For what it's worth, I don't recall the Nintendo Switch ever giving me such trouble. Creating local accounts and playing offline has been smooth for me. But I never tried Minecraft on it.
Thanks for mentioning that! I have no experience with this console but a friend already recommended me looking into the Switch. Need to confirm that what you say also applies to Minecraft on the Switch and then I would do the...well...switch.
Even the Switch needs periodic system and game updates. These tend to be small because the OS and games are small (compared to those on eighth- and ninth-generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony).
More promising in terms of the old-school "plug in and play" experience is Evercade, who can get away with it because their titles are mainly licensed, emulated retro games that aren't changing any time soon.
The Switch doesn't rely so much on AAA and live-service games like other consoles that have large amounts of graphics and voice content, since it's not powerful enough to run them (and the customer base is different).