one island per console

[Uffe]

I feel like since you bought the game you should have creative control over the island.
How long before you think he will lose interest in the game?
because I think he should be the one buying another switch and game if we wants to start spearheading where things are going.

I don't think he'll lose interesting. He's been playing since March 20. I'm just upset that I've asked if certain houses and building locations, inclines, and bridges were good enough where they were before paying it up with Nook, and I had no disagreements up until now, which I'm not enjoying.

 

[starlightsong]

I just wanna add: a while back on twitter when there was a lot of discourse about this exact topic, I actually did see people in favor of it and saying that if you get upset about it you’re stupid/should just buy another switch (I responded to one person telling them okay, if buying another switch & game is so easy then you can paypal me $360 to cover the cost, and they never responded lol), or that they prefer it that way because they like sharing with their family and I just... why? You can prefer sharing an island with your family if you want but why would you prefer that others get the choice not to taken away just because it’s done in favor of what you personally like better? I always say having more options is a good thing. Imo they should’ve let you choose if you wanna move onto the island of another player on the console or start your own.

 

[DJStarstryker]

Honestly, I really don't understand why 1) the save file has to be on the SD card even if you have the physical game and 2) why the game can't be backed up to the cloud. This is not a competitive game.

I love Nintendo, but I do hate that they make stupid decisions sometimes that feel anti-consumer.

 

[Xara]

it sucks. i want more islands but having to purchase a whole new switch for it? not really sure if i wanna do that lol

 

[-Blue-]

The only people in favor of this are the ones who don't share anyway. I don't share with anyone and even I can say it's a horrible idea. When my siblings and I were younger we would be hard pressed to find times when we would just go with the flow and not butt heads.

 

[SarahsNY]

My sister and I used to share a switch, but we pooled our money together so we could buy another. We used to share a city folk town and it was horrible, we could never share another town again!

I also hate the limitation because I used to have three NL towns, and I’d love another NH town to decorate differently. It’s honestly so hard to stop myself from grabbing a lite just to have another town. I don’t doubt it’ll happen one day, to the disappointment of my family lol.

 

[Hatsushimo]

I love Nintendo, but I do hate that they make stupid decisions sometimes that feel anti-consumer.

Nintendo is the brilliant but slightly insane grandfather of the video game industry. Most of the time, they leave us in amazement with their strokes of artistic genius, but some of their decisions make so little sense that you can only attribute it to senility.

 

[Angelbearpuppy]

I am annoyed by 1 island 1 switch as well. Even though my mom and I agree. There are things she does that could be annoying if I let it bother me. But luckily she really isnt that bad.


However, I believe it has more to do with how they designed the online features and visiting islands that the decision to have one island at a time on a switch.

 

[cloudmask]

thankfully i don't share my switch with anyone but i hate the fact that if i want a second island i have to buy a whole other switch in addition to a second copy. who has that kind of money to throw around lmao

 

[monsieurberry]

Nintendo is the brilliant but slightly insane grandfather of the video game industry. Most of the time, they leave us in amazement with their strokes of artistic genius, but some of their decisions make so little sense that you can only attribute it to senility.

Bingo. To me it's clear they consider this one island thing an Animal Crossing tradition (at best) and an additional money grab (at worst) as it's been the case with every game. You simply could get away with multiple islands on the consoles that had exterior save cards.

People are out here buying multiple switches which certainly isn't discouraging Nintendo from sticking to this decision...I know they don't really have a choice but still...

Nintendo makes a lot of decisions consciously that people don't seem to realize. Much of the missing QoL features were clearly not implemented on purpose.

 

[IridianSky]

I don’t like it; it just seems like a ploy to entice people to buy more consoles. I doubt there is any technical reason the game can’t have multiple save files on one system since pretty much every other game can.

I’m the only person who uses my switch though, so I’m honestly glad I don’t have to share an island since if there are multiple people sharing then no one is really going to get to create what they want. It would be fun to have the option of having someone else share your island with you, but it’s not fun that that’s the only thing you can do if your family only has one switch.

But even though it’s only me on my switch, I still find myself wishing I could have a second island. I like my current one and wouldn’t erasee it, but I’d also like to be able to try other things on another island. Then I find myself considering purchasing another switch, and then ultimately end up feeling like I woukd not like the feeling of having spent 300 dollars just for a second save file in one game.

 

[Epod]

Out of interest has there ever been a statement or equivalent from nintendo addressing this issue? They'll obviously be well aware of how much annoyance it caused with all the negative reviews etc left for the game. Though as others have said, it probably has helped sell more copies of the switch...

