Nintendo Website Suggests Multiple Switch Games Will Not Support Cloud Saves

Yup, I read about this earlier. Complete bull if you ask me, at least in Splatoon 2's case. You're not going to convince me Nintendo wouldn't have been able to find a way to counter save-scummers (assuming that's the reason it's not supported for Splatoon 2). Extremely dumb decision. This game was the biggest reason I was even looking forward to the cloud save functionality.

Quite disappointing but expected nonetheless.

In the case of Pokémon and Splatoon is cheating paranoia.

With FIFA they already save to the cloud (don’t they?)

With NBA 2K19 the save size makes it impossible.

The rest I have no clue why they don’t support it.

But why, tho?

I think there are ways they could deal with save abuse without just not supporting it. But I can live with this. I do understand that this is the simplest solution to avoid that sort of issue.

I don't like it, but it's not that big of a deal.

And for anyone who is asking why, save abuse is almost certainly the reason.

Pokémon doesn't have Save backup on 3DS enabled as well, so yeah. No Pokémon cloning by restoring your old savegames, cheaters!

@Yosher It could be. After all, save scumming was a big part of competitive Splatoon back on the Wii U. Besides, I don't know if your rank is saved in your console, which could lead to manipulation in some sort of way.

Given the third-party games confirmed for the feature, I'd suppose those warnings are in place until functionality is live. Are there any pages at this time that explicitly indicate the do support cloud backup?

@sanderev That's true, but it is saved in your cartridge (in case of physical). If you send to repair your Switch, you can kiss good-bye to all your progress.

@Devlind If you send in your Switch, Nintendo will transfer the save games to the new system (if they replace it). Also 3DS only allows for save backups on downloaded games anyway

@sanderev Never heard that Nintendo did that (I've read that people had lost save from Splatoon and BotW doing this), but hope you're right.

@Devlind It's saved to your Switch. But they could easily make certain checks to see if, for instance, your rank and all that matches up with your stuff from the last time you played the game. Just a quick server check, setting a flag if it's inaccurate, and taking appropriate measures if it happens too many times. It really can't be that hard for people who know their programming mumbo jumbo and I'm sure Nintendo has the people to implement this kind of thing easily.

@Devlind Actually I have heard from people I know that they copied the save games over. Maybe different regional Nintendo handles it differently.

But from what I heard, if Nintendo replaces your Switch they put the icons & savegames of the games from your old Switch onto the new one. Allowing to redownload downloaded games or just continue cartridge games by inserting the cartridge. With all save data intact.

Smh

Memory Cards: Well well well, suddenly we don't seem that bad back in the day after all!

XD

I hope the main series Pokémon games support it, because that’s exactly the kind of file I want to back up.

@Koke Don't count on it. The main Pokémon game will support the Pokémon Bank, for backing up your Pokémon

Well, DUH! I could have told you that, because only like 99% of Wii games allowed you to copy your saves to SD cards. One game in particular, Animal Crossing: Let's Go to the City, wouldn't allow you to copy your town's data to an SD card- same goes with Animal Crossing: Jump Out on 3DS, you can't take your save data on your digital download and copy it to an SD card, the system won't let you. For whatever reason Nintendo's strict with town data on Animal Crossing, so that right there told me there will be NO cloud saves for Animal Crossing: Switch (when it comes out around 2027 since that's now a forgotten franchise).

@Angelic_Lapras_King Memory cards still sucked. You could spend $30 on a card for the N64 that had enough capacity to store exactly one games save data.

Zelda and Xeno2 is what I care about really. I was already planning on waiting on paying for this anyway.

Could the online subscription be any less worth it at this point?

So, not too interested in Cloud Saving myself, but as a safety net for my save data, it seems cool. I've lucked out so far and haven't lost any consoles, but you never know.

On the games probably not getting it (I'm just assuming this is true for now) Pokemon makes sense to avoid things like infinite legendaries and the like. Splatoon 2 makes some sense, but should probably have a better solution. It's probably to avoid people save scumming to get perfect rolls, but also leaves open the possibility of losing things like your level or weapons. Dead Cells and Dark Souls gameplay kind of makes an extra save system something that can be used for cheating death right before a deadly room, and the sports titles... I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and just say I don't know enough about them to make a call.

