I actually agree with the perspective presented here in this article regarding the NES Classic:

See, this perspective seems really far from how I remember things going.

From summer last year to the release day of the Switch, all we were thinking about was Nintendo

Following E3, which had a lot of hype because of Zelda, there really wasn't much said about Nintendo. People were curious what the NX was, but beyond that there wasn't a lot of hype/interest.

We were debating the merits of the NES Classic while simultaneously chomping at the bit for the release of the Switch.

Like I don't know of many people who cared about the Switch before January, since almost nothing was known. Similar things can be said about the NES Classic, as I don't recall people being overly exciting for it to release. As a long standing Nintendo buyer, I actually saw it as a stupid item. It was a good value if you wanted all of those games, but overall it was a novelty item that has some great games. Not something I was going to lose sleep over and certainly not something I am going to rush over to Best Buy to obtain tomorrow.

Now we are pining for the release of the Switch Virtual Console

I honestly wouldn't say the demand for VC is terribly high, though people definately want it, if only to fully replace their 3DS. I've personally seen more people ask for Persona 5 for the Switch than request VC release faster.

The Virtual Console will give players access to a massive library of classic games, if you are really hankering to play the simplistic games of your youth while drinking Crystal Pepsi and wearing parachute pants.

Not to mention you could easily avoid this problem by buying a Wii and or 3DS and just getting games off there. Considering a classic goes for $200~, you could easily get 10 to 20 games and a Wii for the same price if you absolutely wanted to. There is no need to wait for the Switch to get it and this doesn't even include questionable things either.