[alex_f_k]

From lttlabs:

> The inability for most docks to support the Switch 2 may not be malicious from Nintendo. It might just be a poor or lazy implementation of the USB-C specification

From the verge [0], 2 months ago:

> When I analyze the conversation between the Nintendo Switch 2 and its dock, I can see the two devices begin speaking in Nintendo’s own flavor of “vendor defined” language early in the conversation, before they sign off on any video output. And then, seemingly before the dock confirms that it’s engaged video-out, they send over 30 proprietary “unstructured” messages to one another.

> […]

> According to Antank, which says it checked with its chip supplier, that hexadecimal string “is indeed the current key being used by Nintendo.” My other sources are less sure.

I'm pretty sure lttl's conclusion is plain wrong. It is not JUST lazy USB-C implementation, but a purposefully designed special proprietary protocol on top of USB-C

[0] https://www.theverge.com/report/695915/switch-2-usb-c-third-...

[arghwhat]

There's a lot of misunderstandings about USB PD communication, in particular Vendor Defined Messages. The LTT video kept making this mistake, and mixing in misunderstandings around messages to the eMarker chip itself (SOP'). It was a painful watch.

Vendor Defined Messages have is part of any normal PD exchange, as they're simply anything that isn't defined by the PD spec itself. You'll see VDMs when connecting any device supporting more than just dumb charging, as it's used for all sorts of things like DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, eMarker identification, etc. - stuff we'd expect ehre.

The quote from Antak refers to just a single, possibly/likely proprietary, message. This could be to ID the dock on the basis of e.g. rejecting the switch 1 dock should one cram it in, or to reject switch 1 dongles. Maybe it's Nintendo speak for "dock capabilities: cooling", with the switch having no mode for docked gaming with reduced performance without cooling.

Intentional incompatibility, yes, but it's 1 message of an unknown type within bog standard USB-PD, not a "vendor defined lanugage" or "over 30 proprietary messages".

[grishka]

Why reject switch 1 accessories though? Sure the video resolution will have to be limited to 1080p, but that's kinda expected and I'm sure switch 2 can do that anyway

[arghwhat]

Switch currently runs in one of two modes: Docked and handheld. Games are written to expect those two modes, with rendering adjusted to those specifically and nothing else. Think of all the render settings in a PC game (in reality there are way more things the developer can adjust, but just for the sake of illustration), and assume there are instead two hardcoded presets which are selected based on whether or not the device is "docked".

For Switch 1 games, docked means "we're running as fast as the internal cooling can handle and outputting 1080p, assume the user can't use the touch screen and such". A dongle is fine here as long as you don't block the air inlets or exhausts, or place the Switch on something heat sensitive.

For Switch 2 games, docked means "we're running as fast as the externally boosted cooling can handle and cranking out 4k, and assume you can't use the touch screen and such". Assuming the fan does useful work here, then with a dongle you'll be thermal throttling and have a bad gaming experience - on a PC you'd turn down the settings, here those are hardcoded.

So, what about using the switch 2 handheld mode on a switch 1 dock, seeing it's the same resolution? Well, if you tell it to run in handheld mode it might assume you have access to the touchscreen, always-on VRR and HDR, is using internal speakers, etc.

It's totally doable, but to do this right the stack needs to be prepared for it. As such, I understand why they did it.

Heck, this was the same issue for the Switch 1, and it took a while for third-party docks to pop up. It'll take all but a moment for third party docks to support this.

[grishka]

Ah so the Switch 2 dock has an extra fan? I didn't know that.

Still, what happens if you connect a Switch 2 to a 1080p display? I assume it would render at 1080p, because rendering at 4K and downscaling for output would be too wasteful. Switch 1 even has a setting for that, allowing you to choose between 480p, 720p, and 1080p.

[naikrovek]

It renders at 1080p and the dock doesn't get as hot.

Note that the cooling fan inside the dock is for cooling the dock and not the Switch 2 itself. The Switch 2 has its own fan for that.

So while not everyone docks the Switch 2 to a 4K display, the Switch 2 dock must support that.

