One of the things we really like about Nintendo Switch is the fact that it keeps a record of how many hours you've played a game for, so you can add up just how much of your life you've poured down the metaphorical sink; time you will never, ever get back.
Sorry, where were we? Oh yes, that play time counter. It's a great means of seeing which titles have captivated you the most, and we're sure that many of you will have invested a fair number of hours into Zelda: Breath of the Wild – it was a launch game, after all, but it also helps that it's one of the best video games of all time.
However, even if you consider yourself to be something of a Breath of the Wild veteran, we doubt very much that you've put as much time into the game as Samir AID:
That's right – he's clocked up so many hours in the game that he has maxed out the play time counter, which stops at 9,999 hours – or, if you prefer, 416 Days and 15 Hours (or 599,940 minutes). That's equivalent to launching Splatoon 2 and watching Marina and Pearl discuss the current stages 448,107 times.
We can't imagine many people will get anywhere near that total – even in an epic like Breath of the Wild – but does the fact that there's a hard limit on the counter bother you?
Go on, admit it – it kinda does, right?
[source twitter.com]
Comments 90
Is that new ?? An early bug from a firmware update was famous...
"That's equivalent to launching Splatoon 2 and watching Marina and Pearl discuss the current stages 448,107 times."
Or equivilant to launching Splatoon 2 and watching Sheldon discuss the new weapons once.
@Raylax this got me 😂😂
Aidman should get a life!
It does bother me, but will also never, ever effect me. I’d be a much better painter if I was diligent as this guy was playing BotW, like wow.
@Michael_Knight : He is Nintendo Life personified.
I thought after the first year this got reset and everyone got annoyed?
Guessing he just left the switch running with Link standing in a village where he never got attacked and never actually turned it off just plugged in.
Most limits do.😆 But the wishlist limit way more so.
With my playtime, I don't think any Switch game has surpassed my 200-something hour record in Dissidia 012 yet (on actual PSP, not the copy I properly got for Vita later). But I also played that game for years since 2012, to be fair.
Doesn't the counter only keep the last 2 years of use? Even if not, this is just a ridiculous amount of time to spend playing video games.
Yes it does! I don’t like it when there are caps for timers and counters.
When you hit the cap for playtime, Miyamoto comes to your house and tells you to go outside.
I think it's not hard limit... it just won't display more than 9,999. It's more common to do that than setting a hard limit like that. It is probably stored in seconds in the db too.
Speaking from programmer stand point.
@Bunkerneath There was a bug where after 1 year it displayed the 'first played 1 day ago' message, but it didn't actually lose any data, so they fixed it without affecting anyone's logs.
This means they have been playing BotW at least 45% of their daily time since release. 10.85 hrs a day. More than sleep I am sure.
@blackbox64 he did that to me once. But I managed to grab my Switch as I left.
This looks like a hack to me. No way anyone played the game that much in 2.5years
I've spent more time on A Link To The Past, Ocarina Of Time and The Wind Waker than Breath Of The Wild. Least your weapons and shields stay intact in those games. And your running/climbing isn't limited to a stamina meter.
Dude must be a NEET
1.) How does this guy have that much time?!
2.) Why isn’t there a more detailed activity log? “9,999 or more” is bad, but surely this number could be worse 😛
I've played a couple of Switch games for over 1,000 hours but I've never really spent too much more than that on a single video game. I highly doubt that I'll ever reach even close to 9,999 hours in any single game for as long as I live.
It would have to be one hell of an amazing game for me to sink nearly 10 000 hours into it.
Breath of the Wild is good, but its not THAT good.
That is not healthy.
@Raylax
My seven year old, got so frustrated by this that he started crying. And he almost never cries.
K, switch released on march 3rd, 2017. Lets just say that was 900 days ago. 10,000 hours ÷ 900 days = 11.11 hours a day. I think this guy playing that much everday is bs.
Removed - unconstructive
"Go on, admit it – it kinda does, right?"
That is so far down the list of things to be annoyed about on Switch that it doesn't even merit being number 9,999 on the list.
The fact that the Wii had a pretty nice log in the Nintendo Channel, before Ntineod nuked it, the Wii U had a passable log and the 3DS has a very good log makes it even that much more infuriating the way they don't keep track of things on the Switch after 2 1/2 years on the market.
I actually keep the parent app running on my phone just so I can see how much time we play each month. And as good of a job as that does - so much better than what is even on the Switch itself, which again makes absolutely no sense - it still has annoying limitations.
As always w/ Nintnedo, 2 steps forward, 1 step back.
and yet only one friend online...
Never going to hit it but yes, bothers me. Bothers me it only does five hour chunks too.
Not bothered, doubt it will ever affect me. I truly hope it never affects me.
Sounds like just enough time to find all the damn Korok seeds.
@Anti-Matter That is a hell of a mistake
It should freeze your Switch at 999 hours and tell you to get a life.
