WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.200 I could probably build an entire second career just making videos about Nintendo's bad behavior, 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:11.200 but the one we're gonna look at today is one that's gonna hit the wallet of merely every 00:00:11.200 --> 00:00:18.240 Switch 2 owner. The completely unnecessary left turn into proprietary bill that they have taken 00:00:18.240 --> 00:00:24.320 with the Switch 2. While the rest of the game console industry has made serious strides toward 00:00:24.320 --> 00:00:32.320 universal standards and interoperability, this dock is a classic example of locking down a product 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:38.640 not for a good reason, but just because we can, or to make a buck, or because, I don't know, 00:00:39.680 --> 00:00:46.720 you. And the bigger problem here is that Nintendo is a market leader, and their actions may very 00:00:46.720 --> 00:00:53.040 well embolden other tech companies to do the same. Check this out. This dock here works perfectly 00:00:53.040 --> 00:00:59.760 on the Switch 1, and in fact, every other device on the table. And the Switch 2? No, no, no. That's the 00:00:59.760 --> 00:01:06.560 only device we were able to find that it won't work with. All of these docks and dongles you're 00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:11.840 looking at now will work with the Switch 1 or with your laptop, but you can't use them on your Switch 2. 00:01:12.560 --> 00:01:16.960 It would seem then that Nintendo has opted to make their new universal serial bus device 00:01:17.600 --> 00:01:22.480 a little less universal. The question is how? I mean, it's still got a regular Type-C connector, 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:28.560 so what's happening? To find out, we have the Infineon Protocol Analyzer, a little device that 00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:34.480 intercepts the communication between two USB-C PD devices, and allows us to see exactly what 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:40.880 Nintendo has done. Oh, here we go. Normal, normal, normal. Vendor-defined message. 00:01:42.080 --> 00:01:48.160 But what the heck is a vendor-defined message? And what is this message from our sponsor? 00:01:52.560 --> 00:02:03.360 Let's take a step back and explain the wonders of USB in the modern age, 00:02:03.360 --> 00:02:08.720 which is going to give us some additional context as to why we should be especially mad at Nintendo. 00:02:08.720 --> 00:02:14.800 Since its inception in 1996, USB has been a consistent standard that's replaced 00:02:14.800 --> 00:02:23.200 many connectors with one easy to insert connector. There's been tons of revisions with increases in 00:02:23.200 --> 00:02:27.840 power and data delivery as well as more and more functionality with each update, 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:33.120 all while maintaining a pretty robust backwards and forwards compatibility. 00:02:33.120 --> 00:02:38.160 It's honestly a pretty impressive collaboration in an industry of min-maxing profiteers. 00:02:38.160 --> 00:02:44.000 Arguably its biggest change came with the introduction of the USB-C standard, which was 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:51.200 partially intended to make all USB devices just a little more universal, although there's definitely 00:02:51.200 --> 00:02:56.400 been some snags in the decade plus since the update. In an effort to reduce the amount of 00:02:56.400 --> 00:03:02.960 USB-C devices that may fry each other because of voltage and compatibilities, the USB-C PD, 00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:08.480 or power delivery standard, was released. As many of you will know, that's a protocol for 00:03:08.480 --> 00:03:13.680 negotiation between two devices to communicate their power and data capabilities. Lucas from 00:03:13.680 --> 00:03:18.400 the Labs just wrote a really fantastic article about this handshake, and if you want a little 00:03:18.400 --> 00:03:23.280 more detail, you should definitely give that a read. For now, let's test what's actually 00:03:23.280 --> 00:03:27.680 happening with the Switch 2. To understand what we're working with, let's test out the Switch 2 00:03:27.680 --> 00:03:35.120 in the Switch 2 dock first. And we have image. Wow, these two devices meant to work together, 00:03:35.120 --> 00:03:39.520 work together. Fantastic. Let's take a look at what all these messages mean. This interface 00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:42.480 can be a little bit overwhelming if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. 