When the Nintendo Switch Dock first came out, I couldn't believe how genius it was. It was a place to keep your console that kept it and the controllers charged, whether you were playing on the TV, in tabletop mode, or just while kicking back on the sofa in handheld mode. It felt organised and well designed, finally combining handheld and console together in perfect harmony.
Have you ever wondered what it might have been like if other Nintendo handhelds had their own dock? If you haven't, then modder KOUZEX certainly has. He's created the world's first Nintendo 3DS Dock complete with HDMI output so you can play your DS games on a monitor and TV, as well as having the ability to hook up your Nintendo Switch Pro-Controller. It should be called the Nintendo 3DSwitch, right?
You might think that something like this could be knocked up pretty quickly, but it's taken a lot of hard work from KOUZEX's part. As shown in the video reported by Hackaday, he cites a long wait between the Game Boy Player for the GameCube and the Nintendo Switch as his motivation to 'right Nintendo's wrongs', as it were, and to bring out a dock for the 3DS and DS range of games.
Now I stop to think about it, he's absolutely right too. The Super Game Boy cartridge for the SNES was revolutionary back in the day, and I bet so many people would have loved to have hooked up their 3DS to their TVs.
The half-hour-long video shows KOUZEX's journey from CAD design after CAD design to putting everything together and creating the finished product. If you don't have a steady hand, then watching KOUZEX soldering parts together to create this dock will be incredibly satisfying indeed - this is a project that required a heck of a lot of patience.
KOUZEX is using a modified 3DS with a USB-C capture card built in for this project, as well as utilising a Raspberry Pi board to convert the 3DS' output into HDMI. The dock charges the 3DS just like it does the Switch too, and it even looks pretty similar, albeit much more sturdy with a back flap that doesn't fall off all the time!
The fact that it works is fantastic, and I would love to get hold of one of these for myself to switch up the way I play 3DS games like A Link Between Worlds. Hopefully, I can persuade KOUZEX to head over to Retro Dodo Towers with this dock so we can test it out!
