Seems Nintendo has good reasons not to support it with 3rd party devices: Their own dock has active cooling, so with generic dongles the switch wouldn't be able to enter the docked performance mode (or have to throttle down pretty soon) and would have to output a blurry mess to 4k screens.

Not a great user experience.

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crote 8 days ago | parent | next [-]

Sure, but what about 3rd party docks which do have adequate cooling? And how is it a good user experience to just silently refuse to work?

If Nintendo genuinely cared about experience they'd just follow the standard and work with any dock, then pop up a notification if it notices that the device is overheating - perhaps even with a "We recommend the official dock" text.

The current behaviour is completely unacceptable and needlessly user-hostile. There's no way around it: their USB-C implementation is broken.

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KeplerBoy 8 days ago | parent [-]

I agree that their behavior is user-hostile, but doing it their way gets rid of all of the ambiguity involved with USB C.

I kind of understand why they would rather break their USBC support intentionally and make it very clear that video out is only happening with their dock. Especially considering their audiences.

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SifJar 8 days ago | parent | next [-]

> doing it their way gets rid of all of the ambiguity involved with USB C

At that point, why use USB-C for the dock connection at all? Just use a proprietary connector if you're not going to follow the standards.

Having a separate USB-C port for charging should satisfy e.g. the EU regulations requiring that, I think. (Assuming that is the reason they used USB-C in the first place)

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Eater_of_food 8 days ago | parent | next [-]

Presumably, sticking with USB lowers costs. Just buy mass-produced ports rather than invest in tooling to build a bespoke port.

	▲	pathartl 8 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		They already produce custom designed ports in order to add some tolerance to make it easier to dock the device.
	▲	tzs 8 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The choices aren’t limited to USB or bespoke. There are thousands of mass produced non-USB connectors available at any major electronics parts distributor.

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pjjpo 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> At that point, why use USB-C for the dock connection at all?

To satisfy charging expectations with the same port as display that they decided to do something proprietary with. On the flip side, why not do that when people will buy the console no matter what?

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naikrovek 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> At that point, why use USB-C for the dock connection at all? Just use a proprietary connector if you're not going to follow the standards.

They are following the standards. They don't have to communicate with devices that they don't want to communicate with. There's no requirement in the USB spec that connected Type-C compliant devices interoperate in all cases.

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alpaca128 8 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> make it very clear that video out is only happening with their dock

What about it is "very clear"? It worked on the Switch 1, it's expected to work as it's USB, there is no error message, it just will appear that maybe the USB dongle or HDMI cable or whatever is defective.

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KeplerBoy 8 days ago | parent [-]

The switch 1 situation also wasn't great with reports of switches being bricked or picky about 3rd party docks. I guess that's why they stopped trying to be compatible at all.

	▲	naikrovek 7 days ago \| parent [-]
		There was one dock which did this, and firmware on the Switch 1 quickly worked around the problem the Nyko dock had, and Nyko released new hardware which prevented the problem that the Nintendo Switch firmware update worked around. The Nintendo Switch wasn't super picky about docks, but in order for external display to work, the dock had to support the mobile DisplayPort protocol that Nintendo used, "MyDP" instead of vanilla DisplayPort, which is what most devices supported at the time the Switch was released. Again, that wasn't a non-compliant thing on the part of the Switch, the Switch just used a technology that wasn't commonly used by much else, which is very commonly done by Nintendo.

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alpaca128 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Would you rather have your phone refuse to charge for no apparent reason, or have it popup "slow USB charging" as it does when you connect it to a weaker charger?

Nintendo unnecessarily chose to make their device partially USB-C incompatible in an intransparent way. A lot of users will rely on this working (as it already did on the Switch 1) and then it just won't, and probably the user will just assume their third-party USB dongle is broken and maybe buy another one, which means Nintendo won't get anything out of it and the user will lose more money. Everyone loses but at least the pesky customer can't use a third-party product.

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pjerem 8 days ago | parent [-]

Aren’t we talking about video out from the dock ?

Because it wasn’t possible for Switch 1. After some time, some alternative USB-C hubs supported the Switch video output but it was basically reverse engineering and I totally remember this first "compatible" hub back in the early days of the console which happened to brick consoles.

Nintendo is like Apple they :

- Don’t want you tu use the Switch in unpredictable ways : with the switch on the dock the cooling is guaranteed to be efficient, even on Switch 1 because it meant that the console wasn’t lying on a blanket.

- Don’t want you to buy anything else than their expensive dock.

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Xss3 8 days ago | parent | next [-]

Again you're just excusing the lack of engineering time put into an onscreen message.

'Overheating detected, reducing video resolution'.

Nintendo will earn millions by keeping it proprietary. Lets stop pretending this is about technical ability or 'protecting' the consumer from a bad ux.

	▲	exidy 7 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Nintendo will earn millions by keeping it proprietary. Lets stop pretending this is about technical ability or 'protecting' the consumer from a bad ux. Nintendo ships a dock with every Switch 2. How big is the market for people buying aftermarket docks? Nintendo has always aimed very squarely at the mass market.

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alpaca128 8 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Apple devices work near flawlessly with third-party periphery in my experience, what are you talking about? They have some questionable limitations at times (like iPads supporting Thunderbolt but not being able to safely eject USB drives), but I don't buy Apple cables & adapters and that's because they're not needed. I can charge a Macbook with a random USB-C charger on my desk, I can turn on my third-party BT headphones and they're connected within two seconds, I can connect a screen with a third-party USB-C adapter and the only possible issue is that not all USB ports go up to 240Hz. I cannot say some of these things about my PC on which Bluetooth audio simply is not usable at all and some other basics need janky workarounds or ironically only work on Linux.

I have many reasons to be pissed at Apple but connectivity is not one of them.

	▲	goosedragons 8 days ago \| parent [-]
		Lightning was pretty limited. Third party companies either had to be blessed by Apple or clone them some how. For some accessories like video out this was a big limitation.

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whatevaa 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Please don't shill and try to find straw man arguments. Plenty of 3rd party solutions can be better than first party and cost just as much. It's not just cheap junk.

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stoltzmann 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I would say that not having any video output is a worse user experience than having blurry video output.

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franga2000 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's not a good reason not to allow it, it's a good reason not to support it. If I do that and complain to Nintendo support about overheating, they can tell me to fuck off. Worst case it should give a scary popup saying "your dock isn't actively cooled so your device is likely to overheat". Absolutely no excuse for not allowing third-party docks though.

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burnte 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's never a good reason for a vendor to lock you in. There isn't a single problem that is actually solved that way. It is 100% always a money lock in tool and literally never about safety or security. Users using your product in ways you do not like is not a valid reason to do block them or sue them.

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argsnd 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I recall reading that the dock’s cooling is for its own internals rather than those of the switch.

	▲	ErneX 8 days ago \| parent [-]
		It’s for the dock yes, but a dock passing its heat to the console is no bueno since the console pushes its hardware in docked mode.

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kevincox 8 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It seems like this should be based on the observed situation rather than what the dock says? What if the fans of the official dock are stuck, dead or just pushed up against something? What if they ambient conditions are just so hot that the cooling isn't effective. What if a third party dock has better cooling?