Here's a funny story – some Animal Crossing: New Horizons players, including our very own American-based video producer Zion Grassl, have noticed a certain item in the game has recently undergone a name change.
You see, prior to the 1.2.0 update, there was a light switch (see above) simply labelled 'Switch' – as you can imagine, it made quite a lot of people chuckle when they placed down the item. Here it is in Zion's own words:
A while back I received a furniture piece from a balloon that was called "Switch" and to my surprise, it wasn't a Nintendo system.
Nintendo has now changed this, and the light switch is accurately labelled. Take a look at the before and after shots below:
Before:
After:
As one user on Twitter pointed out (thanks, @reliesgamelog), the 'Light Switch' might still be confused by some as a Switch Lite. As long as you're switched on though, it shouldn't be a problem. Did you notice this incredibly minor change? Tell us below.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 55
The console is called "Nintendo Switch" in-game rather than simply "Switch". I figured that was self-explanatory, but apparently not to some people.
"Light switch" could be confusing as we don't know whether it's referring to an original Switch console (that perhaps played a little too much Ring Fit Adventure), a Switch Lite, or some other kind of switch that happens to be comprised of less matter (and relative to what?). They should have called it "Tungsten bulb switch" to alleviate any ambiguity and put pedantic minds at ease.
Fix this mess, Nintendo!
Light Switch... but now (stupid) people will be like...
"That's not a Light Switch"
On a different note, I do wonder why the Switch Lite isn't an item in the game though... (or I have missed it)
Nintendo should give the universal Latin name : Nintendos Switchus (Cue from Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote) 🤣
Now people will just think it's a Switch Lite 😅
Switch - dark brain
Light Switch - some activity
Switch Light - much activity
@KingBowser86
Switch Lite - galaxy brain
Switch Heavy - cue explosions on intergalactic scale
Now that Nintendo have spent all this time having board meetings to discuss the name of the ingame switch, maybe they could turn their attention to making a couple more fuc**ing boards for Mario party. I had it on release and the 4 boards soon got tiring so sold it but now my kids are absolutely belly aching for me to get it again as they are board. Come on Nintendo! You supported that watered down tennis game long enough. Why not one of your good ip's that is the absolute perfect game to slowly expand with dlc. It absolutely baffles my mind!! . Im ready to drop £120 quid on a game and joy cons.
Going inside NintendoLife's writers minds"
"There are so many interesting stories and so many updates on already available games but no, NintendoLife readers are more interested about a switch that became a light switch."
Have I missed something or is this in-game (light) switch utterly useless and just cosmetic ?
This change confused the HECK out of me. How? Because I keep a spreadsheet of my catalog. Ridiculous, I know, but it keeps me from buying duplicate items just to catalog them and my memory sucks. I often update it in batches though (when I have my laptop near me), making a note of the items when I get them so I can just update it later - I like to, for ease, add what colors I have access to as well as whether they can be ordered from the catalog (so I don’t give away something I can’t replace).
So the day before the update, a villager gave me a “switch”. I chuckled, fairly certain it wasn’t a Nintendo Switch but not entirely sure if it was a light switch or some other sort of switch. Either way, I didn’t even look at it, just jotted down the name and threw it into storage. The night after the update, I was updating the list and had my catalog open. I scrolled to S and didn’t see Switch. Proceed to me going back and forth between my spreadsheet, the game catalog, and my house storage, trying to figure out what was going on. I was sure I remembered getting the item (after all, I chuckled at the name), but it was like it didn’t exist. Finally, after going at this for awhile and trying to piece together my sanity, I found I had a Light Switch in my storage and catalog that wasn’t in my spreadsheet. Proceed to me thinking I REALLY went crazy because surely I hadn’t associated “light switch” with “Nintendo Switch”. That would’ve been a bigger stretch. But sure enough, the game said “light switch” and my memory just said “switch” and was I just losing it over a game? Was it some sort of bug?
And honestly this article is a relief to my sanity. I now realize it changed on my in that time I went to catalog it. I wasn’t insane. The game didn’t bug. This quarantine is making my mind a puddle of mush but at least I can rest knowing it isn’t THAT far gone yet.
