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I could probably build an entire second career just making videos about Nintendo's bad behavior,

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but the one we're gonna look at today is one that's gonna hit the wallet of merely every

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Switch 2 owner. The completely unnecessary left turn into proprietary bill that they have taken

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with the Switch 2. While the rest of the game console industry has made serious strides toward

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universal standards and interoperability, this dock is a classic example of locking down a product

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not for a good reason, but just because we can, or to make a buck, or because, I don't know,

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you. And the bigger problem here is that Nintendo is a market leader, and their actions may very

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well embolden other tech companies to do the same. Check this out. This dock here works perfectly

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on the Switch 1, and in fact, every other device on the table. And the Switch 2? No, no, no. That's the

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only device we were able to find that it won't work with. All of these docks and dongles you're

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looking at now will work with the Switch 1 or with your laptop, but you can't use them on your Switch 2.

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It would seem then that Nintendo has opted to make their new universal serial bus device

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a little less universal. The question is how? I mean, it's still got a regular Type-C connector,

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so what's happening? To find out, we have the Infineon Protocol Analyzer, a little device that

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intercepts the communication between two USB-C PD devices, and allows us to see exactly what

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Nintendo has done. Oh, here we go. Normal, normal, normal. Vendor-defined message.

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But what the heck is a vendor-defined message? And what is this message from our sponsor?

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Let's take a step back and explain the wonders of USB in the modern age,

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which is going to give us some additional context as to why we should be especially mad at Nintendo.

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Since its inception in 1996, USB has been a consistent standard that's replaced

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many connectors with one easy to insert connector. There's been tons of revisions with increases in

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power and data delivery as well as more and more functionality with each update,

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all while maintaining a pretty robust backwards and forwards compatibility.

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It's honestly a pretty impressive collaboration in an industry of min-maxing profiteers.

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Arguably its biggest change came with the introduction of the USB-C standard, which was

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partially intended to make all USB devices just a little more universal, although there's definitely

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been some snags in the decade plus since the update. In an effort to reduce the amount of

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USB-C devices that may fry each other because of voltage and compatibilities, the USB-C PD,

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or power delivery standard, was released. As many of you will know, that's a protocol for

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negotiation between two devices to communicate their power and data capabilities. Lucas from

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the Labs just wrote a really fantastic article about this handshake, and if you want a little

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more detail, you should definitely give that a read. For now, let's test what's actually

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happening with the Switch 2. To understand what we're working with, let's test out the Switch 2

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in the Switch 2 dock first. And we have image. Wow, these two devices meant to work together,

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work together. Fantastic. Let's take a look at what all these messages mean. This interface

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can be a little bit overwhelming if you don't know exactly what you're looking for.

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The main thing to know is the message column is the messages that are being sent in between the

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two docks. In the power role, we have SNK, which is our sync device, and SRC, which is our source

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device. In this case, our source is our dock, and our sync is the switch. So the first thing we're

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seeing is the source offering up its capabilities. When you look in this pane over here, you can see

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that it's offering five, nine, and 15 volt power. Good CRC, which you'll see all the way down,

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just means Roger. Then our Switch is talking SNK, and it's looking for object position three,

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which is the 15 volts of power. We get a Roger. We get an accept from our dock. We get another

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Roger. Next, we have power supply ready, meaning it's ready to deliver its power. We got our Roger.

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Then we have a data role swap. So now the switch is switching roles, and it's kind of taking control

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of the interaction. Then we get our Vekon swap, and to oversimplify, it's just another part of

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kind of the data role swap. We got good. We got good power supply ready. And then we have a little

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soft reset where you can see this SOP prime. That's actually when the USB devices are talking to

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the intermediary devices. So it might be talking to a cable that's in between, if it's an active cable,

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or a part of the dock or something. So right now it's doing a little soft reset for those.

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Then we have our vendor-defined messages, and you can see in this pane, it's asking for

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discover identity. And this is the first time that our dock and our Switch are going to communicate,

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hey, you Nintendo, are you Nintendo device? Vendor-defined doesn't mean that it's like

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an exclusive lockdown thing necessarily, but it can. And then in quick, basically we have

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these vendor-defined messages where the dock and the Switch are going to try and negotiate

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their DisplayPort mode. It takes clearly a lot of vendor-defined messages, and this is sort of

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where the things become a little unusual. In this case, it's going to work, and we get a display on

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our screen after they've negotiated their modes. But let's take a look at what happens when we

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connect the Switch to a dock that won't work. Now we're going to test out this pretty generic

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Nucleum USB Type-C dongle. You can immediately see things are a little bit different. Our dongle

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gives it source capabilities, the Switch requests based on that. We get our power supply ready,

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Vcon swap, and then the data roll swap. And you can see that it's actually in a different order.

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The Vcon and the data roll swap are in a different order, which ends up in a reject from the Switch.

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They try this a couple of times. Eventually it works. Power supply, we do our little

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intermediary soft reset, and then we do it all again. And that's a little bit strange. Why are

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we doing it all again? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're getting to our intermediary reset,

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and then we're into our vendor-defined stuff. We're trying to find who's talking to who

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in specific. Are these Nintendo products? And then we're discovering the modes.

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And this is generally the DisplayPort modes in this. The Switch is asking for a specific mode.

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We get connected. We get UFD connected. And then it kind of just like fizzles out. And then it

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sort of stops communicating. And that's going to be kind of a reoccurring pattern where

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things don't happen in the same order. Things get confused. And then the communication kind of

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just ceases. Let me show you on a monitor. This one's even more clear why things aren't working.

