Chasing power has historically been a waste of time in the console space.
Despite the Master System being better on paper the NES sold well because it offered games and genres that nobody had played before. The NES’ software kept it going even into the Genesis short-lived reign.
The Game Boy was an industry laughing stock and every time a more powerful handheld was announced it was going to “crush” the Game Boy line. It never happened, not even close.
When the SNES released it was still technically “weaker” than the Genesis. It outsold the Genesis despite this, mainly due to it’s first party software.
N64 was Nintendo chasing the power figure hard. The PS1 was vastly weaker and outright trounced it.
The GameCube was technically trading blows with the Xbox in terms of power while in early the PS2 was barely outperforming the Dreamcast. The PS2 outsold the other three combined despite that.
DS games looked more than a generation behind the PSP library. Despite Sony’s attempt to “drag portable gaming out of the ghetto” with a more powerful handheld they missed the point of portable gaming. The PSP did well, but compared to the weaker DS it was clearly behind.
The Wii was “Two GameCubes taped together” competing against the first wave of HD systems. Despite being on the market for a shorter duration and being about half as powerful as competing consoles it led the market.
Nintendo then taped two Wiis together and released the WiiU which was now at the top of the systems at the time in power terms. Despite selling against systems at the end of their shelf-life and receiving multiple price cuts early in its life it failed hard.
Sony doubled down on the PSP philosophy and released the expensive Vita with expensive storage against what was basically an updated DS with slightly better visuals and a gimmick 3D effect. Despite the beautiful OLED screen and amazing visuals the Vita was one of the biggest blunders in gaming history despite actually being a great system.
The PS4 launched alongside the Xbone and trounced it. Despite being the first case listed where the console was more powerful, it was not the determining factor in the sales split. The Xbone reveal was the joke of the generation. The Xbone X released mid gen against the jet-powered PS Pro and the 6TF machine still didn’t make a difference. As those two machines duked it out Nintendo launched the Switch, a vastly weaker hybrid console. It also had a mainline Zelda and Mario game in its first year and was instantly a success.
Xbox Series on paper is stronger than the PS5 (feel free to debate this amongst yourselves, I really don’t care). It’s evident what direction the sales split is going this gen though. The now much, much, much, much (laughably) weaker Switch is cleaning house with no major releases in over a year, no price drops (technically the OLED Switch will be a price increase) and a library of WiiU ports. It’s on a trajectory to outsell the DS and PS2. Nintendo has perfected the evergreen title. Never a price drop on their software but sales are perpetually strong because the games have no shelf-life.
As this forum really likes to point out, most gaming PCs are 486 powered with graphics cards from 2007 because most people aren’t willing to dump $1000 on a gpu to have 8K nipples in their modded Skyrim.
In all of the above instances over the span of gaming going back to the NES there was only one case where the more powerful system outsold the weaker platform and in that case it was more due to poor leadership and a $100 price difference. In that single case it was also not Nintendo.
But maybe this time power will be the determining factor for Nintendo. They should totally blow all their savings to make a 4K hybrid console with a terrible battery life that costs $500 or more.