> Acting in a way that's bound to piss everyone off but doing it so late that the upside to them is minimal ... is a weird unforced error.

This describes their response to Palworld (the Pokemon-"inspired" game that they're suing now) too. When Palworld came out, everyone was talking about how it blatantly copied things and how surprised they are that Nintendo is doing nothing. Now, after several months of people playing Palworld and many of them enjoying it, Nintendo is suddenly choosing to sue them. And predictably, the general response is a lot more negative now, with people having a lot more positive associations with Palworld and having gotten used to assuming that it's here-to-stay.

> Lawyers move in mysterious ways I guess.

Indeed. The timeline to build a case doesn't necessarily align with the business profit goals (like in the Switch case) nor with the public relations goals (like in the Palworld case).