The Switch OLED launches tomorrow, and no doubt a great many of you are waiting expectantly for your console to arrive on your doorstep. The thrill of new gaming hardware is certainly one of life's little pleasures, but don't allow your excitement to overwhelm you, as it did us.
As you'll know from our recent review, we've had the Switch OLED for a week now, and when it arrived from Nintendo, we literally couldn't wait to get all of our data transferred over from our old console. We followed the transfer guide to the letter and had everything set up in double-quick time – save for one very important thing: our Animal Crossing: New Horizons island.
While Nintendo supports data transfer from console to console, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is different. You can only save one island to a single system, so the island data is treated somewhat differently to typical save data. It also cannot be saved using Nintendo Switch Online's cloud backup service. Instead, you need to use a special transfer tool to move the island from one console to another – and guess what we forgot to do?
Yep, like complete fools, we did the system transfer and then handed off our old launch-model Switch to a family member, who duly started their own Animal Crossing island on the console under a new account – thereby removing the ability to transfer our old island to the Switch OLED. And before you ask, no, we hadn't enabled the island backup system, either (not that we'd have relished the challenge of convincing Nintendo our old Switch had been 'lost or broken', of course).
This means we've effectively lost many months of progress, islanders and memories due to our over-enthusiasm. Don't be in the same boat, and make sure you transfer your island to your new Switch OLED before giving the old console to someone else!
Comments 51
Not to be a downer, but Nintendo should probably fix this. If you guys can make that mistake, I can imagine the families with small kids changing Switches around are making that mistake right now. It shouldn't be that easy to lose progress.
It's still stupid that this game doesn't support the regular cloud support feature anyway. One of the dumbest limitations they could possibly give, even dumber than not allowing multi crafting.
Gee this sounds like a lot of everyone's fears coming real when Nintendo announced that we couldn't back up the save data in the first place.
@Yosher Each individual user has their own set of cloud saves but an Animal Crossing island is shared between all users on a system so cloud saves wouldn't really work.
@Brink A very good point. To be honest, I hadn't played the game for many months before transferring over to the OLED, so it had totally slipped my mind that it didn't support the data / cloud save transfer. I imagine there will be many others who perhaps haven't played in a while or simply aren't aware they need to do something slightly different.
Well, you still have the chance Nintendo will give you the island back. They have some kind of auto-backup within the game in case people make this mistake.
@Yosher
Yep.
While the system isn't perfect, that's a very fair reminder. Good PSA. Thanks
I understood why they did what they did with the 1 island per console thing...
But it's so part of why I don't play anymore. I am not willing to lose my island and I can't start a second save file.
Thanks for posting this. I knew Animal Crossing was different but wasn’t sure if I was supposed to transfer it before or after the main transfer. Appears you can do it after.
I’m not clear on saving your screen shots/videos. Can you do those after the transfer? Or do you have to do it before? The guides say to put your old SD card into your OLED. But will that work without having to format it?
the person bringing their 3DS to a gig and recording it us a champion but for Bring me the Horizon? they went down hill after Suicide Season
A reminder of how backwards Nintendo's online save system is...
@BenAV Each Switch with an Animal Crossing save has an island representative. At the very least allow the island representative to back up the save, that alone would help immensely. The others can use the alternative method for back up if needed. Splatoon 2, by the same developers, has the same dumb restriction, and that one doesn't have that excuse either.
@Yosher To this day I'm scared of anything happening to my completed Pokémon Shield game, because for some stupid reason it needs one and doesn't have one, but a 2018 Mario tennis online demo does have the cloud save
This isn't the only game that doesn't support cloud saves. If I recall so does Pokemon & Splatoon 2.
Does anyone know a full list of the games that need to be transferred via other means? I don't want to lose data on a game by accident when making the transfer to OLED. Thanks.
It's something I've been mindful of the past few days.
