Fans blast Bandai Namco over missing Switch 2 games, delays and pricing

Fans are turning Bandai Namco’s Switch 2 slate into a broader argument about who is really showing up for Nintendo’s next platform. The loudest backlash has centered on the absence of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3, Sword Art Online: Echoes of Aincrad and Code Vein 2 on Switch 2, even as the publisher has already put Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO on Nintendo’s new console and released it there on November 14, 2025 with more than 180 fighters.

That split matters because Bandai Namco is not absent from Switch 2. The company has officially announced ELDEN RING Tarnished Edition, Shadow Labyrinth and Tamagotchi Plaza for the system, and Nintendo’s store also lists Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO as a Switch 2 title. But the reaction around the missing sequels has been harsher than a simple launch calendar complaint. For a platform that sold 1,538,260 units in Japan in its first month, more than three times faster than the original Switch over the same stretch, fans are reading every omission as a signal about how seriously a major publisher is treating Nintendo’s install base.

Elden Ring has become part of that same frustration. Bandai Namco and FromSoftware pushed Tarnished Edition from 2025 to 2026 because they said more time was needed for performance tuning. The Switch 2 edition will bundle the base game with Shadow of the Erdtree and other extras, and FromSoftware said the game had shipped more than 28.6 million units worldwide in its announcement materials. That kind of hit should be easy upside for Nintendo, but the delay, paired with a reported $79.99 price tag and the use of game-key cards on some Switch 2 releases, has fed the sense that publishers want the audience without fully embracing the platform’s hardware and retail expectations.

Nintendo has said Switch 2 supports both regular game cards and game-key cards, but the latter do not contain the full game data and require a download. That detail has become a flash point because it touches three things Nintendo cares about at once: physical ownership, pricing, and third-party commitment. In Japan, where the Switch family has long dominated hardware charts and the 2025 packaged market grew in part on Switch 2’s launch, half-committed support is not just a fan annoyance. It is a pipeline problem, and one that puts reputational pressure back on Nintendo’s own platform teams whenever marquee partners look hesitant.