I also noticed some typo in the chinese version, the garbage floor simply called room floor, and in the mail box customisation, there’s on mail box called something X) which is weird
The switch is in handled mode and the acnh switch is docked. Another little difference I noticed
I wish the Nintendo Switch had more customization options. What do all these Joycon colors exist for?
@echoplex
The light switch is a decorative item for your house. You probably can also turn the lights on, off, or dim with it as well but you can already do that by pressing the up d-pad, or micro button without the light switch. I suppose the item can be used if someone ones wants a realistic looking interior, but it is nearly useless.
@echoplex I think that's one of my only real beefs with AC on the whole (this is the first time I've properly played it, so I might be stating the flippin' obvious) — almost all of the items you acquire don't really serve a useful purpose outside of cosmetic. Which would be fine if you don't mind putting them all around the island, but I got a kickin' from Isabella telling me my island had much clutter... D:
I always called it the dark switch.
Theres another small change too. In the wardrobe, it used to say Tops, Bottoms, Dresses. That's changed to Dress-Up. I wondered why a fire fighters uniform was considered a dress.
@ryando Probably because they're afraid of offending the perpetually offended crowd.
Personally, it annoys me to no end that instead of a normal light switch, they used the stupid American light switch. No way am I going to let my nice interior be ruined by such an abomination.
@MortalKombat2007 "You probably can also turn the lights on, off, or dim with it as well"
No, you can't, that's what @echoplex was trying to say. It doesn't do anything except flick the switch up or down, which feels like a strange oversight.
@nintendoknife @MortalKombat2007 @Andee Yes that's what I meant. They could have added a special hd rumble response to it. Also — why is the Light Switch a three-switch plate? Is it a thing? Who has that?
@echoplex The super couldn’t figure out what it did. A $200 an hour electrician couldn’t figure out what it did. I’ve had seven pretty serious shocks. I officially give up. I guess Joey was right, it does nothing.
@echoplex @andee They're quite common in the US. I wasn't even aware until reading you guys' comments that light switches were different in Europe, but I looked it up, and it looks like they have a bigger, more square design over there?
My parents' house actually has a plate like the one in the article, but it has (if memory serves) six or seven switches on it. It controls a bunch of different lights in the living room.
@nintendoknife I mean that's a normal light switch over here...I guess it depends on what Japan uses. Do they use the European or American style? I don't know. Animal Crossing has typically had items from lots of different cultures so I guess that can apply here too if you think about it.
@Kidfunkadelic83 Buy Mario Party back you meanie Its perfect for a bit of fun!!!! the music /dancing stages are worth the purchase price alone
@Giygas_95 Yeah, our light switches are pressed up or down, not flicked. Nowadays buttons are also increasing in popularity, especially in newly built or renovated homes, because a single button panel can conveniently control 4-8 light sources without taking up any additional space.
@nintendoknife I think I've seen some like that over here too. I've also seen some that are controlled via a slider (like in my office) or a spin dial (like in my grandfather's house). From what little research I did, it seems like our light switches (like a lot of stuff we do over here, spelling of various words for example) were done to be different. Kind of annoying for people like me who like standardized stuff (it would be nice if we used metric like the rest of the world).
@nintendoknife
Well, I stand corrected...the light switch is entirely useless. I wouldn't by it. Better off saving your bells for a floor lamp instead.
Some gamers are incredibly stupid. Maybe animal crossing rots your brain cells. How tf are people gonna confuse a light switch for a switch lite. My faith in humanity is gone.
@Giygas_95 It would be nice if the rest of the world used Standard. Meters still confuse me.
@glenny3214 I don't really find either confusing personally, but I like how metric does everything in powers of 10.
@ReaperExTenebris Yes, those morons, releasing an extremely successful dedicated handheld. Those fools. Those absolute idiots.
@glenny3214 How could someone read this article and not get that the item was originally called "Switch," not "Light Switch," and they changed the name to "Light Switch" to make it clear that it was specifically a light switch..
@Giygas_95 Yeah, the US suffers from a lot of "not invented here", sadly. Even happy little Kirby was "not invented here" and made angry instead.
Which switch is which?
@Giygas_95 Understandable. USA would have to do everything different, huh?
