Developers still reportedly struggling to get Nintendo Switch 2 dev kits

We’re a few months behind the launch of Nintendo Switch 2, but apparently getting development kits hasn’t gotten any easier.

Digital Foundry shared its latest findings following Gamescom 2025 last week. The outlet’s John Linneman, after speaking with various developers, has heard that Nintendo is encouraging teams to simply ship their games on Switch 1 and “rely on backwards compatibility.” The interest from teams is there, but access to development kits are still limited. The reasoning for that isn’t clear – only Nintendo would have the answer.

Digital Foundry’s Oliver Mackenzie also brought up how previously, he heard that “there were some weird exclusions with some big developers struggling to get kits for games”. Even if you’re a big publisher or developer, it sounds like obtaining a Nintendo Switch 2 development kit is far from guaranteed.

Linneman and Mackenzie said during a podcast:

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: “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.”

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