How Nintendo locked down the Swap 2’s USB-C port and broke third-party docking

There’s all the time a cause why common USB-C ports don’t “simply work” such as you’d count on. Within the early days, it was incompetence or naiveté. Later, producers typically cheaped out. However within the case of Nintendo’s Swap 2, it seems to be intentional.

With the Nintendo Swap 2, it ought to be simple to plug your new, dearer console into video glasses or TVs once you’re touring away from residence. USB-C makes it so. However Nintendo has deliberately damaged the Swap 2’s compatibility with these gadgets, utilizing a brand new encryption scheme and a few type of devoted encryption chip, two accent producers inform The Verge.

I haven’t but discovered proof of that encryption chip myself — however after I analyzed the USB-C PD site visitors with a Energy-Z tester, I might clearly see the brand new Nintendo Swap not behaving like a superb USB citizen ought to.

Should you’ve been questioning why there are principally no moveable Swap 2 docks in the marketplace, that is the explanation. Even Jsaux, the corporate that constructed its popularity by beating the Steam Deck dock to market, tells us it’s paused its plans to construct a Swap 2 dock due to Nintendo’s actions. It’s not just because the Swap 2 now requires extra voltage, as was beforehand reported; it’s that Nintendo has made issues much more tough this technology.

That “U” in USB isn’t all the time “common,” however that is usually true: when you plug any USB-C to HDMI adapter, dock, or hub right into a USB-C laptop computer, pill or handheld that helps USB-C video output, you may count on to see your display screen mechanically seem in your TV.

The magic is generally potential due to a easy, standardized set of directions that any producer can comply with to make their docking station or hub “speak” to the pc. The truth is, they’re so easy I can mock up a fundamental model for you proper right here:

This dialog, utilizing standardized (often called “structured”) messages over the USB-C PD protocol, takes a tiny fraction of a second.

However as you most likely now suspect, the Nintendo Swap 2 doesn’t do it that method. Once you plug the Swap 2 right into a third-party dock or hub, it might refuse to barter energy. Different occasions, it’ll get the ability it asks for, however then the dialog will abruptly grind to a halt.

As a result of that’s when the Nintendo Swap 2 will begin speaking in code — proprietary messages solely Nintendo can decipher.

By now, you is perhaps questioning how I can see any of this, coded or not. However all you want is a intermediary to smell the USB-C Energy Supply site visitors passing between a dock and Nintendo’s handheld, just like the Energy-Z KM003C that I purchased for this story. I plug one finish of it into the Swap 2 (and different computer systems to check), one other finish of it into the Swap 2’s dock (and different docks to check), join its third port to my Home windows PC with an extended cable, then fireplace up its app to log the passing information.

Once I analyze the dialog between the Nintendo Swap 2 and its dock, I can see the 2 gadgets start talking in Nintendo’s personal taste of “vendor outlined” language early within the dialog, earlier than they log off on any video output. After which, seemingly earlier than the dock confirms that it’s engaged video-out, they ship over 30 proprietary “unstructured” messages to at least one one other.

Different USB-C hubs and docks I’ve examined don’t have that very same dialog — with one notable exception.

As of at the moment, just one single third-party dock claims to be suitable with the Nintendo Swap 2. And also you most likely received’t be stunned to listen to that after I examined the $36 Antank S3 Max (aka SiWiQU TV Dock Station), I discovered it speaks Nintendo’s coded language.

It doesn’t transmit each message in the identical actual order as Nintendo’s dock, and it provides a barely totally different quantity of electrical energy, nevertheless it despatched nearly precisely the identical coded messages and responses to Nintendo’s requests, together with a repeating code that I’m notably inquisitive about: 33 01 07 DA 06 01 6D 68 33 01 07 DA 06 01 6D 68.

In line with Antank, which says it checked with its chip provider, that hexadecimal string “is certainly the present key being utilized by Nintendo.” My different sources are much less positive.

However identical to with the official Nintendo Swap 2 dock, our TV lights up after the Antank sends these coded messages.

However that doesn’t imply any firm can simply copy Nintendo’s instructions and count on their dock to maintain on working. “We do count on Nintendo could additional restrict third-party docks and equipment through system updates to keep up gadget and system safety,” Jsaux spokesperson Winnie Chen tells The Verge.

Antank appears to agree. “Sure — the important thing ought to be thought of topic to vary,” writes an Antank consultant who goes by Susie. “Nonetheless, our product helps firmware updates, and any future modifications to the authentication key by Nintendo might theoretically be addressed through software program, guaranteeing continued compatibility.”

So why is any of this a giant deal, notably when the Swap 2 comes with its personal dock proper within the field? Effectively, it’s not simply large TV docks. Nintendo has additionally damaged compatibility with moveable docks that you would be able to tackle trip or to your lodge room, and with video glasses just like the Xreal One, which price as a lot as or greater than a Swap 2 all by themselves.

And to repair that, you’ll apparently want to purchase brand-new {hardware}, Jsaux, Antank, and Xreal have discovered. Whereas Xreal initially appeared to counsel it was a brief drawback that simply required a “technical adjustment,” Xreal now says the repair will want a brand new gadget referred to as the Xreal Neo. The excellent news: Xreal spokesperson Ralph Jodice tells The Verge the brand new gadget is already working within the lab and can ship “somewhat later this yr.”

One other argument I’ve heard on Reddit: why shouldn’t Nintendo have the power to guard the Swap 2 from fly-by-night docking stations and energy provides that may harm its new handheld and set off extra calls to Nintendo buyer assist?

There, I’d level out that locking issues down isn’t essentially a repair. When Nintendo launched the unique Swap in 2017, accent makers equally had to determine learn how to crack Nintendo’s esoteric docking protocols, and a few of them (Nyko) allegedly led to broken handhelds.

I count on some eagle-eyed Nintendo followers will even level out that the Swap 2, in contrast to the unique Swap, wants energetic airflow to run correctly: Nintendo’s official Swap 2 dock now has a fan inside, and the console has vents on the underside that may get blocked by third-party docks. (The truth is, the Antank dock already does block these vents!)

However earlier than you counsel that the vents and fan are strictly needed, please know that the cooling fan within the Swap 2 dock doesn’t really cool the Swap 2, and that Antank’s dock doesn’t appear to make a Swap 2 run hotter than the official dock. I ran Cyberpunk 2077 for an hour straight with every dock, then pulled out a thermal digital camera, and Antank’s really appears barely cooler. Maybe having extra airflow throughout the display screen and again of the console offsets the influence of blocked vents. By that logic, maybe the console might run even cooler if Nintendo allow you to use a USB-C to HDMI dongle as a substitute of docking it.

Principally, it’s the precept of the matter. USB-C ought to simply work, right here’s a spot the place it normally does, and but Nintendo has stored it from doing so.

Nintendo wouldn’t affirm or deny that it’s utilizing encryption and authentication chips to lock down the Swap 2’s video output. It provided no remark for this story.