No. It’s doesn't bother me in the slightest. I honestly wouldn’t care if there was no counter/timer at all.
Wow. This person has literally been LIVING in Breath of the Wild since it released! <3
No surprises here. In programming/development there's always a "limit" on everything unless the device/appliance has the capability to scale logically beyond the hardware's capability. It's an awkward practice to set these things infinitely since it could run into problems down the line.
In my experience in electronics usually a "time" module is a separate component and you're confined to what it provides. If it can only go 9999 hours then there's nothing they could do. It could havebits own memory so to speak. But I'm guessing it can do more since you're basically counting hours for a lot of games so I think they deliberately stopped it at 9999. Now I'm not familiar with the inner workings of the Switch but if it can somehow interface with other components like memory for example than it's possible to logically extend those limits. Perhaps dumping the play counter data onto the storage? I dunno. But that of course comes with its own problems.
I'm not an expert so feel free to disagree
@MaxlRoseGNR
I'm not a fan of Zelda games actually.
I bought BOTW since 27 March 2017 but i neglected the game for more than 2 years due to lost my curiosity about BOTW.
I still see a potential from that game but i'm not in the mood to play it right now.
@Michael_Knight
No one knows what's going on in another's life.
My husband passed away in February, after a long illness. The last 1 1/2 years were rough as I took care of him pretty much on my own 24/7. We had 35 years together, more than 1/2 my life.
I got a Switch and have been putting in more game time than I ever have. I feel un-moored since his death and the escapism is an immense help right now. I am so thankful that DQXIS is releasing soon! I played through the demo 3 times.
This will all even out for me eventually, and I'll find my feet again. But right now gaming is filling a void that would feel like an abyss without it.
I don't think it is possible. Unless this guy is literally playing 85% of his awake time, or doesn't sleep or something.........The Game has been out for 2.5 years, this data states he has been playing the equivalent of 1 year and 2 months, roughly half o f the time the game has been out this guy has kept his switch on playing the game.
@AlternateButtons I deffo agree. I'd like to see them add more detail to the playtime counter in a software update if possible!
I don't believe anyone would put that amount of time into a game. They must have just left it running.
So this means he average 11 hours a day since the day the game came out. Even leaving the game running a lot of that time seems unlikely.
But the fact there is a limit doesn't bother me as much as the fact we can't see play times on anything but the last 20 games played and they are just estimates. I know they're collecting the data so I'd like a way to see it down to the 5 minutes and roll it down to a minimum of a specific day and up to lifetime.
Going by when this article was posted.
BOTW has been playable for at least 22,104 hours. I'm assuming that, that user has played BOTW twice as much as the max counter on his switch shows him.
@k8sMum I am sorry to hear that. i had a loss too, but drowning in video games doesn't really help to move on in my opinion! It might be a good distraction, but it's not helping to accept a loss and carry on with life.
@k8sMum so sorry to hear that! Really, I am genuinely sorry, and though I (luckily) can’t relate to suffering such a humongous loss, I can definitely relate to the need for escapism in this chapter of my life.
I hope you can feel better soon! ☺️
Someone needs to teach they kid how to put the switch into sleep mode
I found this function the first week i bought Switch.
It were never hidden.
hahaha love the splatoon reference. now that i know theres a hard limit, it kinda does bother me but im still pretty far away from reaching it on any of my games
I think its a hack or something
That dude needs to get a life!
The most I have done on Switch is 130 hours in BotW, the most I've done overall is 250 hours in Animal Crossing: New Leaf.
I agree with others that this seems like a hack. Another user mentioned above that this is 11.11 hours a day. No way is this real.
This is a as of the update before 9.0. It used to be 1,150 hours.
If I ever find myself spending more than a whole years' worth of hours on any video game I'm going to find creative way's of inflicting serious pain upon myself for being such a d**k.
@k8sMum Sorry for your loss. Glad gaming has somewhat helped you, I hope you move on soon.
I can only assume this wasn't actual play time but time the game was running. Maybe the machine was located in a public place like a school or doctor's office and was lots of people playing it. I don't think it's even physically possible for it to have been actually physically played for the equivalent of almost half a day every day, just that one game, since launch day. Even if he also played Odyssey or something for a while this count really wouldn't be possible.
@k8sMum sorry for your loss. Video games can be a great distraction at difficult times
As much as I like games, there are so many that I want to play that I doubt I'd ever clock that many hours on a single Switch entry.
Well, I don't think I could spend that much time on my Nintendo Switch over the course of its entire existence, let alone in one game. I have a very strong feeling he didn't actually play the game that many hours though.
I definitely have a few 200+ hour Switch games (Hyrule Warriors, Fire Emblem 3H, probably BotW, I'd need to check), and Xenoblade 2 and Torna combined have clocked up I think close to 400. I honestly can't imagine spending that much time on a single title.
