Don't you think Nintendo would prefer that when a product like a Switch goes EOL that it finds a new life generations later through the homebrew community?
Honestly, if I hadn't been able to play roms in college 8 years after I had packed my 8bit Nintendo away I would not have purchased anything on virtual console for the Wii.
I think Crystal follows the Ruby path too tightly. Ruby also never found its place in the UI framework world. The popularity of web apps during the rise of current rich interfaces and the boom of SaaS consumer products didn't give Ruby and reason for its contributor base to expand successfully. Times have changed again and we are back to being interested in standalone apps.
I really like Crystal and hope some of the UI focused community from Rust will bleed over.
Honestly, if I hadn't been able to play roms in college 8 years after I had packed my 8bit Nintendo away I would not have purchased anything on virtual console for the Wii.