A Reddit Post shows just how careful you should be when transferring data to your Switch 2.
A Reddit User loses thousands of hours and Pokémon, which he was carrying around for about 20 years. How could this happen?
Many Ways To Keep Your Pocket Monsters Forever
For many, Pokémon are not just pixels: many children remember their first and favorite Pokémon like a first pet. And so it is not surprising that there are some people who have simply taken their Pokémon with them over several generations by means of transfers. Nintendo took care of this right from the start: From red and blue to gold and silver and then into the 3rd generation, anything was possible. Even on the Nintendo DSi there was the so-called Pokémon Bank, to which you transferred your Pokémon from the inserted Cartridge. Nowadays, however, everything is online, and so there has long been "Pokémon Home", a software that you can even download to your cell phone and collect your creatures from the Switch titles and Pokémon Go at the same time. Your Pokémon are safe here, because one thing hasn't changed: If your game data is gone, the Pokémon on it vanish into thin air. A recent Reddit post proves that Pokémon Home is no longer just a nice thing to have, but a must-have.
20 Years, Gone In An Instant
In the post, user ThatOtaku26 describes that he has transferred his data to the new Switch 2. The original save files on the Switch 1 were deleted during the transfer. However, when he started Pokémon Scarlet on the new console, he discovered that the save data had been wiped. The secret backup in the game was also unsuccessful. He had thousands of hours in the game, which is a shame at first, but the sadder truth is that he had Pokémon on his save data that he had been carrying with him for over 20 years. Users are advising him in the comments to write to Nintendo's Support, but whether this will be successful is written in the stars.
Still No Cloud Saves For Many Nintendo Titles
This loss could have been avoided if he had transferred his Pokémon to the Home app first, but it shouldn't really be necessary to take this step first. The comments indicate that other users had a similar experience, even when transferring to a console of the same model. Other fans are simply annoyed, as there have long been calls for the storage data cloud to be made available for more games. You also have to get in touch with Nintendo Support if you've lost your Switch, for example, or if it's been stolen, and you want your Animal Crossing island back instead of having a possibility of pulling it from a cloud. Together with various bans that Nintendo has enforced against unhacked consoles, this is not good news for the new console.
What do you think? Have you already lost a beloved Pokémon savegame, or do you always try to take your beloved creatures with you?