Nintendo's Subtle Thievery

I am over 50 — a little too old, perhaps, to spend my time playing Animal Crossings: New Horizons, but it is a social outlet, oddly, and soothes me while I am self-isolating. I know I am not alone in this.

I got started on my husband’s Switch, and spent a good 80 hours building up my house, my island, and my turnip trade. I had 6 islanders living on my island with me, and had half-filled my museum, built a town all for Mr. Nook, a shop for his kids, and a clothiers. I was gardening and making all sorts of hybrids.

At this point, my patient husband decided that he would like, occasionally, to be able to play with his Switch, so he bought me a Switch Lite, and I set out to transfer my account and game data. This is where everything blew up. I completed the transfer to my new yellow brick of joy(?), and started the game up, only to… be started at the very beginning? My husband and I both did a bit of googling, and it seems as though this transfer fail is a known issue. I began to panic, which is sadly my default configuration and why soothing games are so nice to have, but he had me transfer my stuff back to his Switch, and, thankfully, everything was still there.

I tried the transfer again. There was no warning that the game data wouldn’t be on the new system.There was also nothing at the beginning of the game saying that any gains made on the current console would not be transferrable to another console. Not. One. Word.

I am very privileged. I know that my upset over this is beyond a 1st world problem. It barely ranks as a .5th world problem. Still, I value my time and my sanity very highly. Therefore, I opened a support ticket, as there seemed to be an option to have Nintendo support assist in a data transfer between game units. Ticket number in hand, I waited for a response while digging further into the interwebs about this issue.

Nintendo are incredibly lucky. They were having serious issues with JoyCon controller drift before the ‘Rona hit, but the moment it did, all was forgotten, and people, in a rush to keep their minds busy, bought up every Switch and Switch Lite to be had. It is still very hard to get your hands on one. On top of this, they released ACNH just in time for people to soothe their cabin fever by building more cabins. It would have been a perfect solace if the game weren’t flawed in this one major way. I am not a hard-core gamer, but I used to work for one of the console companies, and I have yet to come across a game that doesn’t allow save data to be transferred from one console to another. Such games may be out there, but they aren’t doing well, I’d wager.

Anyway, I heard nothing for 4 or 5 days regarding my ticket, so today I called Nintendo America’s help line, and went on a chat via their website. After explaining my predicament, I got the same answers from both places. Here is the chat transcript:

Nintendo: Thank you for contacting Nintendo, my name is [nice, scripted kid]. How may I assist you today?

Me: I got a switch lite so that my new addiction to Animal Crossing: New Horizons wouldn’t keep my husband from using his. I did an account and game data transfer, only to find out that it was starting me at the beginning!
I was able to transfer back to his and not lose my 75+ hours of stuff…
So, I opened a ticket to get help with transferring the game. The ticket is #########. I still haven’t heard anything. I am very disappointed that this transfer is not easily possible, and that there was NO WARNING anywhere about it not being possible without help. I know that this is not your fault as a support tech, but if you would add my voice to the list of people upset for the same reason, I would appreciate it. Also, if you can check on the status of my assisted transfer, I would appreciate it.

Nintendo: I have two pieces of information (they are not good, but it will be useful to know at the least).
First, Animal Crossing: New Horizons does not support the ability to transfer your save file from one Nintendo Switch system to another.
Second, Animal Crossing: New Horizons does not support the Save Data Cloud functionality of Nintendo Switch Online. However, the ability to recover Animal Crossing: New Horizons save data from the server in the event of console failure, loss or theft will be available to Nintendo Switch Online members later this year. Apologies for the bad news.

Me: Will it ever be a possibility??

Nintendo: We do not know.
The second piece of information says we can help recover Animal Crossing: New Horizons save data at a later time — but we do not how when/how/if or anything else.

Me: I cannot be the only person who played on one console only to want to play on their own… I mean, I spent the cost of the switch, the game, the online membership and I can’t use any of them??

Nintendo: We are hoping it will simple and easy for us to assist you guys with this, but we do not want to guess and end up lying to you. So I have to leave it at I have no further information at all.

Me: Ok.

Nintendo: You can transfer your items — its not the same as transferring your save data, but its not a completely fresh start.

Me: Items?

Nintendo: You can trade all your items to another person, start your game, and then have that a person give you the items back.
It’s not much I know…

Me: What items? My bells and everything I bought?

Nintendo: Crafting items, seeds, food, equipment, etc.
Anything that can go into your inventory I believe.

Me: Ah. How about recipes?

Nintendo: I’m not sure — you need to “trade” with another player. So if you can trade recipes, than [sic] yes.
I have barely started my Island, so I am not sure exactly what is trade-able.

Me: Ok. Thank you again. Please can you tell the powers that be that this is unacceptable game development?

Nintendo: I’ll sent the feedback on up.

Me: Thank you.

I feel as though I have been robbed and flipped off by Tom Nook.

In order to give Nintendo and the ACNH game devs the benefit of the doubt, I would have to go the route of assuming ignorance and poor planning. They would have had to fail, somehow, to conceive of any scenario where say, a parent or a sibling or a spouse was sharing a Switch, and then — huzzah for Nintendo’s coffers! — bought another to allow more play time for all in the family. Thing is, even among the small group I play with, at least a third of the people are sharing with family members. The other excuse option I can think of for this sadly not-ready-for-release game status would be that they just don’t give a shit. They don’t care about their customers’ time or effort being wasted due to lack of a basic function in their system and game.

Well, I am here to tell you that, if you value your time, your effort and your sanity, you should not pay Nintendo for an unfinished product, especially if they do not want to be forthright about its limitations before you waste your time and money.