The Switch 2 launched just a few months ago and was immediately a smash hit, selling more than 3.5 million devices within four days of launch. Since then, Nintendo’s sold nearly twice that much, sitting at roughly around six million machines. Those are great numbers for Nintendo, which is why it’s strange that a recent report indicates that the console manufacturer is seemingly hesitant to get dev kits for its hybrid console into the hands of devs.
Thanks to reporting from our comrades over at Digital Foundry, enthusiastic interest from developers to get their games running as best they can on Switch 2 isn’t enough. Nintendo is encouraging studios to “ship [their games] on Switch 1 and rely on backwards compatibility,” according to John Linneman on episode 228 of DF Direct Weekly. He continues:
There are 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 [of their games]. They can’t get the hardware. It’s really difficult.
DF Direct Weekly cohost Oliver Mackenzie spoke for all of us when he added that he doesn’t “understand the strategy.” He noted that for a while now, there were rumors that Nintendo was, at best, inconsistent with who it got dev kits into the hands of, and at worst, withholding. Mackenzie added that it’s odd to see the devs behind Chillin’ by the Fire receive developer machines to work on while some bigger names are seemingly left out in the cold. You can check out the whole DF Direct Weekly episode here:
Despite the increased power of the new handheld compared to the first iteration of the Switch and its popularity, there’s still a lack of native Switch 2 versions of a variety of games out there. That’s something Nintendo should seem interested in fixing, no? It’s an odd situation for sure. Then again, just about all of reality is an odd situation, seeing as the Switch 1 literally saw its price increase eight years after it shipped and a few months after its successor launched. Nintendo’s not alone in that, as Sony just upped the price of the PS5, too.
Kotaku has reached out to Nintendo for comment on this story.