Can’t Unlock Nintendo Consoles? Here’s Exactly How It Works (Datamine)

4 weeks ago Justin 4 Comments

Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Version 3.0 update brought super fun new Nintendo consoles, but unlocking these items has proven to be quite frustrating for some players. In this article, we’ll break down the nitty gritty details on how it works.

Some resources online have suggested that you need to complete exactly 50 DIY Requests or receive exactly 5,000 Hotel Tickets. While these are helpful suggestions and goals to reach that will likely unlock the items eventually, they’re not specifically accurate and are simply a rough guidance.

Behind the scenes, Animal Crossing: New Horizons actually tracks an internal secret ‘points’ system for unlocking the Nintendo consoles, separately from a specific number of rooms complete or DIY requests donated.

These secret points can be earned by rooms that you design after the VIP Room has been unlocked, or by completing DIY requests with more points earned depending on how difficult the recipe is deemed to be under 4 categories:

• 3-6 points for completing a Low DIY Request (depending on quantity)
• 6-9 points for completing a Middle DIY Request (depending on quantity)
• 12 points for completing a High DIY Request
• 20 points for completing a Highest DIY Request
• 30 points for designing a room, once per day

When you reach 400 of these internal hotel unlock points, the final set of Nintendo console items are unlocked at the souvenir shop letting you buy items like the Famicom, NES, and Game Boy.

Tips For Unlocking

Generally speaking, a recipe’s difficulty is tied to how valuable the materials that go into it are, with some exceptions. So, a key takeaway here is that if you’re trying to unlock the Nintendo items, it is worthwhile considering the difficulty of a request. The unlock is not simply based on pure quantity of DIY requests completed — quality matters too.

Another tip to keep in mind is that DIY requests which use your island’s native fruit are generally speaking less valuable for earning these internal unlock points. The value towards calculating a request’s difficulty that comes from a native fruit material is automatically halved. So, it might be best to focus on completing other requests if possible.

Running off that, it works the other way around too — any DIY request that involves a non-native fruit (including coconuts) is automatically bumped up to a High difficulty level request that earns above average unlock points. These requests are often surprisingly easy if you have a healthy supply of non-native fruit trees on your island and should be prioritized when possible.

Finally, one more wrinkle to remember: in typical Animal Crossing fashion, even after you meet the unlock requirements, the souvenir shop won’t actually update its inventory and unlock the new items until the next day. In other words, you might have finished unlocking them, but you won’t actually know until the next day.

For Animal Crossing players who prefer to play in real-time, there’s not much you can do with this information. But if you are someone who enjoys time traveling — keep in mind that you may wish to frequently check in the next in-game day if it feels like you’ve done enough.

DIY Requests Points Tracker Tool

To assist with your DIY Request points journey, we’ve put together a simple tracking tool embedded below you can use to track earning unlock points — here’s how to use it most effectively:

• Select your native fruit and use the text box to add DIY requests that you spot on your island’s drop box to the list.
• Quickly compare which of your current requests will yield the most unlock points.
• When you complete one, tap ✅ to remove it and track the earned unlock points in the meter.
• If you don’t complete one, but it’s removed from your requests due to a Monday refresh, tap ❌ to not track it.
• You can also use a button to track unlock points earned from completing hotel rooms after the VIP Room.

Of course, you’ve almost certainly already earned some unlock points prior to using this tool, so the meter won’t actually tell you when it’s been unlocked. It’s simply a rough guide that may help you sense when you’re getting close. We hope this helps!

Special thanks to asteriation for their datamining work used as this article and tool’s source data.

For more on the Version 3.0 Update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, check out our other new articles and guides below:

• It’s Not Just You: What’s Up With Animal Crossing’s Aggressive Rumble In Version 3.0?
• This Controversial Animal Crossing: New Horizons Version 3.0 Feature Is Dividing Fans
• 9 Secret Surprises In Animal Crossing: New Horizons Version 3.0 Nintendo Didn’t Announce
• Resort Hotel Guide: How To Get Tickets & New Souvenir Items (List)
• Zelda Amiibo Villagers & Items: How To Invite Mineru or Tulin
• Splatoon Amiibo Villagers & Items: How To Invite Viché or Cece

Animal Crossing: New Horizons News Version 3.0 Update