@nintendoknife Eh, I kinda like angry Kirby. He's cute but also terrifying which is accurate to how he destroys all manner of Eldritch abominations and evil overlords. 😂
One thing I do wish were a bit more westernized would be things like Azure Striker Gunvolt. I love Mega Man and games like Mega Man, and Inti Creates is one of the best companies out there at putting out amazing action platformers, but I wish it had English voice acting in addition to Japanese. I know some people love the Japanese, but for me, if I can't understand what's being said, I might as well just mute the voices. Maybe I just need to learn Japanese... already trying to learn German and Russian though.
@glenny3214 Do you mean as far as changing road signs and that sort of thing?
@Toads-Friend not when im going to have to buy another set of joy cons as well its not😂. They were the ones who got bored of it first too. I may end up just getting it back.
tf is the point of this
@ReaperExTenebris And yet clearly there's a sizeable market for it, so ***** cares if it's missing a couple of features? You call it a waste of resources but that's completely absurd.
@Giygas_95 Oh, I feel the same way about voice acting. If it isn't in a language you speak, it's pointless, and in that regard I really don't understand people who don't speak a lick of Japanese but still want to hear Japanese voices in their otherwise completely translated games. They always claim that the English (or any other language) dubs are 'bad' or 'poorly done', but I think if they understood what the Japanese voices were saying they'd realise the grass isn't greener on the other side.
@nintendoknife Yeah, it's hard to tell if the voice acting is even good due to not being able to understand it, and also what's considered good acting there might not be elsewhere. If I have to read translated text anyway, the voices are just gonna distract me.
Edit: I will however make an exception for certain games and movies. If it's a game like Onimusha Warlords or Metro, I like to play them in Japanese and Russian respectively. In the case of Onimusha, the English voice acting did seem kinda bad from my experience, and in both games' cases, it boosts the authenticity of the experience for me. Same as with how I prefer to watch the movie Das Boot in German over English (plus, I've been learning German too).
@Giygas_95 I definitely agree that for movies you're best off watching them in their original language with subs, because they were made specifically with those exact actors' voices in mind. Maybe animated movies are the exception, because I don't think it really matters whether you watch e.g. Pokémon in Japanese or Spongebob in German. And yeah, if a game is explicitly placed in some real-world location and was made by people from that location, the original voice acting will always be the best fit, no doubt about it. Now I'm curious if the Japanese dubs for western-made games like The Witcher 3 are popular in Japan.
@Giygas_95 Yeah. They'd have to change miles to kilometers and feet to meters. It would be a huge mess trying to recondition the American public to use Metric.
@glenny3214 For sure. I do think it could be worth it though in the long run. Eventually, future generations would just be used to metric.
But yeah, a lot of people in our generation and previous generations would not be happy.
@Giygas_95 Sort of like cars. Took a generation to get used to them
calling it a "switch" was correct. however, it never said what kind of switch it was. besides, there are a lot of types of switches. (not including the Nintendo Switch which is named as such in the game.)
either way, calling it a "light switch" is not correct.it should be called "switch plate (light)", assuming you can interact with it to turn the lights on and off. i never saw any light switches in the game yet, but does anyone know if Nintendo added different types of light switches in the game for use to have in our island homes?
this was the most important change yet
What an imbecile article
@Giygas_95 my biggest issue is with electrical plugs. They are all different and the US and the different European plugs just all feel unsafe to me. I'd be a happy man if before I die, the whole world switches over to the UK plug.
Aww come on Nintendo 😉. An Update to change a light switch name? I hope some of the lesser known games get their turn to have updates released soon..."new" 3ds "silver falls: 3 down stars" version 1.3 out in Europe weeks ago but not here yet 👽
@echoplex 99% of all the items in Animal Crossing are just cosmetic
@Kidfunkadelic83 that's why emulators exist. If you don't want to play Mario Tennis Aces, just install a GCN/Wii emulator on your PC, and download Super Mario Strikers. Same for Mario party. I would recommend Mario Party DS, or MP2 in my opinion.
@Roombalhalla im not sitting 4 of us around a laptop playing mario party with my kids. The thing that makes is so much better on the switch is motion control mini games. It just gets boring traipsing around the 4 same boards all the time.
@sanderev That, and other Nintendo consoles. I'm pretty sure New Leaf had several.
I'd really love every Nintendo console to be an item in this game. NES/Famicom on up.
This makes it look like Nintendo thinks its fans are stupid.
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