[mathiaspoint]

DP -> HDMI conversion hardware is pretty intense. I haven't owned a device that does this and doesn't at least get warm.

[naikrovek]

> Why reject switch 1 accessories though?

Because the Switch 2 is a different machine. Games being backwards compatible (via emulation) doesn't mean the hardware is (or has to be) backwards compatible. Different display chips, different display protocols, etc.

People made all kinds of claims about how the Switch 1 wasn't USB Type-C compliant when it was discovered that the Nyko dock kept frying the power management IC in the first Switch console. I think a lot of that false communal knowledge has carried forth to the Switch 2, unfortunately.

[notrealyme123]

At least on the video they made it quite clear that they assumed thant Nintendo did it on purpose, but they did not have enough proof to actually say it.

So instead they sad "Nintendo stopped early with developing compatibility"

[whatevaa]

They had to tip toe around this to avoid lawsuits. In practice, they made it quite clear they think this is on purpose.

[ChrisGreenHeur]

I'm not so sure nintendo would sue someone over wrong details on specifics of usb-c implementations.

[machomaster]

Nintendo is well-known for suing for all kinds of incredible reasons.

[kevincox]

You can sue someone for anything, and Nintendo is infamous for doing so. They will put an army of lawyers on a case that has no merit (or just enough merit not to be thrown out early) to cost the defendant lots of money or just create sufficient risk that the defendant will settle to avoid the slim chance that they lose.

Yes, our legal system has major flaws.

[burnte]

Nintendo literally uses people for playing their games in ways they don't like, regardless of if the user has actually broken any laws. They'll sue over people posting videos about games!

[dev_l1x_be]

Are you familiar that half the memes about Nintendo about suing people over ridicolous violations of their IP?

[bdhcuidbebe]

How is pointing out incompatible hardware related to IP?

[jerf]

It isn't. The point is that it establishes that they are litigious.

There's a tier above them (Oracle, for instance), but they're pretty up there in their willingness to head to court not just with other big corporations but with individuals.

[nintendohater]

It's called plausible deniability, i.e. Nintendo can claim they were just ignorant, and there's no proof of the contrary. That is, until EU rightfully fines them.

[KeplerBoy]

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.

[crote]

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.

[KeplerBoy]

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.

[SifJar]

> 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)

[Eater_of_food]

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

[pathartl]

They already produce custom designed ports in order to add some tolerance to make it easier to dock the device.

[tzs]

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.

[pjjpo]

> 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?

[naikrovek]

> 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.

[alpaca128]

> 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.

[KeplerBoy]

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]

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.

[alpaca128]

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.

[pjerem]

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.

[Xss3]

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]

> 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.

[Xss3]

A very selective reply

[alpaca128]

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]

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.

[whatevaa]

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.

[stoltzmann]

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

[franga2000]

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.

[burnte]

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.

[argsnd]

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

[ErneX]

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.

[kevincox]

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?

[burnte]

> > The inability for most docks to support the Switch 2 may not be malicious from Nintendo. It might just be a poor or lazy implementation of the USB-C specification > I'm pretty sure lttl's conclusion is plain wrong.

They stated it MAY be lazy, it MAY be intentional. They declined to state a singular conclusion so I 'm not sure how they're wrong. I think maybe you feel they're saying it's not, but they're actually saying "we don't have conclusive proof either way, but we could see either being true given Nintendo's history of laziness at some times and maliciousness at other times."

[rcxdude]

Given the Verge seems to have mixed info from their sources and LTT is pulling their punches, it seems like it is at the very least not obvious that this is what they're doing. And at least one third-party seems to work with it, so it's plausible that it is not a cryptographically enforced incompatibility.

[WmWsjA6B29B4nfk]

> Our monitoring of the interactions with the USB-C monitor shows that the negotiation does not even get to the point of the Vendor Defined Messages(VDM) where the dock would theoretically have to send the correct responses.

[maccard]

The Nintendo switch was the poster child for “don’t standardise USB C, standardise the charging protocol”, and I used it as the poster child for why I disagree with USBC being a faux-standard

And here we are again.