The Nintendo Switch and all its accessories aren’t cheap. The console itself retails for £279.99/$299.99, while additional sets of Joy-Con controllers are £69.99/$79.99. And now Nintendo has confirmed the standalone Switch dock price and it’s rather eye-watering.
Via Amazon in the UK, you can now pre-order the Switch docks. But if you want the additional kit, you’re looking at a Switch dock price of £79.99 in the UK. According to the official Nintendo website, that price is $89.99 in the US.
For that price you get the dock, an additional HDMI cable and USB-C AC adaptor. It’s not actually out until June 23, but it’s good that you’re able to pre-order now – if you can stump up that cash, anyway.
There’s plenty of benefits in having a second dock, especially when lunchtime Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sessions are a regular here at FANDOM and you still want to have Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the big screen at home. The dock not only charges your Switch, it also bumps up performance, regularly boosting visuals from 720p HD to full HD 1080p and improving framerates.
Nintendo originally sold a spare dock when the Switch was first launched in March, but the accessory was quickly pulled from sale. Nintendo claimed it was due to the demand being “higher than anticipated” and it was pulled due to stock shortages rather than issues with the hardware.
“As a company, as a philopshy, we would rather have consumers use our first-party solutions,” said Nintendo US boss, Reggie Fils-Aime, at the time about the surge in third-party dock alternatives. “In part, because what happens if the system falls off of where it’s being secured, all of a sudden we have a consumer with a potentially damaged unit. So we want consumers to use our solution, and that’s a docking solution with the cable connected to the TV.”
When the Nintendo Switch first launched, many consumers had issues with the official dock with reports suggesting they were actually warping consoles, causing them to bend out of shape. Elsewhere, some complained that sliding the console in and out of the dock was scratching the Switch’s screen.