Nintendo’s promised cloud saves on Switch won’t work for every game

Splatoon 2, Pokemon Let's Go, Dead Cells top short list so far.

[Nitrowolf2]

what even!??

I understand their response, but still that's just dumb. Cheating will always be around, and while this is to limit that it just seems more is loss versus gain. On my PS4 I make sure to back my save as frequently as possible. Plenty of times I have had a game breaking bug for some game and have reverted back to an older save. Or how about when a save gets corrupted just because?

Dead Cells also doesn't make sense.

This just seems more of a flaw on Nintendo part versus just adding protective measures. Like the article list ARMS is immune from this, but splatoon isn't. Why store online ranking on the save file itself versus being on the server like nearly all modern multiplayer games?

Heck, the easy solution here would be to force save back-up upload, least in Pokemon case if they don't want someone to save scum they can force the user to upload their save data after the trade otherwise it wont be considered "complete"

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

The cloud saves option is something that each individual dev gets to decide on whether or not to have, so we'll have to ask the guys behind Dead Cells why they opted out.

Aside from that, though, i doubt that the majority of Switch games won't allow cloud saves.

[RpgSama]

Companies usually promise that some feature will be in ALL of their products, this is the first time I'm seeing one promising that a feature is not going to be in everything, makes no sense "We Nintendo Promise that NOT every game will use cloud saves"

[3-4-5]

Stop lying.

Stop the Lies. Enough already.

It's up to the developer. Nintendo opens the option up to all and it's up to the dev to decide.

Example: The state opens up the road to use. If you personally decide to drive 150 mph and crash....it's not the states fault...it's your fault.

* If you want to be mad at anybody, go be mad at the individual developers.

But that would go against some of your anti-Nintendo agendas wouldn't it.

[TheUndertaker85]

Ugh, I don’t really want to take the time to point out all the holes in this argument. The main one I’d say is if the road has potholes is it then up to us to fill them? Bumpy roads? Plus as citizens we don’t set the speed limits.

The question I’d ask though pertaining to Nintendo and cloud saves is simple. Why is it some of these titles are first party to Nintendo? Nintendo devs not using Nintendo features isn’t really a good sign.

[gunnhed]

Wrong analogy. It’s more akin to the state (Nintendo) builds a road to make life better for it’s users. Ford (game developers) builds a car that was intentionally designed not to drive on that road.

[TheUndertaker85]

@gunnhed: That’s a terrible analogy too as in this instance Nintendo would also be building the road alongside cars that aren’t going down the road they built either. Intentionally.

Why are we trying to use analogies again? It’s simple. Nintendo is releasing a feature that they themselves are dismissing then justifying why their titles won’t be able to use it. Are third parties also involved? Sure but Nintendo should be the first adding support, not finding reasons not to allow it.

[notachance]

I love some of the games on Switch, but I gotta be honest it's pure stupidity not having the option to back up game saves at least manually in 2018.

and let's be frank, there are ways to prevent all those excuses Nintendo said about some games (first party!!!) not having the cloud save option.

[Segata]

Every game defaults to supporting them. 3rd party devs have to tick a box if they don't want to and even then they have to report to Nintendo why they didn't. So it's not like most games you buy won't support it. Most will.

[porkChop]

Jesus Christ. Nintendo, get your shit together. Cloud saves need to be system-wide, for every game. This shouldn't be some opt-in thing.

At the very least, let us back up all saves to the SD card.

[ZaWarudo]

Nintendo being Nintendo.They want us to pay for their bare-bones online service, can't even have proper cloud saving. We don't even have party chat or friend messaging.

[TekoIie]

Pretty much yep.

The only side of this I slightly understand is with Pokemon where cloning could become possible and remove the value in event pokemon. But even then they need to have a system in place like Pokemon Bank by default.

[CaptainObvious878]

Yup, just ninty being completely out of touch with the industry and current standards, nothing new to see here.

[PhoenixUp]

Leave it to Nintendo to make boneheaded decisions like cloud saves being on a case by case basis even when asking customers to pay for a subscription service.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

Third parties get to decide it for their games, though.
It's only boneheaded on Nintendo's part in relation to Nintendo's games, though there are some justifications for certain titles.

[Cobra951]

Backing up your own data is not something anyone should be able to restrict. I never would have bought an Xbox One had I known that I couldn't copy out my save files. The "cloud" saves are not good enough. If a save gets screwed up on the console, it gets screwed up in the "cloud" as well (as long as the file structure itself isn't corrupt). The only way to safeguard your progress is to back it up yourself at regular intervals.

Nintendo did it one worse by tying it to a subscription, and now deciding that developers can prevent save backups altogether. No, thank you. Microsoft fooled me once. Nintendo doesn't get to do it a second time. No Switch for me until I have access to my own data, officially or otherwise.

[deafdani]

No, there are no justifications at all.

Cloud saves are system wide on the other consoles. No reason this can't be applied on Switch as well.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Nintendo c'mon at least get with the times first

[MAULxx]

How is this even an issue? Let users back up their game saves manually without any subscriptions. This is basic functionality & respectful of your customers time they put into games on the platform. Nothing wrong with offering cloud saves but backing up your game saves externally should have been a system function at launch.

