Topic: A question regarding gaming hours

If I factory reset my switch do I lose all my gaming hours? Or is it attached to my Nintendo account and as long as I log in as myself the gaming hours will re-appear after the factory reset?

@GamingWarrior All I know is, I have 2 Switch devices, and while the same hours spent playing FIFA 18 show on both devices, the Nintendo games I've played on both don't - i.e. a separate log per console, in spite of using the same account for both.

Quite why FIFA can manage it but Smash Bros and Mario Maker 2 can't, I don't know.

So I imagine if you factory reset a Switch but use the same account, some games will remember the old hours and some games won't.

@gcunit Interesting, makes me wonder where the hell they're stored.

@GamingWarrior : It's tied to your NNID. The console will try to go online in order to retrieve (and send) your most recent play data.

Both my regular Switch and Switch Lite display the same data.

If you can't go online for whatever reason, your Switch will locally keep record of your play history, but will upload the most recent data to the server and consolidate the online data with the local data on your system the next time the console manages to connect online, so it's a combination of local and online storage.

Either way, I miss the Activity Log app from the 3DS.

Yes, 3DS activity log was way better. If you record play times, better do it right.

@Silly_G Do you have Smash and Mario Maker 2 data on both devices? I do, and neither device has any issue with getting online, and yet my profile is not showing my total amount of hours for those games, it's just showing the time spent on that device only.

@Silly_G And I need to link my account whenever I want Switch to record my gaming hours, whenever the account is un-linked it'll stop keeping track of my play time right??

@gcunit : For my most recently played games, yes, which includes Smash.

The only one that doesn't display the correct time so far is DOOM (2016), which I had started playing on my Lite probably prior to registering my existing NNID with the Lite, so I assume that the play time on my Lite has overwritten the play time from my main Switch, but since registering my Lite as my "secondary console, it has been consolidating all of play times.

@GamingWarrior : If you de-register your NNID from your console's user profile, then yes.

@Silly_G I don't know what's going on:

I played Mario Maker 2 on launch day on my original Switch. I don't know how many hours I logged, but it was at least 10hrs over the next couple of weeks.

I then went a while without playing it, bought a second Switch, which I made my primary, and then started playing MM2 again last week when the Zelda update was announced. Must have played another 5 hours on it since then.

This morning, both my Switches were displaying 'Played for 10 days' against MM2 - clearly wrong for my first Switch but right as far as my second Switch is concerned.

I deregistered Switch 2 and made Switch 1 my primary (I'm not sure if I made the above play time observation before or after the dereg/rereg). I then launched MM2 on Switch 1 and immediately re-checked the activity log - MM2 was now showing as '5 hours or more'. Re-checked the log on Switch 2... still showing as 'Played for 10 days'.

I've now put the MM2 cartridge into Switch 2 and the play log has updated to '5 hours or more'.

Either way, 10+ hours are still missing from the total.