Did anyone really think they would try and compete with MS and Sony in the power game ? it's simply not profitable enough and as many have said - it adds to the development cost of nintendos own games which means less profit.
Nintendo always has been and always will be a company that makes toys for people to buy from THEM. If others can also make a few bucks - great ! but that's not what Nintendo wants. The Wii U is actually almost a perfect execution of the nintendo eco system , it's just that thanks to poor marketing and going to far into the realm of making something no one wanted , it didn't sell enough to convince third parties they could make any money themselves.
Japanese gamers still buy portable electronics - the 3DS and Vita have sold much better compared to their home console variants , Nintendo is a japanese company ergo they will make a portable to succeed the 3DS line to keep their home country profitable and viable in the marketplace.
I've long been of the opinion that the N-X is a codename for nintendos entire future business strategy - New Xperience / Nintendo Xperience.
Amazing technical prowess just doesn't really gel with this idea - they need to make a very cheap device , especially with the new portable. As well , the wii U strategy of including that screen controller is a major part of it's undoing BUT if the future portable could pair itself with a console just a bit more powerful than a wii U (a console that just had a regular controller in the box) you could still generate the same Xperience.
The NEW 3DS is little more than a stop gap , much like the DSi was prior to the 3DS launch. It's the best version of a 3DS but it's still just a 3DS. So obviously a new portable isn't going to set the spec world on fire - it will be about as powerful as it can be for a build cost of around 100 USD. That way they can sell these things damn cheap .
The actual home console replacement ? it will be to the wii U what the wii was to the gamecube - a cheaply built overclocked replacement with more memory. I could see them replacing the wii U's processor with roughly the same jaguar CPU that's in an xbox 1 or a ps4 but only because it's one of the cheaper components in those 2 and it's now a 3 year old design. The GPU will NOT be anything special though - they will want this home version of the NX to be cheap to build and cheap to sell as well - I'm thinking , honestly here - 149.99 USD is the maximum sensible pricepoint for a new portable - if Nintendo is serious about fast adoption rates, likewise the home console version can't be priced higher than 199.99 USD - I don't think it will be available for purchase until late 2017 either so it will need to look price competitive against a 4 year old PS4/XB1 , the latter of which could be marked down to 249.99 for a barebones console by that christmas. So really, even 200 USD is going to be a bit much.
Nintendo will almost have to build a portable that costs 75$ to make and sell it for 99$ and then build the home console for 125$ to sell it at 149$. Thus, buying both is worth about the same as a wii U is now. That's going to be impossible if they don't simply go for the lowest price point which means the cheapest parts to get the lowest build cost. It's even entirely possible that they're designing a custom APU that will go into both machines but the home version will be overclocked a bit and have double the memory with no other differences.