Now put how much they invested on the port and waiting on those, plus missed revenue from delaying it plus not selling the stuff on the online portion... that certainly is quite considerable. As also was said if they were really scarred of the price for the cartridge, download would be a solution or even releasing the game for higher pricetag. Those were done in recent past without much hassle or backlash considering the profit made. I find it hard to believe they have put all the work and stopped with it finished due to it. If you said they didn't even start developing because they will wait for better margins it would make more sense.

Maybe from start they were targeting to release game when 32GB carts are cheaper or when 64GB carts arives on market. Maybe game take more than 32GB so they will have download even with 32GB cart, and using 16GB and have download of 20GB+ would be too much. They cant realy sell game for $70. We dont know details we can only take a guess, but fact is that Switch carts cost more than BD disks for PS4/XB1 espacily when we talking about bigger cart sizes (going from 8GB) and that Switch has capacity problem, so its logical to assume that those things are problem for some 3rd parties.

This are things that known and trusted insiders from Resetera exactly said on this matter:

Vern:

"Biggest problem for 3rd parties from what I’ve heard is cartridge size availability and cost for them, and that has limited some 3p releases and even caused cancellation/delay of others. Until Nintendo gets that under control or subsidizes some bigger games then don’t expect the biggest games. You still need patience. I’d love to be wrong on this but that’s what I’ve heard from multiple sources. Would be great for some journalists or insiders to investigate and let everyone know what’s the current state of the carts."

Benji:

"Yes. There are 3rd party games not on the system partially because of this"

"I'm not theorizing here. I know it to be accurate. Some very big games aren't on the platform partially due to cart cost"

"Main issue is this. If you are a 3rd party and you are looking at putting a game on Switch, and you are running into some technical issues as is and then you look at losing a LARGE chunk of your physical revenue due to prohibitively expensive carts you just say nah"

"I dont think people realize how expensive the larger scale Switch carts are. From a publisher perspective its INSANE"

"Some of these titles very well may still happen. 2 of the (VERY) big projects I've heard of are more in up and down limbo than outright 100% canceled. Hopefully things work out"

NateDrake:

"Power is on the lower end of concerns from third parties. Game cart size capacity is a far bigger issue that needs to be solved for third party support, as are software sale performance."

"32GB carts are available now but are extremely expensive. 64GB carts next yr will help a bit but, again, are expensive."

"I can say it is on the lower end of concern, because cart size and software sales are bigger issues right now. Games have been cancelled for Switch due to the limitations and cost of carts. Other games have been shelved because software sales. Power isn't the issue."

"Nintendo isn't going to bite the bullet for every third party company that wants to use larger carts. If the costs are $15-$20 higher to use a 32GB cart over an 8GB cart, that's a lot of money. Either you buy the game at retail for $80 or you DL a portion of the game."

"These aren't my concerns. They are concerns I've heard from developers contacts I have. Numerous projects are not coming to Switch because cart size limitations and cost. Games that can easily run on the platform are being skipped for those reasons."

TheRaidenPT (to be fair I dont know who this guy is, he just said what he heard):

"A couple of developers I know haven't released their games on Switch either due to the amount of costs Nintendo proposed to the publisher.

"So it's not really surprising for me, I have been hearing the cart cost for quite some time now".

https://www.resetera.com/threads/are-carts-hindering-switch-reach-in-the-same-way-it-did-with-n64.36840/page-5

Right? Rockstar would have known the price of Switch prices before they even began serious development for the game. They would have known what the licensing/manufacturing costs would be before they ever greenlit a serious investment. There's a 0% chance that Rockstar was blindsided by cartridge cost information from Nintendo, and decided to cancel/shelve a project based on this cost information during development.

You don't actually know who any of these guys are. If you did you'd be able to give me their actual games and their credentials. There's some severe misinterpretation of those quotes by you even assuming that this info is true. And again, you can't expect anyone to just trust anonymous message board posters as reliable sources, much less that everything they're claiming is true.

This is an appeal to authority where the authority is completely anonymous. I get that you trust these people, but it is patently ridiculous to expect anyone else to lower their standards to such a low bar.

Even on Android/iOS, if you have an older phone there are certainly some new games that won't run on those devices. People understand that and don't get upset. 

Like Fortnite (pretty much the biggest game out there now) won't run on iPhone 6  I believe. Would it be better if Apple nixed the game or didn't allow it onto iOS? 

Yeah, like couple generations old phones. :)  You can bet that people would very upset if Pro releases in 1-2 years and than you have bunch games that dont work on older Switch.

Yeah, but after iPhone 6 we had iPhone 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, 7, 7 Plus, SE, 8, 8 Plus, X and now XS, XS Max and XR. I mean of course after some point older hardware will not support new games, but in case of Switch we probably talking about next generation of Switch, not about Switch Pro or some other revision of current Switch.

when you choose to go the gimmicky path then you have to face the consequences.

The system runs at 1 ghz and has 4 gb of ram (and by no means the fastest ram available). The new iPhones have better hardware than that. These were design choices that have consequences. 

A portable gaming console, a device category that has existed since the 1980s, and essentially allows people who would otherwise not have the time to game is a gimmick now? Also what are the consequences? Most people are buying the Switch as a companion system and purchasing software for it, it might lack multiplat AAA but it has a unique library of its own and a hardware feature that is compelling people to purchase it alongside their existing stationary consoles (very much like previous portable hardware did). Your argument is like saying Smartphones are gimmicky because they don't run certain software designed for PCs.

The new iPhones cost $800+, they are faster but they throttle because of their limited cooling system, and they are still likely unable to run any of the AAA games that the Switch cannot run (namely the AAA stuff that really pushes the current-gen stationary consoles). Also, consoles have fixed specs for the most part, the base PS4/Xbox One (which is the base most multiplats target) have hardware dating back to 2013, in 2018 they are considered low-end gaming hardware in PC standards.

I think Switch could become more like the smartphone model. Not that many upgrades (yearly) obviously, but every 3 years rather than a hard reset back to 0 every 5-6 years. 

To be honest from a business POV, it's kind of stupid to have a successful product and then willingly go start at 0 again every 5-6 years and risk the next go around being no where near as successful. No other business would accept that kind of business model.