I can understand the warranty aspect: they don’t necessarily want to be in the hook when users stuffs up the port using a janky 20-in-1 USB-C hub.
Why play around with the VRR and HDR side of things too?
Edit: I know someone will say ‘because they want to sell more docks’, but it already comes with the console… the market for people buying multiple docks I doesn’t justify the development and manufacturing costs.
That is, Nintendo intentionally used a widely-used, well-specified standardised connector and protocol, and chose to make their implementation subtly non-compliant in several ways. And there is no discernible good reason to do so (as far as I know it’s not like they actually needed to do anything special, stock-standard, compliant USB-C would work perfectly fine).
IMHO, their USB-C-ish is frustrating. Same shape but not all chargers work. But on the flip side, understand what they're doing.
Nintendo is not making a USB-C computer, they're making a _product_ or a cohesive system.
They do not want you plugging in an arbitrary charger (which may not have the right wattage), don't want you laying the switch face up (nubs on the controllers getting in the way), face down (scratching the screen), plugging in a usb-c controller and dragging the spiderweb of wires off the entertainment center, or trying to use the touch screen while attached to a TV.
They wanted a vertical dock that managed airflow, charged at the appropriate rate, and guided you away from asking why you couldn't have some janky setup where you're trying to treat it like a gameboy advance (local screen simultaneous to big TV) being held by kindergarteners who pull the TV off the stand).
...so the dock is effectively a sacrificial buffer/safety system to prevent your switch from causing damage to your TV.
Aren't these issues that Nintendo has to solve to maintain compliance with modern compatibility laws, rather than roadblocks for them to use to inhibit consumer ease-of-use? If the wattage is wrong then the Switch 2 can say that and either slow charge or not charge at all. The other issues are all purely user preference.
> They do not want you plugging in an arbitrary charger (which may not have the right wattage)
Why not? The standard deals with such a situation fine… There is zero danger, the PD contract wouldn’t be able to negotiate, so the system could just indicate with an LED or a message on the screen or something to show it’s not going to be able to start charging without a bigger charger. This is literally a solved problem.
I’ve done similar hacks and I love how LLMs turned them from month-long projects to a couple of weeks.
Claude used to work best IMHO but their “safety” change has made it near useless. Luckily local models are getting better.
Curious to hear why they did this to begin with.
I can understand the warranty aspect: they don’t necessarily want to be in the hook when users stuffs up the port using a janky 20-in-1 USB-C hub.
Why play around with the VRR and HDR side of things too?
Edit: I know someone will say ‘because they want to sell more docks’, but it already comes with the console… the market for people buying multiple docks I doesn’t justify the development and manufacturing costs.
Every single laptop vendor deals with this. Ipads, desktops, you name it. Nintendo are simply not anywhere near industry baseline here.
That is, Nintendo intentionally used a widely-used, well-specified standardised connector and protocol, and chose to make their implementation subtly non-compliant in several ways. And there is no discernible good reason to do so (as far as I know it’s not like they actually needed to do anything special, stock-standard, compliant USB-C would work perfectly fine).
IMHO, their USB-C-ish is frustrating. Same shape but not all chargers work. But on the flip side, understand what they're doing.
Nintendo is not making a USB-C computer, they're making a _product_ or a cohesive system.
They do not want you plugging in an arbitrary charger (which may not have the right wattage), don't want you laying the switch face up (nubs on the controllers getting in the way), face down (scratching the screen), plugging in a usb-c controller and dragging the spiderweb of wires off the entertainment center, or trying to use the touch screen while attached to a TV.
They wanted a vertical dock that managed airflow, charged at the appropriate rate, and guided you away from asking why you couldn't have some janky setup where you're trying to treat it like a gameboy advance (local screen simultaneous to big TV) being held by kindergarteners who pull the TV off the stand).
...so the dock is effectively a sacrificial buffer/safety system to prevent your switch from causing damage to your TV.
Aren't these issues that Nintendo has to solve to maintain compliance with modern compatibility laws, rather than roadblocks for them to use to inhibit consumer ease-of-use? If the wattage is wrong then the Switch 2 can say that and either slow charge or not charge at all. The other issues are all purely user preference.
> They do not want you plugging in an arbitrary charger (which may not have the right wattage)
Why not? The standard deals with such a situation fine… There is zero danger, the PD contract wouldn’t be able to negotiate, so the system could just indicate with an LED or a message on the screen or something to show it’s not going to be able to start charging without a bigger charger. This is literally a solved problem.
> doesn’t justify the development and manufacturing costs
At Nintendo scale, I bet it does though