It didn't matter that they were used to the architecture. What mattered was they didn't want to downgrade a game so much that it looks like complete ass. Not many people are going to be sold on a clearly inferior version. And sometimes a port just wasn't possible. Example, there was no way you could get Red Faction Guerilla running on Wii because it wasn't strong enough to run a physics engine with destructible environments like that. And downgrading it at all would take away the big selling point of the game. The Wii would freeze on Boom Blox for crap's sake (not a ton but it happened to me 2 or 3 times) and that was basically just Jenga. Heck, even the Wii U with Zelda BotW slowed down in places, and it's not even running as many objects on screen with physics as RF:G did.

Not to mention that downgrading a game becomes so much work that it's easier to make an exclusive game from the ground up (which is what happened on Wii, like Dead Space Extraction). Because then you're not trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, but malign a round peg instead. But then that system has to have a big enough install base to make it worth the time away from making a game that could come to 3 systems instead. Also because you would be putting a lot of time downgrading a game that wasn't even going to sell as well. Why put in all that effort if it's not even going to pay off or break even? If the port was easy and nothing had to be sacrificed then they wouldn't have a problem because you could still sell fewer copies and still make a profit.

Also the gap between the PS2 and GC/Xbox was nowhere NEAR the gap between Wii and 360/PS3 or Wii U and XB1/PS4. So that's a false comparison. The NX doesn't have to be a tech leader, however it has to at least reach the bar that's set. If MS and Sony are honest in having newer console games run on the OG hardware, then Nintendo just has to be as powerful as an XB1 to get ports. From then on it'll be about how big the user base is.

I never said Sony was against casuals. I was making a point that they talk more about their core fans and meeting a high bar of expectation from them, where Nintendo has not. They just say it's for both audiences. Anytime they bring up how they will attract casuals is about "offering something new" (usually a gimmick -I don't have a better term for it). And with hardcores they just say they'll have the next [insert franchise] game on it which was expected. They don't say anything about offering new features for them that they would want or expect. They're basically saying "Ya ya, you'll get your Mario and Zelda calm down, but look at THIS SHINY THING CASUALS!!" It's not a secret that Nintendo has a love/hate relationship with giving fans what they want.