[Cobra951]

Exactly. You don't get your car confiscated by the police to prevent it possibly getting stolen and used in a bank robbery. It's something you have every right to expect being able to do. Usurping that right because some people might use it to cheat shows a shocking disregard for their own customers.

[SegaGamer]

Totally agree. I haven't heard a good excuse yet for not allowing users to just back up their game saves manually. Even if people want to back up their save file and tamper with it and cheat, so what? It's a harmless thing to do, the only person it effects is the person using the save file.

[bumbleforce]

But but...... Switch is the best system ever

[WickedLester]

it's a joke and so is the company that created it.

[Neonridr]

yet you find the need to troll around here? Go back to playing your console of choice and let people who actually own Switches worry about this sort of stuff.

[Neonridr]

I bought my consoles for games, not cloud saves.

[twiggytree12]

You buy your console for games, but you don't like having peace of mind knowing your saves are secured? Games are an investment of time and I would prefer to have means to protect that investment. IMO

[Neonridr]

@twiggytree12 - and wouldn't being able to play with other console gamers be a nice thing? Or Backwards compatibility? Or being able to change your screen name? Or having a built in 4K player?

All nice to have features, sure. But not deal breakers. Nintendo consoles have never had cloud saving, and that didn't stop them from being bought or played in the past.

I get that you are trying to make it like this is the worst thing in the world, but come on.

[twiggytree12]

You're off topic big time, this isn't about other features.... I love my switch and would prefer to have save security for all my games. That's all I'm saying here, saves are just as important as the games we use to create them. Sorry if I came off like I was just hating.

[Neonridr]

@twiggytree12 - it's ok, I respect your opinion. And believe me, it's a great feature to have. It gives you that added security big time. But I have owned every Nintendo console and never had an issue. In fact the only console I ever had a problem with was my Xbox 360 as I ended up getting the RROD twice.

I only brought up the other features because if you look at any article in the past about any of those things people always shrug them off and say they aren't important. But now we are saying cloud saving, a feature that has never been present in a Nintendo console, is a deal breaker now? We all survived in the past and we will be fine here. Besides, it sounds like a good chunk of games will support cloud saving.

[Dixiedevil]

My plan was to sell my Switch to pay for all the games coming out this fall and buy another one once some first party games release. After realizing they wouldn’t let me back up my 120+ hour Xenoblade save and all my progress will just be lost I won’t even buy it again. Sold it yesterday.

[Neonridr]

ok bye

[The 10th Rider]

That seems disingenuous.

Cloud saves are coming this month. You're worried about losing your 120 hour Xenoblade save, so you sold the console just three weeks before you're able to back it up, rather than waiting less than a month and backing up your save before selling it? Thereby ensuring that you lost your save that you were worried about and you can never get it back? Even if you don't plan on buying the console in the near future you can't be sure how you will feel about it 2 or 3 years down the line.

[Dixiedevil]

Disingenuous? #1 There’s absolutely no reason for Nintendo to have prevented me from backing up my save on the SD card. Well, no reason but one. To force me to pay them for their garbage monthly online service in order to do what every single system since PS f-ing one has been, not only standard but a complete given. #2 You think that I’m going to pay monthly for a f-ng save game storage unit when I don’t even have the system?
You’re a blind follower of a corporation. Think about how stupid that sounds.You know how pissed I sound? Yeah, that’s from feeling that a company screwed me in order to nickel and dime me for a monthly fee. When I say I’m done, i f-ing mean it. Now bend over, sweetie. Daddy Nintendo wants some action.

[The 10th Rider]

@Dixiedevil,

Way to overreact, lol.

I guess it would depend on whether or not your cloud saves disappear when you unsubscribe. On PS4 from what I can find it's six months, for Microsoft it's not tied to a subscription and I can't find any mention of them getting wiped after any period of time. It's just $4 to sign up for one month on Switch and then your saves would be backed up, depending on the amount of time that may or may not be worth it. If it's a year then you could pay $4 to have your saves backed up for a year and then decide then. Not that big of a deal if you're so worried about losing your saves in the first place. Either way more info on backing up saves is coming out in like three weeks. If backing up saves is such a big issue to you, it seems disingenuous to sell the system shortly before that information is available. No need to get all riled up about it.

[Ricegum]

Lol. You're not buying a console because of lack of Cloud Saves? Oh wow, I've heard it all.

[Dixiedevil]

You are aware that there’s no way to back up your save files besides paying a monthly fee for the cloud feature, right?

[badz149]

@Dixiedevil

There's no point arguing with the usual Nintendo loyalist here. Even this dumbass decision from Nintendo is pure genius for them.

[MAULxx]

Why? That's totally reasonable. Why would anyone invest heavily (money & time) into a Nintendo system that high jacks your game saves behind a pay wall? Backing up your game saves manually is the most basic functionality that's on all other platforms. What's Nintendo's problem? It doesn't matter, it's a total disregard of their own customers & they don't care. I don't understand why Nintendo fans aren't all over them for this.

