Nintendo Switch 2 Third-Party Lineup May Be Suffering From a Lack of Dev Kits

There may be fewer third-party titles in development for the Nintendo Switch 2 due to a reported scarcity of dev kits. Since its launch on June 5, the Nintendo Switch 2 has proven to be an elusive console for some potential buyers, and it appears the same is true for third-party developers eyeing its dev kits.

A few months ago, the Switch 2 began a fresh chapter for Nintendo, ushering in a new generation of the company’s hybrid console offering. The beefed-up successor to the 2017 original brought several new features, including significantly more powerful internal hardware. Thanks to this upgrade, some games that ran modestly on the original Switch received big performance boosts on the Switch 2. However, it seems like not enough developers are currently in line to leverage the latest Nintendo system’s hardware power to ship their games, and it’s apparently not due to their own unwillingness to do so.

Switch 2 Dev Kit Shortage Reportedly Preventing the Arrival of More Third-Party Games

Nintendo has been “almost discouraging” third-party development for the Switch 2 by failing to provide studios with dev kits, per Digital Foundry’s John Linneman (via Insider Gaming). He continued by explaining that some devs had been told by the gaming giant to simply make their games for the Switch 1 and let the Switch 2’s backwards-compatibility cover for the absence of a dedicated version for the latter console. Linneman also shared that “many” devs, whom he talked to at last week’s Gamescom, also echoed the same sentiment and said they were unable to build games for the newly released console because of dev kits being hard to come by. On the other hand, Oliver Mackenzie of Digital Foundry revealed that there were “weird” decisions when it came to distributing dev kits, in which certain indie studios received the hardware that even AAA devs were “struggling” to secure.

There is little denying that the early months of Switch 2’s lifecycle have seen a noticeably sparse game lineup. Although the Nintendo console has sold incredibly well, there may be a section of potential buyers who have not pulled the trigger yet due to the very limited number of Switch 2-specific titles being available right now. Had Switch 2 dev kits been delivered to more third-party studios in time, things in this regard may have been different and may have resulted in even better early sales for the console.

Given that the availability of dev kits is reportedly still an issue, fans may want to keep their expectations in check for third-party releases coming to Switch 2 in the near future. On the first-party side of things, there are only a few more noteworthy releases, such as Kirby Air Riders, expected to land exclusively on Switch 2 later in 2025.