Rumor: Nintendo Being “Very Selective” About Which Developers Receive Switch 2 Dev Kits

In a little over a day, Nintendo will be fully revealing the Switch 2 in a dedicated Nintendo Direct presentation.

In the interim, rumors have continued to swirl about the now mythical successor to the Switch. This batch of rumors relate to the Switch 2 dev kits, which are necessary for developers to make games for the new console.

According to Digital Foundry’s John Linneman, “many developers” still do not have access to a Switch 2 dev kit, potentially meaning that they will miss out on having their games prepared for the console’s launch. Linneman says that these are mostly “medium to small developers”, and he suspects that Nintendo is being “very selective” about which third party developers will receive a dev kit.

“I think there will be third-party games early on of course, it just seems like a lot of medium to small developers still do not have access to development hardware.”

Separately, industry insider Imran Khan revealed a possible reason why Nintendo might be reluctant to hand out dev kits. In a post on ResetEra, Khan cited Embracer Group as an example of a third party group that did not receive any dev kits. Khan claimed that Nintendo found them “too chaotic”, presumably referring to the company’s habit of shuttering studios without warning. Nintendo would understandably be worried about their dev kits going missing or worse due to these issues.

I know of at least one kind of big third party that didn’t get anything because Nintendo deemed them too chaotic at the moment. They were afraid the kits would go to studios that would then be closed down and then the kits might have gone missing.

Just to give my notifications a rest, yes, it was Embracer.

These rumors come after a report which claimed Nintendo would be adopting a three-phase strategy for game releases, where third party studios would only receive their dev kits in June 2025 in preparation for the second phase. Linneman and Khan’s claims would line up nicely with this report, provided their info is accurate.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.