For someone who's going to move everything to a new Switch OLED and reset the original Switch, reading the guide I understand it as:
1. Download Island transfer tool on source Switch (ensure ACNH is updated too)
2. Perform the system transfer via system settings on both consoles
3. Download Island transfer tool on Target console (ensure ACNH is updated too)
4. Run the Island transfer tool on both systems
So there's this brief period where the target system will have all save data, except for the ACNH island?
And would there be any danger to transferring the island before performing the system transfer, or is that actually the correct method?
Honestly Nintendo have had a long time to make this process easier and foolproof within the firmware, but seemingly haven't.
The whole transferring your Nintendo account / system / saves from one console to another is a horrid process.
This backwards thing may actually be helpful if I want to transfer our AC island to a Switch Lite for my girlfriend and the rest of the save files to an OLED for me (something I've been considering). Am I correct? Not that I see myself buying two new systems any time soon, but still, it's nice to know that I could do that. I don't care too much about the AC save file but she does 😅
@KBuckley27 Close your eyes! Pray for plagues! Oh lord cleanse this earth and bring upon our 3D-S
@Edwirichuu Nintendo logic at its finest, unfortunately.
Don't know why Animal Crossing and Splatoon 2 transfers have to be so difficult. You could have the save file encrypted if you're worried about hackers making changes to stats or cheating. Thankfully, my GameStop will do the transfer over their WiFi network for me.
It's a really, really easy thing to do... and this is a particularly timely reminder not just with OLED out tomorrow, but the AC Direct coming up too!
I've not booted up my island for exactly a year, but I've decided I do want to engage in Halloween and Christmas for the first time this year, so will be moving it across to the OLED - hopefully the AC Direct will have some content that'll keep me interested beyond January.
@Damo I'll be honest, my heart broke a little for you there. Farewell Island.
@JasonLee99
Formatting an SD card through the Nintendo Switch actually doesn’t delete the album files or non Nintendo Switch files.
@LavaTwilight On the upside, I'm getting to experience the game all over again!
@RupeeClock "So there's this brief period where the target system will have all save data, except for the ACNH island?"
As I understand it, yes. The issue I had was that my daughter had my old system and started her own game of AC, which then wiped my island from the console, so I couldn't transfer.
Had she not done that, I imagine the island would have remained and I could have transferred it over when I realised it hadn't been ported during the standard system transfer.
So do you do the system transfer AND then the Animal Crossing transfer, or do you do the Animal Crossing transfer first?
Not sure how I forgot about this, since I had to go through this last year when the revision model came out, but then again, if it requires you to have both your old switch and new switch at the same time (assuming I understand the situation correctly), I don't think it would've helped much, as my plan was always to trade-in my old switch to help pay for my new one, thus preventing me from having both at once.
*sigh * On the plus side, I'd only managed to invest 50 hours into it, so I guess it could've been worse.
Silver Lining: Fresh start in time for the new update/direct!
@Brink I lost my whole island on my last transfer...all gone. Months of work and fun just gone. I now cannot bring myself to start over again. I love that game but the fact that it never saved to the cloud is just bonkers considering all my other games made it just fine.
What a nightmare. Nintendo don't make this stuff user friendly, do they?
The "we"/"our" writing convention is strained to breaking point in this article, lol.
So wait. I do a system transfer first and then the animal crossing transfer? I’m so confused
Everything about this game is anti consumer, and the normalisation of it is baffling
Hold on, you mean to say that since you have a save in the new Switch, you can't just delete that and do this transfer thing after that? Hats off to Nintendo!
Who’s this ‘we’ you keep going on about? You got a mouse in your pocket or something?
Think of all those balloons that will have to be shot down again, all the mundane dialogue that will have to be repeated ad nauseam, getting ripped off by Jolly Redd time and again. Fun stuff!
