Not a great user experience.
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.
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.
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)
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
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.
I have many reasons to be pissed at Apple but connectivity is not one of them.