As for whether I'll be getting it... TBH, I would have been happy if the service remained free and barebones. The voice chat app is kind of in a weird place unless they make a version used directly for Switch, and cloud saving will probably just end up as useful as life support since I never have issues with losing data. Though the "special deals" are still a mystery, I've gotten a few hundred hours out of the online as is, and I've never played most of the NES' line up, so for $20, it's fine.

Bring on the angry complainers but really I fail to see why this is such a big problem. It's already been stated devs are free to decide whether or not they want to include cloud support which is perfectly fine. With Pokemon and Splatoon it probably is meant to prevent cheating and save scumming which was pretty rampant with splatoon 1.

Of course they could update splatoon 2 so that data is stored server side but that would probably require a complete overhaul of the source code

This is just....stupid.

Typical over reaction from the masses.

These games don't support it for a reason.

If your worried about Splatoon, use the Ammibo save backup.

Yup Nintendo, one more reason to not pay for your service. As if I already didn't have enough.

Why do you guys like cloud saves so much?

What's the point of this service?

I’m surprised that this isn’t enforced across the board.

@Aurumonado I like backing up my saves in general, and Nintendo has made it so the cloud is the only way to do that.

I have no interest in cloud anything ha!

@KcebEnyaw

Great idea thanks, let's pay Nintendo more money to do the thing that we already pay them more money for.

Disappointing to say the least but hopefully it combats cheating. Seems like there should be some way to avoid this though.

It's not the biggest problem in the world but this is some bs if you ask me.

@sanderev at least for NOA, sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. I’ve sent systems for repair several times in the past couple gens and sometimes they copied the data over, while other times they didn’t. And when I’ve talked to them before sending it in, they’ve always said, “We will copy the saves if we can but we can’t guarantee it.”

As I mentioned in the Forums, I was fine with Switch Online and even looking forward to it, but this is so ridiculous that now even I'm upset. Not only does Nintendo fail to save Splatoon data like level and rank online like virtually any other online game for the last decade, but they don't even let us use their PAID service to back up our profile so that we don't lose all progress in case anything happens — all because Nintendo is incompetent enough to not implement the profiles to be saved online. If save-scumming is the issue, couldn’t they take the path that many here have already suggested and prevent rolling for abilities when offline? This company’s decisions can sometimes be so infuriating ...

This is pretty disappointing, particularly for the third party games that have cloud saving on other platforms. A reminder that Nintendo is a distant third when it comes to online functionality. Why can't they get this right?

Not worried about cloud saves anyway. More interested in the remaining games yet to be revealed.

Not bothered about cloud saves.

I just want to pay money to Nintendo to play online

S

LMAO. More NI blind speculation that often later is show to be FALSE. smh

Nintendo Online becomes even more disappointing.

I don’t like it. I’ll subscribe nonetheless... sigh

...Well, I can't say that this currently affects any games that I'm interested in barring Pokemon, but the lack of cloud backups for games that have the option on other consoles is what truly baffles me. Save scumming is a thing, I guess, but this royally stinks for those that put a ton of time into those games.

I see a Nintendo Online Service delay looming. My opinion, just keep it free. It's the only thing differentiating them from live and PS plus right now, and I for one, prefer it.

@pullmyfinger Blind speculation based on data published by Nintendo, right?

@maruse I can't speak to NBA 2K19, but I bought NBA 2K18 a year ago and they backup your saves to their 2K servers so they don't need Nintendo to do it.
But 5GB save files is a lie that keys getting propagated I've looked my son has a save file too and it doesn't take up anywhere near that much space

I mean, it sucks that Dark Souls won't support it, but it makes sense. The game autosaves as a basic gameplay mechanic, and being able to revert to a previous cloud save would ruin that. Same with Splatoon 2, I imagine. Rough week? Just roll back the clock. The only bummer is that if you lose your Switch, you lose your progress. Hopefully they figure out a way to set up that back up in the future.

