Topic: Playing 3DS Games on Different Consoles

My launch day New 3DS XL has stopped reading cartridges. Entirely. I've ordered a replacement cartridge reader. In the interim, I tried to play my Animal Crossing New Leaf card on a different 3DS today, and the system doesn't recognize the save data. The game loads as if it's fresh out of the box. Is the save data on the broken 3DS? I thought it was stored on the game cards unless it has been transferred to a digital copy of the game, which I have not done. Any advice as to how to address this, short of doing a system transfer?

@Burning_Spear For 3ds, save data is stored on the cart. So, maybe the cart's internal battery has died? Unless someone knows more about the issue.

I bought 3ds monkey ball used. When I boot the game up, the previous owner's progress is still there, all the levels are unlcoked, which was disappointing. Some games, like monkey ball, don't even have the option to start a new game or delete the old save data.

It depends on the game. Perhaps animal crossing ties the data to system?

Unless you have important data on the replacement 3DS too, it could be a good idea to do a system transfer. (Specially if you’re planing to do some soldering work on it, just in case)

@Eel I'm thinking it's something specific to this title, since other game cards I've tried are working fine in the other 3DS. I can access those save files. As for soldering, one thing about the New 3DS XL: The card reader is on its own mini circuit board, screwed to the main circuit board. It unscrews very easily and has two ribbon connectors. It's a snap to replace. Now if, for some reason, you wanted to remove the reader from the circuit board, then yes, there would be soldering.

Ah so it’s a simple fix then. That’s nice!

And now I believe I've figured it out. At some point, AC: New Leaf was updated to become Welcome Amiibo, with enhanced features. The update file is stored on the console, and so the cartridge is probably tied to that.

@Burning_Spear
Yup.
Your other 3DS machine must have the Welcome Amiibo update if your game cartridge is vanila version of ACNL.
I played my cartridge of ACNL Welcome Amiibo on different 3DS machines and both of them are recognized the game.
Also, you need to download the updates of 3DS games you want to play from eshop before the eshop server get closed, especially for 3DS games that you want to buy late after eshop get closed.

Ah so it’s kinda like a dlc situation then, the game depends on that new data so it more or less became like a digital game.

@Eel Yep, precisely. I just grabbed my long-dormant launch-day 3DS system, downloaded the Welcome Amiibo software, and the game now recognizes my save file. Thanks to the folks here for talking me through to the solution. And all my AC hybrid flowers thank you, for they would have been lost Wednesday had I not found a way to play before then.

@Burning_Spear glad you could solve it.

Makes me wonder how’s my NL town. I had the beauty ordinance so it is probably a flower jungle now….

Ohhhh, it was the game version. I hadn't thought of that. Thanks for sharing!