If Nintendo sent you a free dev kit, would u not even test it out?
No, because I'm not a game developer and wouldn't know the first thing about what to do with it.
: : :
Seriously, though, if I'm a 3rd party developer that saw how badly the Wii worked out for especially those small developers on WiiWare (a service Nintendo pretty much ignored after it launched), no I wouldn't accept Nintendo's little gift. I didn't ask for it, I don't want it, and eventually I'd have to return the damn thing
anyway because it was only freely
leased to me.
Now, if the Wii U interests me as a development platform and Nintendo
asks me if I'd like a free dev kit, hell yeah I'd accept it (especially as a smaller studio). But if I didn't ask for it and I don't want it, I'm not going to keep it since it makes me indebted to Nintendo as well as becomes just one more piece of junk I have to catalog and keep an eye on in my office.
btw, do you have a link to back up this little story of yours?