@HobbitGamer Not at all. This is a placeholder website with nothing official known and the interpretation has not been clarified. Stop being a lemming

Why even bother having the save backups to begin with if you're not going to support major games anyways?

Dead Cells, NBA2K19 and other games have since retracted that message.

This is an outrage and I demand compensation. Or consolation. Something something internet, something something fanboys, something something

argh this is so dumb how do you guys do this?

Splatoon 2 should absolutely have cloud saves. I'm quite bummed that it doesnt.

Pokemon not supporting cloud saves makes sense to prevent cloning.

Not too sure why the 3rd party tithes don't have cloud saves. I guess they have their own servers for cloud backups.

I can understand some frustration about not being able to backup S2's save but having lived through the entire lifespan of S1, their reason is justified. People did backup their save and abused the ranking system like this. It wasn't hard either. extremely simple to copy your save to a USB. There was no hassle for it either. You just copied it to the onboard memory and it read it. ranked down? load that backup.

it was an honest problem, but maybe this could be handled better. They could easily just make your ranking server side if they ever bothered to do so.

CFW already lets you do the save file cheat.

@Kevember
Read-and-write memory is far more expensive than read-only memory.

This service seems to become worse and worse every day. I mean sure, the service is only 20 dollars, but it's getting to the point where I don't want to pay for it even at such a low price.

There are so many people who are asking why Nintendo hasn't explained more about the service, but I think it's because there isn't any thing else to explain. Other than the possibility of messaging, online chat, and dedicated servers, with only the servers being that important IMO, what else could they talk about?

And now we have this. I don't play Splatoon, but Pokemon? Really? Oh what, are some people going to duplicate legionaries? Well if that's the case, then everyone is getting punished for something only a few people have done.

BTW the "Cloud Saves not supported" warning is no longer present for NBA 2K19 and Dead Cells.

Splatoon 2 is unacceptable - building up to your ranks, is such a unique experience, this really puts me off from putting in another 100 hrs into it. Find a work around, or this is flucking pointless. Jesus, what is wrong with Nintendo? I mean seriously? Voice chats thru phones, no hard copy backups, no cloud saves for the games you put the most energy into? Why do they think they are above doing it right, when their last console flopped hard? I'm actually wondering if I'm going to personally boycott the service...I feel wrong about getting it now. Like I'm supporting a bad dad.

Not Happy about Splatoon 2's Data not being backup.
and for the people who said's "It's to Prevent Hackers to save theirs." that's not likely the case. as Homebrew may have a way to backup your own saves. so, no this won't stop cheaters saves, while the rest of us who spend hours on these games doesn't get the ability to have backup Splatoon 2 saves or other games.

I'll still get it for Online and other games for cloud saves. but, im not gonna defend this for Splatoon 2's case. Sorry,

@pullmyfinger That’s what I was tryin to get across with my winky face. Some have already changed again. It’s all still speculation.
I’m still getting a sub anyway, cloud save was never the sell point for me.

This is completely not an excuse. There are multiple ways to prevent cheating from just restoring an old save, not to mention that on top of that, it's completely unacceptable to bar millions of people from backing up a game they incorporated hundreds of hours into just because a small minority MIGHT abuse it to cheat (of which, as I mentioned, there are ways to mitigate it anyway).

This is just completely an unacceptable answer.

I swear nintendo takes ten steps forward, and ten steps back! You can keep your online service. This is ridiculous. I wish i could at least back my saves to a flash drive. 🙄

Pathetic, absolutely pathetic!

Why can't the save data for games like Splatoon 2 just automatically back up to the cloud everytime it autosaves? Seems like such a simple solution to avoid anyone from cheating the system?

Can't wait to see the new NO marketing campaign:

NO - Pay to play your games online, and back up your saves online, but you can't back up the saves for the games you pay to play online.

They can get Yogi Berra to promote it.

@Angelic_Lapras_King I chuckled knowingly in my throat. Nice one!