@HeroOfTime32
The unsupported list is hilariously stupid 1-2-Switch
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Asphalt 9 – Legends
Blade II – The Return of Evil
Bookbound Brigade
Catan
Color Zen Kids
DAEMON X MACHINA
Dark Souls Remastered
Dawn of the Breakers
Dead By Daylight
Dungeon Stars
Eternal Card Game
FIFA 18
Exorder
FIFA 19
Fortnite
FIFA 20
Gems of War
Go Vacation
IN-VERT
Jumanji: The Video Game
Laternium
Lightseekers
Miniature – The Story Puzzle
Mistover
Modern Combat Blackout
NBA 2K Playgrounds 2
New Super Lucky’s Tale
Nidhogg 2
Orbitblazers
Overwatch: Legendary Edition
Pokemon: Let’s Go, Eevee!
Pixel Devil and the Broken Cartridge
Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu!
The Raven Remastered
Pokemon Sword
Pokemon Shield
Robbie Swifthand and the Orb of Mysteries
Sid Meier’s Civilization VI (2K account offers cloud saves)
Speaking Simulator
Splatoon 2
Super Dragon Ball Heroes World Mission
Taimumari: Complete Edition
The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Champions
Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution
(Absolutely none of the previously listed games are supported...why...i need cloud saves for Pokémon and Splatoon, not for a shovelware Cartoon Network game..)
@Ryu_Niiyama Fun Fact, i got into Perfume (the group) after seeing you in similar comment sections
@Edwirichuu Welcome and happy to have you! Note however those are dangerous words because I will start asking what songs you like and if you have seen them in concert. Also I have had Polygon Wave on repeat most of today.
@Ryu_Niiyama "Time Warp" and "FLASH" have been stuck on my head all day, thank you for getting me into this, the coolest things come from the strangest of places
@Edwirichuu ooh nice. I love the 80s synth inspiration for Time Warp and the lyrics hit me a bit. FLASH has awesome choreography and got me watching Chihayafuru and Karuta. Perfume leads to many wonderful things. Enjoy your musical journey!
why? I bet people can get more enjoyment starting their islands over. I know I would.
@Edwirichuu so what are you supposed to do if you want to transfer your data from one of the games from that list? I know AC has it's own standalone tool, but I'm still not sure what happens with these other unsupported games. Thanks for the list btw.
@HeroOfTime32 Easy peasy, get both of your consoles and go to the games settings with the + button, i believe you can transfer an indivual game's save data to another console, or your whole user, which will transfer all data, including games, but will delete it from your original switch, Animal Crossing doesn't allow this export though..just stupid..
@thejuice027 I spent over 100 hundred hours on that game, it's just a game, but it's still time invested, wouldn't wanna lose it all
@Edwirichuu OK, thank you! I'll follow the Animal Crossing steps and will also just do the whole user transfer as you mentioned. Assuming that will cover everything. Thanks.
@LordGeovanni this is nothing, on GameCube your saved was locked to the memory card with no way of copying it, same for animal crossing Wii too, was locked to the internal memory
You would think they would change all of this by now but it seems to have got even worse even with this horrible anti consumer cloud save in place!
@huyi
I feel like that is a different topic entirely.
Yes, it is similar, however the GameCube had incredibly limited access to transfer data to other systems. The Wii had more access of internet, however having an initial problem with save transfer is understandable. I do get your point in suggesting that Nintendo hasn't changed, however I never expected that to change and I would honestly think others who have been playing Nintendo games since the GameCube or earlier would have the expectation that Nintendo would screw this up still.
My comment and concern is solely on the point that this is exactly the issue that was brought up when Nintendo added this roundabout "answer" to the issue of transfer after they refused to allow the Cloud saves in the first place.
It's ok. I did that. But forgot to transfer my entire Pokémon Shield save data over before wiping my v2 switch 🤣
@Edwirichuu I have about 600 hours, and I haven't played it hardly at all this year. I already know what it's like starting over having doing so many times over each of the new releases. Starting over again even with the time put in is no longer a big deal to me. I'm a gamer and I have learned through many games that no save is meant to last forever.
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