- This video's gonna be full
of first world problems, so if that's gonna be a problem for you, then thumbs down this
video and don't even watch. But let's be real, here. We're talking about video game consoles. So pretty much every video on this channel is a first world problem. I have too many Switches. I wouldn't have this many Switches if it wasn't my job, one is plenty enough. Using multiple Switches is
a total pain in the ass, and it turns out, so is
transferring your data from an old Switch to a new Switch. It's all just such a
needlessly difficult process that isn't really a problem
on other consoles at all, so why the hell is that? (rock music) I already talked about some of this stuff in previous videos, but not all of it. There's been some updates, and this channel's always been
about our personal journeys through video games and comic books. Also, I wanted to talk
about this thing this week, but I wasn't able to get my hands on it, because the whole apocalypse
that's going on right now. Anyway, I decided to get the Animal Crossing Nintendo Switch, because it looks dope as hell, I think we can all agree on that. Also, because it's the
new Nintendo Switch, the one with the better battery life and the arguably better screen. I don't think this marginal
upgrade is anything to run out and buy, but I like
this new Animal Crossing one. And I saw it as an
opportunity to make a video, so I bought one. I figure this should be my new Switch now, so I made the commitment
to go through the process of transferring all of my
data from the old Switch to this new Switch. Nintendo is historically bad when dealing with account systems, and all of my games are digital, which further complicates the process. I was getting 'Nam flashbacks from when I transferred
my data from an old 3DS to the New 3DS. The process hasn't differed too much, and it was a terrible time. When you first turn on your new Switch, it gives you two options
for importing user data. And the wording takes a second
to completely understand, it will ask, "do you
still have the console with the user you want to import?" Selecting yes is the easiest option, you could just wirelessly
transfer all of your data over between the two consoles. This data is really just your one account, and your save data, that's it. Note that this will nuke your old Switch, all of your account's
data will be terminated from the source Switch and
moved to the target Switch. Is this excessive? Absolutely! This process will not transfer
any of your digital games, or any of your games' update files. All of that is stored
on your micro SD card, which you cannot just simply plop into your new Nintendo Switch, because that would just be too easy. You will get this warning, telling you that you need to
format that micro SD card. That means I had to redownload
all of these games again. You can do that by going all the way to the end of your games library and selecting redownload games, but you still have to select
every single game you want. It's a bit of a monotonous process, so I probably downloaded
more than I should've. Surprisingly, this only took
me about a day to download. Some of the games didn't
finish downloading, and I had to reselect them
in the redownload list, but eventually I got everything back. I did put my Switch on the dock, which has a wired ethernet connection, and that definitely helped the
download go a little faster. Besides not having literally
any of my digital games or update files, it was a fairly seamless process, all of my saved games were there, which was my biggest concern. It's still a needlessly complex
and destructive process. The other option is to
say that you don't have your source Switch. This is in case you lost your Switch, it got stolen, or maybe you broke it doing some dumb (click). You need to then go on
the Nintendo website and deregister your console. All of your saves are gone, unless you have Nintendo Switch Online. Then a majority of your games will be safe on the cloud, and you can just redownload them. A lot of Nintendo games do
not support cloud saves, so you're probably out of luck
with a lot of the good stuff. And of course, you'll have to redownload all of your digital purchases
and all that nonsense. The whole cloud save situation
is complete nonsense, every single PlayStation and Xbox game supports their cloud save system. On PlayStation, you need
to have a paid account to access the cloud save system, which is the same as Nintendo. But on Xbox, it's completely free. On Xbox, you can upload
and download cloud saves completely free, as much as you want, and seamlessly whenever
you save your game. This also means if you have
an account on another system, then cloud saves work
seamlessly across both systems, you don't have to touch anything. It's a little less
seamless on PlayStation, but it's still way better than
whatever Nintendo is doing. So why are all games not
cloud save accessible on the Switch? Well, it has to do with the way that the games are developed. Splatoon 2, for example,
uses local save data to pull weapon data
information for online play, so this made online
play easily exploitable. Hackers were literally just
cracking open that save file and changing the damage
output of their weapons from one to a billion, and
one-shotting everybody. This is poor development. Nintendo is also concerned about players exploiting
their Pokemon saves, copying that point right
before they collect a Mewtwo and using it to farm Mewtwos or something. But that's largely a single player game, and you can just do that
with breeding anyway, so who cares? It's not the end of the world, though. You can still transfer game
saves between consoles, it will just delete the save
on the original console. So you can move saves back
and forth between consoles if they're not cloud saves, it just takes an extra few steps. I did this when Pokemon