He probably fell asleep with zelda on 🤪
he 100% just left Breath of the Wild on all day each day while he did something else until it maxed out play time
Whenever I see a high playtime count, I wonder how many are profiles with more than one user, like siblings, or a family.
@Anti-Matter
You like what you like. It happens
This will never be an issue for me.
That amount of hours can't be real.Like others have said it's either more than one user,a hack,left it running but not playing or he has no life.
I bought it on day one and have only put its over 55 hours into it.
@Michael_Knight
It's all perspective, imho. What you see as drowning i see as a lifeline.
It's nothing to go do with acceptance and more of a helpful distraction from grief. I'm probably a lot older than you and at a different place in my life. I don't work outside the home. I'm an artist but the muse has gone away for a bit. I'm physically and emotionally exhausted from the last couple years.
It helps me take care of me right now.
I highly doubt he put that much time into the game. More likely scenario is that he has left his game running for days or weeks at a time. Enabling the auto-power off feature would save his console some needless wear and a little power consumption.
Really annoys me they don't have an accurate playtime counter like on 3DS. It's annoying you can't get a count until 10 days after you've played it, because your profile just states "First played...days ago". Why didn't they just have a journal like 3DS so you could easily see when you've played games, how long for, and get stats like most played, average time played and how many times?
@acachewowow I was just about to do the math. I knew it was 416 days of playtime. Thank you for saving me the trouble.
as if he couldn't have just hacked the playtime counter... this is some hot bs
This is who I call a TRUE Breath of the Wild fan.
Yeah I am not sure I see it myself, perhaps he’s left it on over night to let it wrack up? Not saying it’s impossible it’s just... a hell of a lot of time spent on one game since release. Even if his circumstances allowed for so much free time, wouldn’t he play a lot of other games?
Oh well!
The only game I could see getting anywhere near close to that is Smash Ultimate and that's because of the Famitsu article about future DLC for that game. It almost seems like Smash Ultimate will get DLC as long as the Switch is supported.
Did you even read the replies? This has been known for a long time... https://twitter.com/KuddlesSucks/status/1171885060183732230?s=19
@Raylax Haha, this definitely got me.
A counter limit won't ever bother anybody who knows anything about programming. What bothers me, though, is this limit is a base 10 number instead of a base 2 number. That makes it likely an artificial ceiling instead of a technical one.
One of my "friends" as in I never met her in real life, has several thousand hours on several games. Even Skylanders and Kirby! It's like she played through those games several hundred times. I can't figure out how anyone could do that other than have a game running at all times while not actually playing. (I never looked, but there must be a way to over ride the auto-sleep).
@Michael_Knight he is selling his switch cheaper, "like a new" "Few hours of use"
@Raylax Best laugh I've had in a while, thanks. 😂
I've had my Switch since launch day and BotW is the only game I've put more than 100hrs into. How on earth do people have the time to play this much? Surely that's not healthy?
@Raylax Bro so TRUE!
I have 190 hours in BOTW but to be fair Dark Souls will also get close to that (currently 110 and im only half way into my first play through) and so will Witcher 3, I've done 70 on Hollow Knight and 60 on Diablo 3, i can also see Dragon quest and Pokemon doing 100+ also.
Im not bothered about a 10k hour time cap to be fair, i doubt id spend that much time on all my games combined, let alone on one game.
This is obviously a hack or a bug. I've bumped into a faux hacker who was trolling on Splatoon 2 and he had 9999 hours on Splatoon 2 that was released 4 months AFTER botw, that's like 1 year and 5 months. C'mon NintendoLife.
https://twitter.com/bringthen0ize/status/1164342162085097472?s=19
this just makes me wish we had a dedicated activity log again
Just came by to be Captain Obvious- running and playing are two VERY different things. The game ran for 9,999 hours, but it wasn't played for 9,999 hours, because the user himself tweeted that he let the game run to trigger blood moons, so anyone can achieve this same feat if they left their systems on all night while they slept, because 8 or 9 hours a night would add up fast.
@Brianst0rm just leave your system on continuously, it'll count as "play time" despite not actually being played- I tried it myself after this, and sure enough after 12 hours of sitting with me not touching it, the counter went up 12 hours. So, all you need to do is leave it on continuously, and it'll count. Kind of stupid really, because if you're not actually moving the controller, you're NOT playing!
@TheFox there is, you can turn it off. I did, and left my system on 12 hours, and the play time went up 12 hours. This is a joke!
It seems to be explained. Just leaving it on does it. How the hell then did someone clock over 10,000 hours on Destiny 2 in less time? Theories are as follows:
1) Glitch and rubberband
2) Communal PS4
3) Sad lonely person.
@gamefreak77 9999 hours is over a year. I highly doubt these play counts are real, they're just manipulating it with homebrew and sh*t like that. Nintendo needs to start doing something with these folks if they just can't stop trying to hack everything.
@Anti-Matter well not everyone has good taste...
How do I get it show the hours I’ve played games instead of days.
@matdub number #3 is my favorite lol
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