00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:48.080 The main thing to know is the message column is the messages that are being sent in between the 00:03:48.080 --> 00:03:54.800 two docks. In the power role, we have SNK, which is our sync device, and SRC, which is our source 00:03:54.800 --> 00:04:00.960 device. In this case, our source is our dock, and our sync is the switch. So the first thing we're 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:08.560 seeing is the source offering up its capabilities. When you look in this pane over here, you can see 00:04:08.560 --> 00:04:14.560 that it's offering five, nine, and 15 volt power. Good CRC, which you'll see all the way down, 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:21.840 just means Roger. Then our Switch is talking SNK, and it's looking for object position three, 00:04:21.840 --> 00:04:28.640 which is the 15 volts of power. We get a Roger. We get an accept from our dock. We get another 00:04:28.640 --> 00:04:35.040 Roger. Next, we have power supply ready, meaning it's ready to deliver its power. We got our Roger. 00:04:35.040 --> 00:04:42.000 Then we have a data role swap. So now the switch is switching roles, and it's kind of taking control 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:46.320 of the interaction. Then we get our Vekon swap, and to oversimplify, it's just another part of 00:04:46.320 --> 00:04:52.000 kind of the data role swap. We got good. We got good power supply ready. And then we have a little 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:58.960 soft reset where you can see this SOP prime. That's actually when the USB devices are talking to 00:04:58.960 --> 00:05:04.480 the intermediary devices. So it might be talking to a cable that's in between, if it's an active cable, 00:05:04.480 --> 00:05:10.080 or a part of the dock or something. So right now it's doing a little soft reset for those. 00:05:10.080 --> 00:05:14.400 Then we have our vendor-defined messages, and you can see in this pane, it's asking for 00:05:14.400 --> 00:05:19.040 discover identity. And this is the first time that our dock and our Switch are going to communicate, 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:23.760 hey, you Nintendo, are you Nintendo device? Vendor-defined doesn't mean that it's like 00:05:23.760 --> 00:05:30.640 an exclusive lockdown thing necessarily, but it can. And then in quick, basically we have 00:05:30.640 --> 00:05:37.200 these vendor-defined messages where the dock and the Switch are going to try and negotiate 00:05:37.200 --> 00:05:42.960 their DisplayPort mode. It takes clearly a lot of vendor-defined messages, and this is sort of 00:05:42.960 --> 00:05:47.920 where the things become a little unusual. In this case, it's going to work, and we get a display on 00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:52.800 our screen after they've negotiated their modes. But let's take a look at what happens when we 00:05:52.800 --> 00:05:58.320 connect the Switch to a dock that won't work. Now we're going to test out this pretty generic 00:05:58.320 --> 00:06:03.120 Nucleum USB Type-C dongle. You can immediately see things are a little bit different. Our dongle 00:06:03.120 --> 00:06:10.000 gives it source capabilities, the Switch requests based on that. We get our power supply ready, 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:14.320 Vcon swap, and then the data roll swap. And you can see that it's actually in a different order. 00:06:14.320 --> 00:06:20.640 The Vcon and the data roll swap are in a different order, which ends up in a reject from the Switch. 00:06:20.640 --> 00:06:25.280 They try this a couple of times. Eventually it works. Power supply, we do our little 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:32.080 intermediary soft reset, and then we do it all again. And that's a little bit strange. Why are 00:06:32.080 --> 00:06:37.440 we doing it all again? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're getting to our intermediary reset, 00:06:37.440 --> 00:06:42.480 and then we're into our vendor-defined stuff. We're trying to find who's talking to who 00:06:43.120 --> 00:06:47.040 in specific. Are these Nintendo products? And then we're discovering the modes. 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:56.400 And this is generally the DisplayPort modes in this. The Switch is asking for a specific mode. 00:06:56.400 --> 00:07:04.640 We get connected. We get UFD connected. And then it kind of just like fizzles out. And then it 00:07:04.640 --> 00:07:08.960 sort of stops communicating. And that's going to be kind of a reoccurring pattern where 00:07:09.920 --> 00:07:14.560 things don't happen in the same order. Things get confused. And then the communication kind of 00:07:14.560 --> 00:07:19.360 just ceases. Let me show you on a monitor. This one's even more clear why things aren't working. 