Nintendo has done a horrible job at releasing info for the Service. We should’ve known everything that comes in the service at launch by August if not sooner.
It wouldn’t stop all the complaints (no voice chat and such), but I do feel like people might be more appreciative of Nintendo, if Nintendo didn’t look like it’s trying too hard to hide the Online service about a week before launch.

As always, people are forgetting to use their brains to find out why Nintendo doesn't support these games with cloud saves. Oh but wait, those of us who do are just blind Nintendo fanboys...

All those people downplaying this as not a big deal come back after you lose your 400 hour Splatoon save file. There is NO go reason for it. Saying it's to prevent people rolling back lost ranks is a cop out. Your entire save and rank should be stored server side like every other online game on every other platform handles it.

Nintendo is the ONLY console you can't freely back up your saves in some manner despite also being the only portable console. And apparently now we can't even pay to keep our saves safe.

Don’t blame Nintendo. Blame the cheaters. Hate cheaters. Always f-up for everyone.

The people claiming “they don’t see why it’s a problem” have a staggering lack of imagination and common sense.

It’s a problem because if your Switch is stolen, lost, or experiences certain hardware/software issues, you could lose hundreds of hours of gameplay and progress. It’s already happened to many people.

So yes, it’s a major problem. And not having a way to back up saves in 2018 is laughable. This was an industry standard 15 years ago.

Yeah, we know where this is going...

Another subscription service for backing up your Pokemon boxes.

Nice job being horribly backwards, Nintendo.

What if something happens to me in Splatoon 2, say, for example, a power outage occurs in the middle of Octo Canyon or even Octo Expansion? And they expect us to learn to accept this? Nope. Instead, what they should do is add an IP ban to their anti-cheat system to tell hackers and tryhards and cheaters down to the hardware level to warn them to back off over to CAWADOODY so those folks can stay there. Dumbest decision I've seen Nintendo ever thought up. This is a MASSIVE backstab and spit in the face of Splatoon 2 players and should be rethought out. It's INSULTING that they'd pull this sort of stunt instead of IP banning cheaters and hackers AND tryhards of both the previous groups and such off of Splatoon 2.

Well this is going to cause a ruckus...

Well, in Splatoon case they could save your progression server side like... you know, any other half-decent shooter in the market.

More nonsense from Nintendo who still clearly don't understand how the online world works despite how long cloud saves and online accounts have been a thing. Just a joke having Pokemon and Splatoon not using cloud saves because they don't know how to implement basic flag checks.

It baffles me how Nintendo can seemingly come out with great ideas and rank stupidity at almost equal measure time after time

What about reworking the game so that rankings are stored seperate from the single player progression and clothes unlocks? I mean they've had over a year and it's their own freaking game!
I don't want to loose all my grizzo gear because some a-hole might use cloud saves to cheat in the rankings. I don't even play ranked!
Let me backup my unlocks. How hard could it be!? Fortnite could figure it out! Rocket Leage figured it out!
Incompetent morons!!

I vote Nintendo changes its tagline to Two Step Forward, One Step Back.

Awesome. If games can be exploited using cloud saves then I'm all for some games not having them!

@Alber-san Ok I've used my brain but I still cannot think of one reason why these games can't use cloud saves. Splatoon for example, well the likes of Fortnite, Overwatch, Destiny and Rocket League amongst the many examples I could give have no issue with this type of game. As for Pokemon, does anyone care that some will clone Pokemon as they have done with most other entries anyway. If that is really a problem they could just make trading require an internet connection and have that update your cloud save in the background during the trade

The problem with this is that said competitive ranking games could tie that info to your nintendo account.

In the case for splatoon, things like the story mode and weapons unlock should be carried over.

But no, since this require extra work from nintendo, its better for the to say that it isn't supported.

Just a thought, perhaps Nintendo do plan on backing up Splatoon 2 server side? It's just that we won't have any control over cloud backups for it.

Knew it would be the case with Pokémon. Oh well, doesn't really matter to me. I was never asking for cloud saves in the first place. I'm not really scared of losing my save data. It's good that they added the support for those who need it, though, even if it's not for every game.

For a handheld/hybrid console this is a dumb move.
I won't be affected by this decision, but I can see a lot of consumers pissed right now. (And they have every right to be.)

