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Nintendo Switch Games Playtime?

Iktaro

New Member
As the title says,
is possibile to do a game list for Switch players, where they can see the playtime?

i know that the Switch has no internal Achievements system, but still i'm wondering if is possibile to do a similar thing but just for the playtime, and maybe for the progression, we...the players...can write our personal progression.

The thing is that, for example, there are games like Hades on Switch, that there are no Total Playtime into the game, but just the total playtime on the Switch Dashboard, but the problem is is you change your Switch, for example:

Switch---> Switch Lite
Switch--->Switch OLED

The playtime will freeze on the dashboard, and if you putted like 100 hours into the game, you HAVE TO play ANOTHER 100 hours plus....2 hours (for example) and the total play time will become 102 hours, but in reality was like 202 hours....so 100 hours disappeared,
is a really bad thing, and for people that wants to change it (me for example) Switch from normal to OLED, is not a nice thing.
 

CaptainScarLeg

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Game Info Editor
As the title says,
is possibile to do a game list for Switch players, where they can see the playtime?

i know that the Switch has no internal Achievements system, but still i'm wondering if is possibile to do a similar thing but just for the playtime, and maybe for the progression, we...the players...can write our personal progression.

The thing is that, for example, there are games like Hades on Switch, that there are no Total Playtime into the game, but just the total playtime on the Switch Dashboard, but the problem is is you change your Switch, for example:

Switch---> Switch Lite
Switch--->Switch OLED

The playtime will freeze on the dashboard, and if you putted like 100 hours into the game, you HAVE TO play ANOTHER 100 hours plus....2 hours (for example) and the total play time will become 102 hours, but in reality was like 202 hours....so 100 hours disappeared,
is a really bad thing, and for people that wants to change it (me for example) Switch from normal to OLED, is not a nice thing.
I don't believe Nintendo currently has an API to let websites like exophase read data from our Nintendo IDs. But even if they did I don't believe Nintendo tracks playtime online, right? Otherwise I imagine they would use that to update the total playtime across multiple Switches, which you said doesn't happen.

The best solution right now is to manually add the Switch games to your exophase profile, add up the total playtime for each game and type it in manually. You have to update it yourself, but at least this way you can have a record of your total playtime across multiple Switches.
 

Iktaro

New Member
I don't believe Nintendo currently has an API to let websites like exophase read data from our Nintendo IDs. But even if they did I don't believe Nintendo tracks playtime online, right? Otherwise I imagine they would use that to update the total playtime across multiple Switches, which you said doesn't happen.

The best solution right now is to manually add the Switch games to your exophase profile, add up the total playtime for each game and type it in manually. You have to update it yourself, but at least this way you can have a record of your total playtime across multiple Switches.
The best....wrost solution^^, thank you but no thanks, too woody, i did once with God Of War on ps4, never again, to put like 40/50/60 to hands, i don't want even to think about it^^

@x3sphere what do you think? is possible?
 

x3sphere

Administrator
Staff member
Enforcer Team
Game Info Editor
The best....wrost solution^^, thank you but no thanks, too woody, i did once with God Of War on ps4, never again, to put like 40/50/60 to hands, i don't want even to think about it^^

@x3sphere what do you think? is possible?
Sorry, I don't see a way of adding support for playtime tracking on Switch for now. Nintendo has their API pretty locked down. Unlike other platforms they do not have any sort of mobile app or website to view profile data. This could change and if it does I'll give it another look but for the time being it's unlikely we'll be able to add it.
 

Iktaro

New Member
Sorry, I don't see a way of adding support for playtime tracking on Switch for now. Nintendo has their API pretty locked down. Unlike other platforms they do not have any sort of mobile app or website to view profile data. This could change and if it does I'll give it another look but for the time being it's unlikely we'll be able to add it.
There is the Family Filter mobile app that rec the playtime, it helps?
 

x3sphere

Administrator
Staff member
Enforcer Team
Game Info Editor
There is the Family Filter mobile app that rec the playtime, it helps?
Will take a look at it again. I have in the past and the issue is you cannot search for other players and view their profiles. If you can only access your own data while logged in, it's not that useful for tracking purposes.

But even if they did I don't believe Nintendo tracks playtime online, right? Otherwise I imagine they would use that to update the total playtime across multiple Switches, which you said doesn't happen.
They do seem to store the time played online, you can view others' playtime on the Switch itself and search by friend code. Perhaps when using multiple Switches they only update the online value if the value stored on the console is greater. Kind of a weird way of doing it, if that's the case, but I'm guessing that's what is happening here.

Technically, it might be possible to piggyback off the same APIs the Switch uses internally but it's rather complicated. I'm not that confident in such a solution personally - firmware updates on the Switch side would break the scanning code, for instance - so don't want to get anyone's hopes up. But it is something I've looked into...

Ideally Nintendo would have an official API (that's probably never going to happen though), but they do seem to be slowly opening things up more on the online side so maybe we'll get an app that you can view profile data in eventually.
 

CaptainScarLeg

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Game Info Editor
They do seem to store the time played online, you can view others' playtime on the Switch itself and search by friend code. Perhaps when using multiple Switches they only update the online value if the value stored on the console is greater. Kind of a weird way of doing it, if that's the case, but I'm guessing that's what is happening here.
Ah, well if that is what's going on and you're ever able to tap into that playtime data, the addition/subtraction option for tracked game playtime we've discussed before would be ideal for adding the extra time from additional Switch consoles.
 
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