00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:23.280 They're trying to do the data roll swap, and there's a rejection happening from 00:07:23.280 --> 00:07:29.360 the Switch. These two buddies not working together so good. But we're still seeing our pattern that 00:07:29.360 --> 00:07:34.800 the Switch has a little bit of a difficulty negotiating when things don't go exactly as it's 00:07:34.800 --> 00:07:43.120 expecting. That means only hardware with the exact validated negotiation can decode these messages 00:07:43.200 --> 00:07:48.560 and successfully negotiate a display out from the Switch too. And this isn't a technical limitation 00:07:48.560 --> 00:07:55.040 of USB-C itself. Most PD devices can navigate these operations in different orders and make it work. 00:07:55.760 --> 00:08:01.440 Rather, I think the most likely answer here and the one that avoids making claims we can't 00:08:01.440 --> 00:08:08.160 absolutely confirm is that Nintendo made sure that it worked on their own devices and then 00:08:08.240 --> 00:08:12.960 stopped their efforts there. That means that even if a third-party dock has the correct power 00:08:12.960 --> 00:08:18.880 delivery and video output capabilities, it just won't fully function with the Switch too unless 00:08:18.880 --> 00:08:25.200 it can successfully communicate using Nintendo-specific undisclosed protocols. This communications 00:08:25.200 --> 00:08:31.600 lockdown definitely could be malicious, but I wouldn't feel confident taking Nintendo to court 00:08:31.600 --> 00:08:37.600 about it. But I'm not sure I would chalk it up to pure carelessness either. The most likely 00:08:37.600 --> 00:08:45.840 scenario, in our opinion, is that this is an example of tactical laziness. What a beautiful term. 00:08:46.720 --> 00:08:52.880 Because the benefit of this enshrification is so obvious. Money. Do you need a second dock in your 00:08:52.880 --> 00:08:58.560 house? Well, instead of using something you already have, that'll be $120 more directly to Nintendo. 00:08:58.560 --> 00:09:03.520 Thank you very much. You want to go traveling and have something more portable. Time to order 00:09:03.520 --> 00:09:08.720 another expensive Nintendo-approved accessory. It makes me wonder if we would be better if they 00:09:08.720 --> 00:09:14.960 just use proprietary port. On the one hand, it would solve the seeming underhandedness of the 00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:20.240 issue and the ensuing consumer confusion. Everyone would have known from the get-go about the 00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:25.120 incompatibility and maybe Nintendo could have justified it with a unique feature like a 00:09:25.120 --> 00:09:31.680 locking port all while leaving the top USB port as is for charging. But that would mean 00:09:31.680 --> 00:09:37.520 needing to develop and manufacture a proprietary port, possibly upping the price over a mass-produced 00:09:37.520 --> 00:09:44.160 generic part with Nintendo fronting the R&D cost. And proprietary ports means that it's Nintendo's 00:09:44.160 --> 00:09:49.920 own IP so they can set the license fee, probably upping the cost on third-party accessories. 00:09:49.920 --> 00:09:54.640 It would also mean increased e-waste long-term when there's more Switch 2 docks left than 00:09:54.640 --> 00:10:00.560 Switch 2 players. That's really not ideal. On the other hand, it's exceptionally 00:10:00.640 --> 00:10:04.880 frustrating to be able to correctly plug in your accessories and then not have them work. 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:11.520 To be fair, that's not a Nintendo exclusive problem. All type C ports and cables have not 00:10:11.520 --> 00:10:17.200 been created equal. It's an ongoing issue, but in my personal experience, the compatibility issues 00:10:17.200 --> 00:10:23.040 are generally trending towards becoming solved, not launching themselves towards totally unnecessary 00:10:23.040 --> 00:10:30.160 compatibility catastrophe, which just makes this so infuriating. Especially since the Switch 2 is 00:10:30.160 --> 00:10:36.080 less capable than most modern, regular type C devices. The charging caps out at around 15 00:10:36.080 --> 00:10:41.520 watts, which may be good for battery health long-term, but it certainly would be nice to have the 00:10:41.520 --> 00:10:47.680 option to fast charge when necessary and variable refresh rate is currently not possible via the 00:10:47.680 --> 00:10:54.160 dock. You can only do that in handheld mode, so we're really not asking much of these. 