That's why we should get the possibility of backup over usb, thank you very much. Ps4 has it, there's no reason why Switch shouldn't have it.

I got the Switch for the single player games, so I was not planning to get the online membership... But we need to be able to transfer our saves to a Usb.

When Nintendo Switch Online starts, suddenly 80% of all Switch consoles will break down and everyone will collectively lose their save files.😦

So what they're saying is that cloud backups won't work with online games.

The internet has harmed gaming. Locked saves have never been ok with me and it always comes back to security that only matters because of online aspects. You don't even own your own save files.

Going from worse to worser ctfu

Ooof. This is really being blown out of proportion. Of course Nintendo aren't going to let you clone rare Pokemon and release them into the GTS.

The real solution here is server-side saving of this data (and indeed things like levels/unlocks in Splatoon 2). But we don't have that, never did and I don't think "cloud backups" were ever intended to be that.

@slatanek I don't think the PS4 will let you backup your online progress (the equivalent of levels and unlocks in Splatoon 2). This will be saved server-side (unlike on the Switch)

I expect anything with online functionality won't allow cloud saves. Large multiplayer games like Splatoon or games in which save data exploitation is rife like Pokémon I can understand. My worry is that single player games with online leaderboards like Mario Odyssey won't allow it when cloud saves are meant for large single player games so you don't lose your hundreds of hours of progress if something goes wrong. And if that's the case what's even the point of having cloud saves then?

The iCloud game save thing isn’t the worst but it’s sadly systematic of Nintendo’s entire approach to this online launch. They should be coming out strong but everything seems a bit half-arsed. There are ways around the iCloud cheating thing yet Nintendo seemingly can’t be bothered as it requires more effort. The selection of NES games announced thus far is weak to say the least with some of the most basic and earliest titles(I am aware that this will eventually change but the fact that it’s not even SNES at launch is poor in itself) and lastly the inability to sort out easy and reliable voice chat in 2018 is absolutely shocking. I love Nintendo but this hasn’t been, up till now, their best effort by a country mile.

@Yorumi I glad you said that. I was looking at the article thinking isnt an online solution the way to prevent this!

And I cant believe that people say it moaning if your not happy with having no way to back up hours of gameplay progress.

Are they kidding?! I can imagine more major games will not support a cloud save! I can feel it happening, we will only pay the subscription for some little nes, snes games which were released good years ago. This is a big joke to me. Eh.

While I understand the technical and/or economic constraints that would prevent some games from utilizing the cloud save feature, this explanation simply isn't valid.

Splatoon 2 could (realitively easily) cross reference all your data to make sure nobody was cheating. Unless the whole technical infrastructure is built in a most peculiar way on a core level, which you wouldn't expect from a game that is created ground-up for online functionality.

They're going to have to do better than this, either with what's provided, or with their explanations, or we will see more comments sections like this one.

@Yosher ''It's saved to your Switch. But they could easily make certain checks to see if, for instance, your rank and all that matches up with your stuff from the last time you played the game. Just a quick server check, setting a flag if it's inaccurate, and taking appropriate measures if it happens too many times. It really can't be that hard for people who know their programming mumbo jumbo and I'm sure Nintendo has the people to implement this kind of thing easily.''

That's how other online games deal with it. But here's the kicker, Splatoon 2 doesn't have a central server. Maybe for something like matchmaking, but that doesn't have to be a Splatoon specific server. The online gameplay itself is done through P2P servers (i.e. similar to LAN but online, you connect with other devices, and the player with the best internet connection becomes the ''host''). Their online games don't have dedicated servers (which is kinda the thing people expect to start paying for, because P2P servers aren't hosted by Nintendo, and you already pay for your own internet connection). Without dedicated servers, I assume it's a lot more difficult for Nintendo to do these simple stat and gear checks regularly.

@Pod See my reply above. The lack of dedicated servers could very well be the reason. Splatoon is a P2P game.

