Nintendo accused of “discouraging Switch 2 development” by denying developers dev kits
Nintendo’s Switch 2 dev kit shortage is dampening interest in the system
The Switch 2 launched several months ago, and today the console is readily available through retailers. Despite this, developers are still having trouble getting their hands on dev kits for the console, hampering game development for the platform.
After discussing this with “plenty of developers”, Digital Foundry’s John Linneman said that “Nintendo seems to be almost discouraging Switch 2 development to some degree”, later saying that some developers were told to release their games on Switch 1 and rely on backwards compatibility for Switch 2. Yes, developers are being actively discouraged from developing bespoke game versions for Nintendo’s Switch 2 console. Digital Extremes confirmed last month that its lack of a Switch 2 dev kit is preventing the company from releasing an enhanced Switch 2 version of Warframe.
Game developers want to create Switch 2 games, but Nintendo isn’t letting them do it. While it could be argued that Nintendo wanted to maximise Switch 2 console availability at launch and therefore limited the manufacturing of Switch 2 development kits, this argument doesn’t explain why development kits remain unavailable. While Nintendo’s original Switch remains important to Nintendo as a platform, that is no reason to discourage game development for Switch 2.
John Linneman: “Nintendo seems to be almost discouraging Switch 2 development to some degree, where I’ve spoken with plenty of developers where they were either told that their game.. they should just ship it on Switch 1 and rely on backwards compatibility. There’s a lot of developers that are unable to get Switch 2 dev kits. We talked to a lot of devs at Gamescom this year and so many of them said the same things. They want to ship on Switch 2. They would love to do Switch 2 versions. They can’t get the hardware. It’s really difficult right now.”
Oliver Mackenzie: “I don’t really understand the strategy because like you said, even now developers are struggling to get systems. And I know that some months ago when we’re, you know, hearing things through the grapevine and talking to people, there were some weird exclusions with some big developers struggling to get kits for games, from what we’ve heard. And there were some weird inclusions as well, like some indies were included which is nice to see but like there’s that campfire game you know the kind of camera campfire game and they’re getting kits and some big developers on the other hand who developed like AAA stuff aren’t necessarily in the pipeline there for kits.”
– Digital Foundry – DF Direct #228
Nintendo needs to solve this problem, or developers will lose interest
If Nintendo fails to solve its Switch 2 dev kit availability problem, some developers will move on. There is no shortage of developers who want to bring their games to Switch 2 or enhance their existing Switch titles. As time passes, interest in doing some of these projects will diminish.
If Nintendo fixes this problem, gamers will have more reasons to upgrade to Switch 2. There will be more Switch 1 games with Switch 2 upgrades. Furthermore, the Switch 2 will gain access to many new games that are too big/demanding for Nintendo’s Switch 1 hardware. For many games, telling developers to target Switch 1 instead is a non-starter. Furthermore, this dev kit shortage could harm Nintendo in the short to mid-term. After all, devs can release games for Switch 2 if they don’t have development hardware.
Hopefully, Nintendo has (or soon will) taken steps to increase the availability of Switch 2 development hardware. While it will take time, Nintendo should be able to create and ship enough dev kits to meet demand. If not, expect game developers to get angrier and angrier at Nintendo for preventing them from doing their work.
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