00:10:54.160 --> 00:10:59.760 Even Apple manages to be more universal than this crap. Apple was one of the pioneers of 00:10:59.760 --> 00:11:04.000 the industry move towards mass adoption of USB type C and Thunderbolt. I remember they actually 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:11.120 took a lot of flack for being the first to ship a laptop, the 2015 MacBook, with only USB type C, 00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:15.520 which is especially funny when you consider how they had to be dragged kicking and screaming 00:11:15.520 --> 00:11:21.520 on the phone side. But I digress. The point is, in spite of Apple's long proud history of making 00:11:21.520 --> 00:11:27.040 things proprietary for no obvious user benefit, even they haven't gone as far as creating a 00:11:27.040 --> 00:11:33.600 proprietary handshake between their cables, their accessories, and their computers. Although 00:11:33.600 --> 00:11:37.520 don't imagine for a second they're not capable of it. Oh god, I hope they're not getting any ideas 00:11:37.520 --> 00:11:43.440 from this. Because once Apple does something, well, the industry follows. Hopefully Nintendo 00:11:43.440 --> 00:11:47.600 doesn't have quite the same influence. While we've harped pretty hard on Nintendo so far, 00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:52.400 we want to give credit where credit is due. Do we? They are helping to push the MicroSDX 00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:57.600 standard into the mainstream instead of making some expensive proprietary format like the Xbox 00:11:57.600 --> 00:12:03.520 Series or the PlayStation Beta. Okay, that's fair. But not even everything they've done with their 00:12:03.520 --> 00:12:08.240 non-proprietary storage is good. The fact that they don't let you just dump save game files off 00:12:08.240 --> 00:12:14.080 of your system onto it is quite frankly offensive to me. Nintendo has angered all of us with their 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:19.840 game prices. But here's the thing, the most that that can cost me is about 80 US dollars. 00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:26.480 That's the worst case scenario. But imagine this, I dump 300 hours into a game and then 00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:32.240 I don't subscribe to Nintendo online so I can't back up my save and then I happen to lose my 00:12:32.240 --> 00:12:41.280 switch, a portable device. I lose 300 hours. I mean, okay, obviously I'm not being paid to game so 00:12:41.280 --> 00:12:46.000 it's not a straightforward mathematical equation. But if we're talking about what it would cost me 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:53.760 in my time and my personal energy to go back and get all of that back, honestly, I'd rather go to 00:12:53.760 --> 00:13:00.000 work for one day so I can buy a new fucking game versus dump another 300 hours in to get back what 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:06.640 I lost. So what can we do? Well, the best thing to do is not give Nintendo your money. Either wait 00:13:06.640 --> 00:13:12.160 for the next Gen Yuzu or just skip Nintendo games until they fix this. That's probably the best, 00:13:12.240 --> 00:13:17.120 most impactful move you can make. But when you look at the switch one and two sales number, 00:13:17.680 --> 00:13:22.880 it's pretty easy to feel like your wallet's vote doesn't get you very far anymore. And I don't 00:13:22.880 --> 00:13:28.400 feel any kind of moral superiority for telling you to stop engaging with Nintendo's games. They are 00:13:28.400 --> 00:13:36.080 clearly making fantastic experiences that no one else can match. And I and lots of you want to play 00:13:36.080 --> 00:13:41.200 them. You could buy third party options like the Antank S3 that we're going to have linked down in 00:13:41.200 --> 00:13:47.520 the video description that somehow has the ability to speak the switch to his proverbial language. 00:13:48.560 --> 00:13:53.840 Who the fuck knows how Antank figured that out? A friend at Nintendo or on the third shift at one 00:13:53.840 --> 00:14:01.920 of the factories? Random dumb luck. Regardless, it works for now. Nintendo could technically alter 00:14:01.920 --> 00:14:08.080 that deal on a whim by changing their protocols in a neat little game of cyber cat and mouse. But 00:14:08.800 --> 00:14:13.360 what we'd all really like is for this video to be out of date as soon as it hits the internet. 00:14:13.920 --> 00:14:17.920 It seems like Nintendo has it within their power to push a couple of firmware updates 00:14:17.920 --> 00:14:25.440 to stop this baloney. Baloney. Like this Segway sandwich. To a sponsor. If you like video showcasing 00:14:25.440 --> 00:14:30.240 the baloney big tech is trying to pull over on you, you should watch our most recent tech gripes. 00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:37.840 So many damn gripes. Man, I said a lot cooler in this one. Good job me.