specific phone, but for the Dalvik Virtual Machine. Since Dalvik runs on top of Linux, only Linux has to be ported to the actual hardware. However, regarding performance, especially gaming performance, that's the worst thing you could possibly do. For gaming and other high performance applications, what you want is direct and exclusive hardware access.

This is also one of the reasons why Android has an extremely noticeable input lag when using controllers (on top of the also always present bluetooth lag). And this is the reason, why generally, dedicated gaming consoles have much better gaming performance than general purposes devices (with equal hardware specs), because Games can be optimized for the specific hardware and usually have access to all hardware resources exclusively.

When ppl are talking about Linux, what they really mean is a specific GNU/Linux distribution. Again, Linux is just the Kernel. You don't use Linux. You use a GNU/Linux distribution, that adds all the stuff you expect a usable system to have. In its core however, Linux is much more efficient in hardware management, than Windows is. The reason why Windows is "better for gaming" is not because it technically is the better system. It's because it's the more popular Desktop system. So Game Devs and also GPU driver devs put more effort into optimizing performance for Windows. But if you have a game engine and GPU drivers that are optimized for Linux, Games often perform better on Linux than on Windows on the same physical machine. Valve is well aware of that fact and that is also one reason why they are pushing Steam OS and Proton. Even with Proton, which is an additional Emulation Layer, some Windows Games perform better on Linux, given that you have a supported GPU with optimized Linux drivers.

The switch OS is a dedicated Gaming OS, and of course better suited for Gaming than Android. But afaik, the GC and Wii ports on the shield are actually not ported to Android. I think they are using a special direct-to-metal engine. So they should be able to bring them to the switch with minimal effort and quite possibly better performance.

Make that happen Nintendo!