Ability to move users and save data for Animal Crossing New Horizons coming later this year

When we learned in this morning’s Animal Crossing New Horizons Direct that there would be a one-time ‘cloud’ save recovery for lost or damaged Switch consoles we got a little worried.

Do you have to damage or lose your Switch to get your save file transferred to a new console? And then can you only do this one?

Luckily the answer appears to be no, instead, hidden at the bottom of the Animal Crossing New Horizons press release this morning is this line.

“[However], a function specific to Animal Crossing: New Horizons to move users and save data to another console is planned for later this year.”

This same line is also on multiple Nintendo websites, this one from the Australian website;

It would appear that, not at launch, but at least some time later this year you’ll be able to transfer your save data from one Switch to another. It won’t use the usual transfer method, but you’ll be able to do it. If there are any restrictions on amount or time period between transfers, we don’t yet know.

Great news for those who want to upgrade, or perhaps buy a Lite – as long as you have your old console with you. It’s just a shame it’s not happening for launch for everyone to migrate over to those amazing looking Animal Crossing consoles.

We’ve emailed Nintendo to comment on this, just so we can be sure.