Sword first came out, I started the game on my Switch Lite because I was out of the country, and then when I got home, I transferred my file
right to my original Switch so that I can stream it, and everything worked just fine. This brings me to my final point, which I've talked about before. Using two Switches in
tandem with each other. Maybe you want an additional Switch to leave at your parents' house, or maybe you want to
leave one at your mom's and one at your dad's, or maybe you want to leave
one in your dorm room, or maybe you want to leave one at work. This is a perfectly reasonable
thing to want to do, people already do this with
PlayStations and Xboxes. Although the Switch is a portable console, so you can just leave a dock, but maybe for whatever reason it's a pain for you to
travel with the Switch. The second and probably more
common thing to want to do is owning a Switch Lite. I personally like playing games portably way more on my Switch Lite,
it's more comfortable, it's more portable, it
has a freakin' D-pad. If you have your Nintendo account on multiple Switch consoles, only one of them can be
your primary console. On the primary console,
any user on your console can access your digital games. This is useful if you share
a Switch with your family, or you want your partner to play some of the games you've downloaded. On the secondary console, only your user account can
access your digital games. This is a normal practice that is the same on Xbox and PlayStation, however, your secondary console
requires an internet connection to play any of your digital purchases. So your Switch Lite cannot
be your secondary console if it's ever going to be without internet. If you plan on playing in the car or on the train or on a park bench, it needs to be your primary console. If you're going to have an OG
console as your docked Switch, it will probably always have
an internet connection anyway. This only became a problem
for me when I went to PAX. I needed to stream from my docked Switch, but the console wasn't going to be able to have an internet connection
on the convention floor, so without terminating all
of my data on my Switch Lite, I had to call my roommate and have him go into my
room, turn on my Switch Lite, go into my eShop settings, and unregister that console as primary. Once again, this is a very silly process. The other downside to having a Switch Lite as your portable Switch console
is the cloud save situation, which you might know of already, if you've seen this channel. You can't seamlessly play your cloud saves back and forth between two consoles. Even if the game supports cloud saves, they don't always seamlessly
upload to the cloud or download from the cloud. I frequently see cloud
saves that are out of date, and I frequently see cloud save conflicts, which is a scary thing to see, because that means progress lost, and I'll be damned if I lose
my 200 hours in Mario Maker. I don't even know what's
tied to the Nintendo account or what's tied to the
save file in Mario Maker, but don't mess with my Mario Maker! So every single time I leave
my house with my Switch Lite, I find myself double
checking the cloud save of whatever game I want to play, and redownloading it, just
to make sure it's safe. If I forget to do this, or if I decide there's a
different game I want to play, I'll often not play it, 'cause I don't want to
potentially play an old save, or create a new save conflict. In short, you can transfer saves between two Switch consoles, but the process is so
needlessly complicated that it makes me not want to even play my Switch Lite at all. I find myself opting to
just play with my phone, or with my PocketGo. That's sad. My PlayStation Vita did a
better job at cross save back in 2013. That's sad! So the moral of the story is, you only need one Switch console. It's a portable home console hybrid, so it already does everything. Getting an additional one might actually make your life worse, and $200 to $300 poorer. I only have so many because it's my damn job to have so many, so that you don't have to. So you're welcome for that. Also, I'm considering turning this one into an Android tablet, but that's a video for another time. So what do you guys think about having more than one Switch console, is this something that you've done? Is this something that you've considered, has the Switch Lite tempted you that much? Or do you want to upgrade to a new Switch and maybe this whole process
scares you a little bit? It worked out fine for
me for the most part, but it is still a little
scary to not have a backup of your save files. I could see this deterring people from wanting to get one
of the new consoles. Anyway, leave it in the comments below, add me on Twitter, any and all of this other
social media garbage. Of course, we've got new
videos and live streams here all the time, our schedule's
usually in a pinned tweet over on Twitter, and
we've got Wulff Den Live here on YouTube, that's our live podcast where we talk to each
other every Wednesday at eight PM eastern time. And we've got streams over
on Twitch.tv/wulffden, this Thursday I'll be streaming
around eight PM eastern, all the way until Animal
Crossing comes out at midnight, so that's gonna be a big fun time, and you should come watch that. Also there's gonna be a little surprise, it's a sponsored stream, it's gonna, those usually get crazy. So turn on notifications on Twitch, that's the best way to know
when I'm gonna go live. Anyway, but of course
the most important thing that you can do, and the easiest thing is just subscribe to the channel. That helps us out tremendously, and share this video with a friend, a friend who is maybe thinking about getting one of these new Switches, maybe this might talk 'em out of it. Or maybe one who did, and they just want to share in the grief. Thank you guys very much. Have yourself a good week. See you later, goodbye.