 

[Aliya]

I honestly hate it. I would probably have gotten another copy of the game if it was like NL and tied to the cartridge since I always buy physical games. I'm too broke for two switches though and the fact that there's no online cloud saves and backups is really stupid since there's nothing you can do it your save corrupts.

My switch is mine but sometimes I let my sister play and she thinks it's dumb she can't do anything like I can with the island. I would have bought her another copy so she could have her own game to play if I'm not playing. It's even worse now since switches are so hard to find in-store.

 

[starlightsong]

Oh man, I just remembered something so ridiculous I just had to come back to this thread to mention it:

I just wanna add: a while back on twitter when there was a lot of discourse about this exact topic, I actually did see people in favor of it and saying that if you get upset about it you’re stupid/should just buy another switch

The reason why people on twitter said you were wrong to get mad over this? Because apparently, there’s some alternate universe these people lived in where every other game was like this too... even though in GC you can buy another memory card and in WW & NL the data is on the cartridge so only CF has been this way... and yet that’s what people I encountered kept saying, “lol why are people mad, this is nothing new, you could never have more than one town on the same console lol”. It gave me such a headache! But not as bad as the one I get from having to deal with the feature itself.

 

[Lady Timpani]

It works out for me personally because I only play AC with my mom, and we work together really well developing the island. She doesn't do too much besides fishing and decorating her little section of the island. It is definitely still mostly "my" island. However, if I were to have to share it with my brother or anyone else who is more controlling, it would absolutely be a nightmare, so I 1000% understand the complaints.

This is so cute. My mom’s watched me play a little bit and has considered starting a file, but nothing’s come of it yet. I’m glad you guys are having fun together!

 

[Etown20]

It's a bummer for sure. I don't have a desire to restart right now, but I can see a time in the future where I might want to replay the beginning part of the game just for fun, but I will probably never do that now because it would mean deleting my current island.

 

[Sloom]

since this is just an objectively negative thing (I can't see a single upside to being forced to play a certain way) I don't think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who is happy with this decision, I think it'd just be downright impossible.

that being said, I don't think this is a ploy by nintendo at all. this seems to be how every switch game works, and I wouldn't be surprised if the devs were forced to go down this route for technical/nintendoey reasons.
if they wanted more money, making it the same as NL and requiring a new cartridge for a new island would be the best idea. many more people (including many people here and myself) would jump at the chance to get 1 or even multiple new islands if it only costed an extra cartridge as proven by the fact that lots of people here had/have up to EIGHT new leaf towns.

but the vast majority of people are not gonna buy a new console specifically for AC unless they are absolutely desperate for a new island. and only a very small minority of superfans are gonna bite the bullet and do that, provided they can even afford it

so from where I'm standing, it doesn't seem like a great idea economically either, to limit players to 1 island per switch. I'm assuming there's another reason behind it that we don't know.

 

[telluric]

I'm assuming there's another reason behind it that we don't know.

I feel like it must have something do with the multiplayer they introduced, where multiple people from the same island can play at once. (I don't believe we've had this in other games, the only place I could see it working was City Folk with the wii remotes but I don't remember having that). So maybe that's a part of it. But it's definitely not an equal trade-off by any means because, how often is that going to be used? I'm the only user of my switch, so I haven't done it, but it just seems a little bit gimmicky. Can you even terraform together using that?

 

[Sloom]

I feel like it must have something do with the multiplayer they introduced, where multiple people from the same island can play at once. (I don't believe we've had this in other games, the only place I could see it working was City Folk with the wii remotes but I don't remember having that). So maybe that's a part of it. But it's definitely not an equal trade-off by any means because, how often is that going to be used?

this is probably true. and yeah, I also hated the idea of single-console multiplayer as soon as it was introduced in the treehouse footage. wayy too cramped. I would never want to play ac with someone like that

I also think one of the main guys (I think Nogami?) is very anti-cheat. they seem to be kinda closed minded about letting people play how they want, hence why the save cloud sitch is so dumb too. because apparently having a save-cloud would cause people to cheat (despite the fact that save-file hackers can hack whatever they want in, and we've now had 3 different ways to dupe items)
wouldn't be surprised if this was another pointless anti-cheat measure

 

[_Rainy_]

Yeah I don’t like it. I have multiple people on my island one played for an hour and then never again. Now I have a house on my island that I don’t know how to get rid of. The other two are fighting over what the town flag should be. I don’t like the island name and would love to restart and name it something better. And can’t I don’t like the villager line up/would like to rotate and experience different ones, but I can’t. I’m stuck and it’s my own game.