[Dixiedevil]

@badz149
Yeah, I hear ya. I just got so pissed when I went to back up my saves and discovered I couldn’t. You know what though? When I’m playing Tomb Raider, Soul Caliber, Assassin’s Creed and Red Dead 2, I’ll be happy as hell knowing they didn’t touch my bank account.

[notachance]

why not? I have 100+ hours of Xenoblade here and no way to back it up, not to mention Zelda and MK8 stuffs

this is 2018, at least let us back it up manually to SD card or something

[Neonridr]

@Dixiedevil - Nintendo have never had cloud saving before. You act like this is something they took away from you like a kid throwing a tantrum.

[Doge]

1 step forward, 2 steps back as per usual.

[staticall]

This is just dumb. And those excuses didn't help at all. It's 2018, for G-d's sake, those issues were already addressed countless times, Nintendo!

"revert to a higher online multiplayer ranking that had been lost" and "to ensure that Save Data Cloud backups cannot be used to unfairly affect online multiplayer rankings" - what is this? How it's possible? Online games should have online profiles that are separate from local profiles, they should be stored on YOUR servers with all the progress! Every other online game on the market is doing this.

If you can download your old save and your progress in ONLINE game reverts back, that a huge design flaw and whoever done that should be immidiately fired. Imagine if that would be possible in Overwatch, Rainbox Six Siege or any other competitive game, that would be a massive disaster.

And they ask money for this, jeez!

[Neonridr]

While I agree about Splatoon, Nintendo can't do anything to control Pokemon since it's not an always online game. There would be ways to circumvent things.

[staticall]

I'm not a developer, but i see this as a solution:
1. Each item you find have a unique ID. Each time you trade and sell items, those IDs get stored in Nintendo database. If you try to sell same items twice, either remove the item completely from inventory or ban the person from trading;
2. Keep log of each item and how it was obtained. I didn't play any Pokemon games, but i understand, you can obtain new items from:
- Buying from store;
- Trading with other players;
- Crafting;
- Find in game world;
- Quest completion;
- Award for battles;
- From Amiibos;
- From some in-game events, like everyone gets some item for free.

Each time you get an item, save it in a log. Each time you use/sell/trade/drop/combine/cr aft items, store it in a log too, like so:
"[HP Up #15532144] added, store #ABC123"
"[HP Up #15532144] removed, used in a battle"

Once you load a save, do a log check against current inventory. Found new items, block loading/remove item/ban trading/do whatever.
I believe, Dragon's Dogma already doing it. And i mean, even Diablo 2 have some sort of protection with player trading.

What if Nintendo Switch gets cracked/emulated and people can modify saves just like that, wouldn't that be a complete disaster then?!

And on unrelated note, PS3, for instance, when storing your save files, encrypts them and signs each save file with a special certificate, so if you try to modify your save, PS3 will not even recognize it. I feel like either Nintendo trying to do "security through obscurity", which is never a good thing or they don't store your saves on their servers, instead forcing developers to store saves on dev/publisher servers, which is a no-no for indie devs.

[Bronxs15]

Smh. Nintendo disappoints AGAIN.

It’s fine, I’m not getting this paid service by Nintendo . My switch is hardly used as it. It will be to play a few select Nintendo exclusives and engage in local co-op titles.

Looking back I shouldn’t have got a switch, but I already have it I’ll make the best of it. But I’m done with Nintendo (and Xbox for that matter) going forward. Going to strictly be a PlayStation guy in future gens.

[StormLegend]

And that’s also why I sold my switch for a 3DS XL. Best decision ever

[Neonridr]

maybe for now.. but your game selection will be severely limited. But I love my 3DS XL as well. Playing Ultra Moon on it currently.

[jznrpg]

Well that is a really bad idea

[badz149]

To Nintendo, it's GENIUS!

[DarXyde]

No Dark Souls Remastered support?

Pretty bad move, Nintendo.

[generic-user-name]

^Things that are more important than cross play.

[Nyxus]

Why can't you just backup on the SD card? Makes no sense. The only reason for that can be that they want you to pay for their online service (which I certainly won't).

[Blu3_Berry]

So wtf are we getting out of this Nintendo service? Like literally what is the benefit for us because I don't see any benefit at all. The servers for most of the multiplayer games aren't even dedicated, it's peer-to-peer. It's bad enough that Nintendo don't even have a standard proper party chat system, but now they can't even provide Cloud saves on certain games.

Nintendo you're being pathetic here. It's quite sad and embarrassing. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

[inxine]

wow ok, thats disappointing.

[Emme]

Haha, save file interferes with online ranking and tradeable item. Nintendo shows they have NO CLUE about online, servers and multiplayer stuff. Maybe take a course at Bungie's or Digital Extremes ? Or maybe they just want to charge developers extra, to be allowed to use Nntendo's revolutionary online cloud save feature, and some devs dont want to pay for that ? I wouldnt be surprised.

[Sayai jin]

Ninty ia way behind when it comes to online. There not investing in it completly.

[dunnyone]

If I lost my 70+ hour Dead Cells save I would definitely cry. I put in some real fucking work there!

[KuroKiko]

Stop demonizing Nintendo guys, its their right for providing bare bones services!