People just need to get a grip is £17.99 for 365 days of service which equates too £0.048p or £31.49 which equates too £0.086 and your all expecting the world and a service similar to other that are double the cost.. you might get some additional benefit.. but then you do pay for what you get.. would you be willing to pay £60 a year for a service similar to ps or Xbox? I imagine most would still baulk at the price too if Nintendo was to follow suit.

@CANCEROUS value is different to everyone though. I personally don’t see it’s value in its current set up. The games announced are weak in general and the fact I have to use my phone for voice chat is laughable. For me that makes the price too high.

Splatoon 2 ranking data should be held on Nintendo's servers, you know the ones we're going to be paying for. Pathetic.

Any word on howmuch storage space we get?

@Angelic_Lapras_King memory cards were better imo lol just make one with a decent amount of memory and pow! ... I found an old PS2 one here the other day,,, remember when 8mb was alot? Lol

@shadow-wolf Just in case you're still wondering, you can't change your gear stats when you're offline, just like how you cannot buy gear when you're offline:

''Uh... You realize you're offline, right? I can't help you until you're on the Internet, so come back once you get connected.''

I'm not bothered by all this cloud balls ... If my games get wiped I'll just play again and all I don't think I'll be buying online as... Well I don't play online anyway, there's no need too, games look bum and they not really yours and yeah lol

Every modern feature Nintendo give us is always half-arsed. Never quite on par with industry standards and consumer expectation. It's a good thing their games are still the main draw for buyers smh

Kinda silly that Splatoon 2 can't simply just back up my character stats. Online rankings don't impact me.

So let me get this right, the online package now looks like this!,

Pay monthly sub for online play which we do for free currently via p2p.
Cloud saves only for games which are deemed not to benefit the player.
NES games that nobody wants.
Voice chat only available on 2 games via app other than Nes.
And the removal of splat net on launch day.

This sounds like a worthwhile purchase.

Wow can people stop overreacting to everything?? When nintendo does something good it's the best company of all time but if they do something remotely bad they "don't get with the times" are "so backwards" are "scummy" or whatever. Sure this is a bad thing and you should critizise it. But stop with this hyperboöic attitude please

This is indeed ridiculous, while the games that I play doesn't seem to be affected (but might be in the future I guess), it still shows a sub par service by nintendo and doesn't solve problem of playing on more than one switch if you own multiple... The backup for those games should done server side of with two different save, one for multiplayer (only on the server, it's not like you'll play online if you have no network anyway) and one for single player (in the cloud and local).

For quite some time people have been saying that they want more info on the online service, while other say that we already know everything... Well this is a good example that we don't even so close to the launch... Nintendo should have given all the details, the good and the bad a while ago so they ripped the band aid off and people can either get excited or calm down...

It's almost like they don't give all the info hoping people will subscribe without knowing what they'll get into...

@Yosher @Octane I am wondering about Splatoon.
Isn't some of your data stored on a server anyway, for the app to be able to access those information?

Well, at least now it's clear why Nintendo has been so tight-lipped about online. They were aware of the controversy it would cause. Awareness of an issue without doing anything about it is difficult to stomach. They're going to do it anyway. Will they ever work towards a better solution?

The question for me now is simply whether I will pay for a system that can backup the majority of saves because that is all the value it has for me at present. Personally, I'd rather they implement a better service, even at higher cost.

It is cheap and I do value some game saves so will probably pay anyway, but I am torn because I don't really want to support a mediocre service. I do consider it mediocre because it is still p2p and there is no way to backup all saves. The games mentioned don't affect me, but that doesn't mean I'm happy with it.

@Kirgo ...good point actually. Though if I'm not mistaken, that app will disappear when the paid online goes live, right? Not sure if that is the reason.

To be honest, I sayed this a few times and with all the anger this aparently gets yet again, I'll say it again.

I don't like having to pay to play online, but if I have to, I'll gladly take the cheapest offering. For that reason Nintendo has, to me, the best payed online service of the three, just because it costs almost nothing.
The main feature of such services is "being able to play" and I get that for cheap, at least.

Can be save on External Hard Drive but won't work right now. Were Doomed.

I see everyone asking, "why?"

