is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
If you plug the world’s best-reviewed webcams into the Nintendo Switch 2 today, they won’t work, while many comparatively ancient webcams do. Why? That’s been a mystery for the nearly three weeks since the handheld launched. Now, two companies say they’ve figured it out and are pledging to update the firmware on their cameras.
Here’s a possibly oversimplified answer: today’s more-powerful webcams advertise many different modes that they support to any device you connect via USB — but that’s a problem because the Nintendo Switch 2 appears to be choosing modes it can’t properly play.
In the case of Elgato, which will update its non-working Facecam MK.2 and Facecam Neo, the solve was adding an additional low-resolution 480p mode, with Elgato general manager Julian Fest speculating that the Switch can only reliably support “very low resolution” cameras in order to put multiple facecams on screen.
But low resolution by itself isn’t the answer — as you’d probably expect, given that Nintendo’s own official Switch 2 camera is a 1080p camera which genuinely broadcasts a 1080p mode (we checked), and given it’s far from the only 1080p or higher camera that works with Nintendo’s new Switch.
Accessory company Ugreen tells The Verge that the technical details of making a camera work with the console are far more nuanced than resolution, or framerate, or whether you have the enhanced bandwidth of USB 3 or the far slower USB 2.
Nor is it enough for the camera to support a single compatible UVC (USB Video Class) mode. Instead, Ugreen spokesperson Gabrielle Wang explains by email, the camera needs to avoid advertising modes or protocols that the Switch might not recognize, or that it might attempt to use but fail, after you plug it into the console.
Ugreen says three different conditions all simultaneously need to be met for a camera to work with the Switch 2:
“The camera must not use the HID protocol.”
“The camera must be configured for Isochronous transfer mode.” ( As opposed to Bulk , which can be more resource intensive.)
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