So here's the deal. My daughter's birthday was April 20th and, despite my offers to buy her a Switch earlier, she said she would wait until her B-day. Well, Covid-19 had other plans.

Try as I might, I couldn't get my hands on a Switch for less than like $600. Goddam scalpers. Anyway, April 20th came and I made a sacrifice worthy of legend. I gave her my Switch until I could finally buy one. GameStop finally got Switch Lites in stock (she actually wanted a regular Switch but oh well...) and I ordered one online. It should be here on Monday.

Then, I thought about it. Nintendo are normally assholes about this sort of thing. Even though I SPECIFICALLY resubscribed to Nintendo online family plan to make sure the transfer process went smoothly, there are certain games that don't support cloud saves. Lo and behold, it seems Animal Crossing is one of those games. She's been playing it every day on my Switch and starting over would suck...but I'm really wanting my Switch back.

So, now I'm scared. And I'm not liking the Google results.

Nintendo have stated that its something that they are looking at rolling out later this year but no firm date, so if you restart you may well be a head of your save when its becomes available,

Is it your island on Animal crossing? My daughter had a space on my island prior to getting animal crossing. When she got her own copy she started her own file on her own island without problems. The only sacrifice was not being able to download QR codes, as she had done that on my island. However, this is where things get complicated. She used to have an account on my Switch. When she got her own we had problems transferring her profile over. Can't remember all the vagaries but it ended up that we somehow "duplicated" her profile over the 2 switches. Weird but we learnt how to live with it. Her having her own island in ac on her own switch was, apart from inability to transfer QR codes, plain sailing. Not sure if this actually helps you, as i feel my situation is pretty unique.

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/48899/~/save-data-and-multiplayer-support-faq-%28animal-crossing%3A-new-horizons%29

"Animal Crossing: New Horizons does not support the ability to transfer your save file from one Nintendo Switch system to another."

"This game does not support the Save Data Cloud functionality of Nintendo Switch Online. However, the ability to recover Animal Crossing: New Horizons save data from the server in the event of console failure, loss or theft will be available to Nintendo Switch Online members later this year."

https://www.reddit.com/r/SwitchHaxing/comments/flpn5s/tutorial_how_to_transfer_your_animal_crossing_new/

This took... not a long time actually.

No clue when a small building game turned so popular or why, but here you go.

I've never even played it. She's got her own profile and her own save data.

I knew be Splatoon 2 was in the same boat but I watched a video a week ago and the person said they transferred it with no problem. And you know what? I suddenly wish I had ordered the regular Switch and not the lite. I could have kept the extra dock. And she's gonna have to play the game on my Switch, anyway. I don't think it'll hold up on the Lite.

Wouldn't a system to system transfer be able to bring the island over?

It works differently than cloud saves.

We'll soon find out. I think it'll work, though . Just preparing for the worst.

As far as I know, no. And that goes for all Switch games, not just Animal Crossing. I looked into this when I realised that my Pokemon Sword file was saved on my Switch rather than the game cartridge as with past Nintendo handhelds. There isn’t even a harddrive slot to swap out, which is a problem given the Switch’s rather limited save space.

With other games yes, not with AC unfortunately