Not loyal. Just ordinary consumers who see a product they like and will pay at the asking price. The expectation that consoles get cheaper over time is I think long dead. Mobiles get more expensive every iteration, so to a modern market used to the latest Apple being 10% more than last year, a handheld that's 'just this price' without changes is very sensible.So that tells Nintendo that they have a loyal fanbase which doesn’t care about performance and will pay whatever for what most would consider underpowered hardware.
As I said in another thread, the whole aspect to consoles getting cheaper over time was just a quirk of Moore's Law for a few decades of silicon progress. It's anomalous and unlike most markets. Nike trainers don't release at $200 and halve in price every year down to $20. LG TVs don't launch at $2000 and drop to $200 over 6 years. With the death of Moore's Law, we're just going to get products that are available for however long they are.