Yesterday, as Nintendo celebrated the Switch’s one year anniversary, several players noticed that the Switch seemed to reset the players logged playtime, which led to an assumption that the console is only programmed to keep track of gameplay times for one year before it resets back to 0.
The Nintendo Switch tracks the playtime of the user in the profile section of the console. If a player has just logged a few minutes of gameplay, the Switch will just indicate that the game has been “played for a little while.” But under normal circumstances, the Switch will show players how much time they’ve logged on a specific game. Check out the image posted by IGN showing the reset in play time.
Photo via IGN
However, several early adaptors and members of the press who were able to get a Nintendo Switch prior to release date were the first to report the reset in game times. This led to the conclusion that the Switch is only programmed to keep track of the player’s playtime for one year. So, if your Switch still hasn’t passed the one year mark, your playtime data will not be affected yet.
As more and more players are experiencing this issue, Nintendo of America issued a statement saying that they are aware of the situation, and is currently looking into it:
“Some Nintendo Switch owners’ play activity information is displaying incorrectly. We are aware of the issue and we expect to have more information to share in the near future.”
Thankfully, this glitch is not permanent. It has been confirmed by Nintendo fan publication, NF Magazine on Twitter that the play time will not be permanently deleted after one year. Instead, it just temporarily disappears for 10 days, which is the usual length of time it takes for the Switch to display the play activity of a game after being played for the first time. On the eleventh day, NF Magazine confirmed that it reappears as normal.
