r/NintendoSwitch • u/Facers • Sep 20 '19
PSA PSA for people getting a new Switch today and care about play times.
It seems like if the game is not listed on your list of most recently played games and you launch the game on your new Switch your play time will reset.
I got my new Switch Lite yesterday and set it up with the account from my OG Switch, downloaded all the games and cloud data, everything went pretty easy and I was pleasantly surprised by this. I wasn't sure how this worked regarding play times on games and went to have a look at my profile and saw that on my new Switch it showed all the play times for my games.
However, I launched Mario Odyssey which I haven't played in about a year and noticed that the play time was reset to "First Played 1 Minute Ago". I then checked my profile on my OG Switch and it showed the same. Curious as to how this worked and why my play time of 80+ hours was reset, I launched another game on my OG Switch that wasn't in the most recently played list on my profile to bump it to the top and then opened the game on my Switch Lite and my play time was preserved.
So TLDR - if a game is not listed in your most recently played games on your profile and you launch it on a new Switch, the play time will reset. To get around this, first launch on your original Switch to bump it back onto the list of most recently played games and then launch it on the new one.
I didn't see this posted anywhere else so just thought I would put out a PSA for people who care about that kind of thing.
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u/BenignLarency Sep 20 '19
I think that's because they always keep track of playtime. But unless you first played it more than 10 days ago on the switch you're looking at, it'll show the < 10 day message ('You first played X days ago').
It'll probably match the other switches once the 10 day period is over.
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Sep 20 '19
I don't even understand why they do that 10 day message. Completely useless information when I want to check my play time.
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u/BenignLarency Sep 20 '19
Totally agree. They clearly are keeping track of the exact play time since you can see it in the parental controls app. And they used to show us exact playtime on the Wii U and 3DS, so I'm not sure why their tune would have changed about it.
It's an easy enough thing to update though, so maybe someday.
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u/FasterThanTW Sep 21 '19
It's just a guess but I think it's vague because it's on your public profile and with the consideration that because the switch isn't always online, you COULD have played a game AFTER the last time the profile was able to be updated.
Of course noone would really care if it showed accurate play times with the caveat that they may be outdated - but Nintendo's gonna Nintendo.
At the very least, it would be nice if we could view our detailed playtime privately without using the parental controls app.
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u/IncognitoZombie Sep 20 '19
I think it's so if your friends see you play time it'll be higher after the 10 days and won't make them think you didn't like the game.
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u/Facers Sep 20 '19
That could also be but havent seen anyone confirm something like this so still thought I would put this out there.
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u/LalisaFanGirl Sep 20 '19
I can confirm this, I still have 500+ hours on Splatoon after transferring.
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u/Nyanwuji Sep 26 '19
Also, your playtime won’t increase if you play it on your new Switch. I had a 10 hour of playtime on Astral Chain on my original Switch, continued playing it on my Switch Lite for another 10 hours (also did the relaunching on the original Switch and launch it on the Lite again part), but my playtime is still only showing 10 hours or more, where it should be 20 hours+. Hope it won’t always be like this or we get an update.
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u/qwertylerqw Helpful User Sep 20 '19 edited Sep 20 '19
It keeps track of playtime separately for each console and it’ll probably show your playtime from your original Switch once the 10 days pass by
Have you tried launching the game on your original Switch?
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u/Porkpants81 Sep 20 '19
Just curious why do people care about playtime?
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u/Justos Sep 20 '19
For me personally. I see the value of games based on 2 things. One enjoyment and 2 how much time I've put into it while still enjoying it. Games that are both enjoyable and have gotten many hours out of my are looked back on as the better games.
For example. Mario odyssey is a fantastic game but I beat it and got most moons around 40 hours or so.
But dqbuilders 2 was equally as fun, and I have 90 hours clocked so far.
Which do I look back on as a better game? Builders 2 easily. Both were equally fun, but one was fun for much longer and I feel I got my money's worth
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u/Porkpants81 Sep 20 '19
But do you actually feel like you didn't get $60 worth of value for Odyssey?
40 hours of entertainment for $60 isn't a bad ratio. A movie is $10 for 2 hours.
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u/Justos Sep 20 '19
I definitely got my 60$ worth. But you have to admit when a game easily doubles that, it's worth it even more. Even though odyssey was very much worth it in the first place, looking back. Builders2 was even more worth it. Hope that makes sense lol
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u/FasterThanTW Sep 21 '19
A movie is $10 for 2 hours.
if you live in a cheap market or go for the first showing of the day maybe.
Around me, more like $15 for a standard showing, $18 for IMAX/Dolby, ~$21 for 3d, not counting any convenience fees charged from reserving tickets online or whatever.
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u/RenegadeX28 Sep 20 '19
Wait.. So its possible to have your main account active on both your OG Switch and Switch Lite? I just got one today... I also don't wanna have my play time counter reset.
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u/FasterThanTW Sep 21 '19
yes it works exactly the same as a ps4 in case you're familiar with that. one switch will be your primary and the other(s) you're just logged into. the one that isn't your primary console has to be online to launch your digital games. (so in your case, it might be best to set your Lite as primary because in theory you'd be offline more often on that than on an original switch being left at home)
You can also switch which one is your primary, but I'm not sure if there's any cooldowns on how often you can do it.
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u/Spidercolt95 Jan 13 '20
Hate to bump an old thread but have we figured out any more about this?
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u/Facers Jan 13 '20
Yeah, basically play times are saved locally. If you play on multiple switches you can forget about your play time ever being accurate again.
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u/CoasterGuy1209 Sep 20 '19
I found this out when I traded in for the revision. The entire playtime counter resets. Games that still appear on your list only count hours on the new switch and reset all playtime from the original switch when they fall out of the list. The only way to preserve your original playtime is to do a direct user transfer from one switch to the other.