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They're trying to do the data roll swap, and there's a rejection happening from

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the Switch. These two buddies not working together so good. But we're still seeing our pattern that

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the Switch has a little bit of a difficulty negotiating when things don't go exactly as it's

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expecting. That means only hardware with the exact validated negotiation can decode these messages

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and successfully negotiate a display out from the Switch too. And this isn't a technical limitation

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of USB-C itself. Most PD devices can navigate these operations in different orders and make it work.

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Rather, I think the most likely answer here and the one that avoids making claims we can't

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absolutely confirm is that Nintendo made sure that it worked on their own devices and then

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stopped their efforts there. That means that even if a third-party dock has the correct power

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delivery and video output capabilities, it just won't fully function with the Switch too unless

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it can successfully communicate using Nintendo-specific undisclosed protocols. This communications

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lockdown definitely could be malicious, but I wouldn't feel confident taking Nintendo to court

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about it. But I'm not sure I would chalk it up to pure carelessness either. The most likely

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scenario, in our opinion, is that this is an example of tactical laziness. What a beautiful term.

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Because the benefit of this enshrification is so obvious. Money. Do you need a second dock in your

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house? Well, instead of using something you already have, that'll be $120 more directly to Nintendo.

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Thank you very much. You want to go traveling and have something more portable. Time to order

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another expensive Nintendo-approved accessory. It makes me wonder if we would be better if they

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just use proprietary port. On the one hand, it would solve the seeming underhandedness of the

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issue and the ensuing consumer confusion. Everyone would have known from the get-go about the

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incompatibility and maybe Nintendo could have justified it with a unique feature like a

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locking port all while leaving the top USB port as is for charging. But that would mean

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needing to develop and manufacture a proprietary port, possibly upping the price over a mass-produced

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generic part with Nintendo fronting the R&D cost. And proprietary ports means that it's Nintendo's

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own IP so they can set the license fee, probably upping the cost on third-party accessories.

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It would also mean increased e-waste long-term when there's more Switch 2 docks left than

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Switch 2 players. That's really not ideal. On the other hand, it's exceptionally

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frustrating to be able to correctly plug in your accessories and then not have them work.

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To be fair, that's not a Nintendo exclusive problem. All type C ports and cables have not

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been created equal. It's an ongoing issue, but in my personal experience, the compatibility issues

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are generally trending towards becoming solved, not launching themselves towards totally unnecessary

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compatibility catastrophe, which just makes this so infuriating. Especially since the Switch 2 is

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less capable than most modern, regular type C devices. The charging caps out at around 15

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watts, which may be good for battery health long-term, but it certainly would be nice to have the

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option to fast charge when necessary and variable refresh rate is currently not possible via the

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dock. You can only do that in handheld mode, so we're really not asking much of these.

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Even Apple manages to be more universal than this crap. Apple was one of the pioneers of

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the industry move towards mass adoption of USB type C and Thunderbolt. I remember they actually

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took a lot of flack for being the first to ship a laptop, the 2015 MacBook, with only USB type C,

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which is especially funny when you consider how they had to be dragged kicking and screaming

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on the phone side. But I digress. The point is, in spite of Apple's long proud history of making

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things proprietary for no obvious user benefit, even they haven't gone as far as creating a

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proprietary handshake between their cables, their accessories, and their computers. Although

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don't imagine for a second they're not capable of it. Oh god, I hope they're not getting any ideas

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from this. Because once Apple does something, well, the industry follows. Hopefully Nintendo

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doesn't have quite the same influence. While we've harped pretty hard on Nintendo so far,

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we want to give credit where credit is due. Do we? They are helping to push the MicroSDX

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standard into the mainstream instead of making some expensive proprietary format like the Xbox

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Series or the PlayStation Beta. Okay, that's fair. But not even everything they've done with their

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non-proprietary storage is good. The fact that they don't let you just dump save game files off

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of your system onto it is quite frankly offensive to me. Nintendo has angered all of us with their

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game prices. But here's the thing, the most that that can cost me is about 80 US dollars.

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That's the worst case scenario. But imagine this, I dump 300 hours into a game and then

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I don't subscribe to Nintendo online so I can't back up my save and then I happen to lose my

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switch, a portable device. I lose 300 hours. I mean, okay, obviously I'm not being paid to game so

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it's not a straightforward mathematical equation. But if we're talking about what it would cost me

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in my time and my personal energy to go back and get all of that back, honestly, I'd rather go to

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work for one day so I can buy a new fucking game versus dump another 300 hours in to get back what

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I lost. So what can we do? Well, the best thing to do is not give Nintendo your money. Either wait

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for the next Gen Yuzu or just skip Nintendo games until they fix this. That's probably the best,

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most impactful move you can make. But when you look at the switch one and two sales number,

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it's pretty easy to feel like your wallet's vote doesn't get you very far anymore. And I don't

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feel any kind of moral superiority for telling you to stop engaging with Nintendo's games. They are

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clearly making fantastic experiences that no one else can match. And I and lots of you want to play

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them. You could buy third party options like the Antank S3 that we're going to have linked down in

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the video description that somehow has the ability to speak the switch to his proverbial language.

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Who the fuck knows how Antank figured that out? A friend at Nintendo or on the third shift at one

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of the factories? Random dumb luck. Regardless, it works for now. Nintendo could technically alter

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that deal on a whim by changing their protocols in a neat little game of cyber cat and mouse. But

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what we'd all really like is for this video to be out of date as soon as it hits the internet.

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It seems like Nintendo has it within their power to push a couple of firmware updates

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to stop this baloney. Baloney. Like this Segway sandwich. To a sponsor. If you like video showcasing

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the baloney big tech is trying to pull over on you, you should watch our most recent tech gripes.

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So many damn gripes. Man, I said a lot cooler in this one. Good job me.