There’s a surprising rumor with a new twist about Switch 2 third party games and the alleged lack of dev kits.
What We Thought Would Be Different With The Switch 2
The Switch 2 is visibly missing out on a lot of third party games at launch. In the past 2 decades, Nintendo fans have gotten used to getting few or no ports of the biggest AAAs. That is usually attributed to the processing power of Nintendo’s platforms, but Nintendo’s relations with 3rd party developers is probably a bigger factor.
There were big expectations that this would change on the Switch 2. For one, the 3rd parties who did not jump on the Switch early missed out on a big audience, and potential lost revenue. They did not want to be missing out this time.
On top of that, Nintendo and Nvidia touted the power and capabilities of the Switch 2. DLSS differentiates Nintendo’s platform from PlayStation, Xbox, and all the other gaming handhelds.
But Then, These Rumors Started Coming Up
Developers at this March’s GDC started talking about how they could not get their hands on Switch 2 dev kits to bring their own games to Nintendo’s platform. This was days away from the official Switch 2 Direct.
Shortly afterward, Imran Khan claimed on social media that Nintendo singled Embracer Group out to lose out on dev kits. He said Nintendo was worried dev kits would slip from the hands of their studios and leak. Since that rumor, Nintendo acquired Shiver Entertainment from Embracer.
Nate The Hate said in a podcast last month that Nintendo has still not been spreading dev kits around. In fact, they are not replying to developers who are requesting dev kits.
Finally, Digital Extremes went on record that there is a backlog of Switch 2 dev kits. That seemed to be a sufficient explanation for this lack of dev kits, until now.
The Big Rumor
Jeff Gerstmann shared an email from a game developer on his latest podcast:
So my understanding is that Nintendo is NOT giving out dev kits freely because they do not want third-party devs and pubs to ship many games on Switch 2 this year.
There are secondary concerns about security and piracy as well, but I work for a well-known publisher with good relationships at NOA and NOE, and we’ve been kept at arm’s length, had requests for dev kits for our partners delayed, etc.
We’ve been explicitly been asked by Nintendo not to ship Switch 2 SKUs until a date in early 2026. They never give 100% clear reasoning, but the implication we’ve gotten is they just don’t want a lot of third-party games releasing in 2025.
Essentially they want to tamp down on releases outside of first-party games, and a small handful of very high profile third-party games.
This is a concerted effort on their part I’ve been aware of since at least late last-year, and they’ve made a very conscious effort to keep Switch 2 releases to a minimum for the first 9-ish months.
Why Would Nintendo Do This?
Nintendo’s decision trumps conventional wisdom on launching a game platform. In general, you want as many developers on your platform as possible.
Admittedly, Nintendo doesn’t need that help right now, but they could not have predicted this level of success. We are still left wondering why they’re doing this seemingly self-sabotaging move.
Our pet theory could be that it’s connected to Game-Key Cards. Nintendo decided to launch the Switch 2 with Game-Key Cards to test the idea early. That way, if they saw negative reception, they could shift gears before it could cause greater damage.
If more 3rd parties made even more Game-Key Cards, they could get mad if they didn’t sell. And they might abandon Nintendo again.
We admit this theory doesn’t take into account the Switch 2’s launch struggles. But in any case, they are in a position to address these issues early.
