Nintendo recently released an update (21.0.0) for its Switch 2 console, which, apart from a few minor changes, has caused some third-party docks to stop working as expected. In the early weeks and months of the console’s availability this summer, companies raced to figure out the right commands, the right power draw, and the right chips to use to trick the Switch 2 into thinking it’s connected to the real thing — Nintendo’s dock, which is included with every console. Now, some of them have to figure out how to do it again.
If you think Nintendo did this on purpose, you’re not alone. But did? According to Nintendo, absolutely not. gaming site Kotaku A new statement has been published from the company saying that it “has no intention of hindering or invalidating legal third-party dock compatibility.” Read one way, it seems like Nintendo didn’t intend to cause these issues with its latest update. Read another way, Nintendo has clearly established that there is a legal and an illegal way to make third-party Switch 2 docks, and a lot of them were made illegally.
Without more details from Nintendo, it’s hard to know what this means for the future. Are there more docs on the chopping block? Is it reconfiguring its proprietary Switch 2 dock handshake to keep third-party dock manufacturers in constant trouble? Will it develop (or has it already developed) something similar to the Apple MFi certification program to allow companies to pay a fee to promise support out of the box with their locked-down ports?
Whatever the answers, Nintendo will naturally want to motivate consumers to use its expensive docks, and sidestep third-party companies from trying to engineer duplicate gadgets at a fraction of the cost. This will make the next few months interesting for third-party manufacturers like Genkey and JSAUX, which are launching compact, power adapter-sized docks later this year. Switch 2 support is on each of their feature lists, but we’ll see if it remains a selling point closer to their launch.