Something Weird Is Going on with Switch 2 Game Development

Tried signing up over at https://developer.nintendo.com Rejected for development, so cannot comment on kit obtaining difficulty. Rejection was a let-down, however, the process itself is opaque, confusing, and difficult to determine your status or progress. Not surprising even large studios have difficulties. Small time indie - not even kind of.

Lots of invisible hurdles you don't know are there until you hit them. Communication channel that's difficult to figure out where you are or review past status. Huge jumble of acronym sub-sites that are difficult to navigate (NAUTH, NDID, SLIM, NMAS (NMAS2), NCMS, CRPORTAL, BMAS, SMAS, SST, BCAT, DRT). Constantly being re-asked for two-factor re-auth.

Actually quite weird for a company known for making games that are almost exactly the opposite. Really enjoy Nintendo games, really don't like their developer website and sign-up.

Comparison: Steam developer, signing up and putting launch title info was difficult, yet Wayyyyy easier and clearer to navigate. Real difficulty was actually getting everything necessary to launch a game. Google Play, dramatically easier to sign up. Much clearer steps, progress, and timeline for release. Inclusions to actually release, much clearer. Actually managed to release three products. All rejected at market, post-release removal with limited explanations. Yet at least released three products.

Nintendo "How do I even sign up?" Steam "Great, signed up, how do I release something?" Google "Wow, easy sign-up, somewhat easy release of products, eventually got three out the door. Your products have been removed for (mumble mumble legalese families deprecated)" ... meh, nobody downloaded them anyways.

Can’t wait to see how Microsoft will hold up it’s promise that Call of Duty will have feature and content parity between the XBox and Switch 2…

They cited the demo of a port having performance issues several months before release. That seems like a complete non story to me. It's brand new hardware and nobody has experience porting to or optimizing for its specific specifications yet. Early ports being unstable and requiring optimizations all the way up to or even past the release date is standard at the point in a hardware cycle.