It's like you haven't gotten used to the fact that sometimes, Nintendo's just like, "eff you."

I love the company, but... Like, when you see a pattern, that's as simple as 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, I have no idea why some people think the next part of the sequence is gonna be 35.

We currently have a family switch and I was hoping to get my own and use the data I have on the family one on the new one. Does this mean I cant do it with splatoon? and other games that don't support clouds?

My Daughter and I share a Switch; we each have our own profile / user account. So basically if my Daughter were to get her own Switch we wouldn't be able to carry over her progression in Splatoon 2 to another console? If you can do it on all other online games on other consoles or PC then surely Nintendo can find a way round this. All progress for Splatoon 2 should be saved online by default anyway. Not happy at all.

There's got to be some middle ground with this. A way of preventing misuse while also allowing cloud saves. I feel like Nintendo is opting instead for the easy option instead of figuring that middle ground out.

Unfortunately that's not gonna happen because despite Nintendo being a top tier developer, they're still living in the early 00's. Nintendo, I love you, but man...get with the times.

I expect every games to be on cloud save.

why oh why cant you save to sd card never mind this carry on not supported. Bangs head against wall. the online is like the stupid voice chat app a train wrek

What’s funny is NINTENDO LIFE already gave an answer to why this is and they didn’t even put it in their article 😂😂😂 I explain why in my video https://youtu.be/M6FlPtqhaQ4 6:19 using NINTENDO LIFE’s own sources

@gauthieryannick so explain why the servers, that customers are going to be paying for, can't keep track of online rankings and game unlocks.

@sikthvash you can transfer her whole profile which moves the save data with it.

@VexingInsanity you can transfer your profile and all save data between two switches without cloud saves.

@KcebEnyaw Oh OK, that's not too bad then after all. Thanks mate!

I have sent my switch to be repaired about 4 times now. Twice they replaced the console. All my saved data was transferred to the new console each time, I have yet to meet an actual user who has lost saved data do to a replacement console. So Nintendo is fine in that respect. However, this cloud save excuse is weak. My PS4 has cloud saves on dark souls and nobody seems to be able to revert back to an old save in order to cheat so I have no idea why Nintendo can’t do the same. Nintendo’s biggest flaw is only allowing one active user at a time. I want to buy a new switch for my kids but would have to repurchase all digital games I bought in my account for them. That’s a disgrace. I already bought the games and should be able to play them on more than one active console at a time. So Nintendo will not get my money for a new switch because I refuse to reurchase didgital games for my kids. At the very least, they should allow me to transfer the rights to such purchases from my account to my kids account but as far as I know that can’t be done either. And the only upgrade I want on the switch is a basic chat room that doesn’t use external equipment but that will probably never happen. I actually use my PS4 to chat to friends while playing my switch....

@EightBitMan Oh that's a load of baloney. Do you have the evidence to back it up or are you simply being a troll? Now I know why some on this site don't take you seriously.

@sanderev that's odd because my save backups when I install Pokémon seem to work just fine when I reinstall it.

Also people who are going to cheat are going to hack to do so. It's like that with every console including previous Nintendo ones. That excuse is rubbish.

@gcunit Hey gcunit? I would like to report an issue with EightBitMan, he said the H word. Can you go and fix that? Thanks in advance.

@Alantor28 If you haven't already, please report the relevant comment using the report button. Thanks.

@gcunit No problem. Sorry to bother you about this. Like I said before, I like to have a clean community. I have saved up my eShop funds for the Switch's Online Service and I don't mind what this article said, though I wish I can say the same for commentors who find it offensive or something.

@Octane Thanks for letting me know. So does that mean the only reason why Splatoon 2 is excluded is cause of abusing rank changes? Cause in that case almost all of Nintendo’s other online games may be affected. Don’t ARMS and Mario Tennis have rank in online matches? Smash likely will too since Smash 4 had them. Does this mean all 3 won’t support cloud saves? It’s looking more and more like what @rjejr said is true, “Pay to play your games online, and back up your saves online, but you can't back up the saves for the games you pay to play online.”

@shadow-wolf Possibly, but to be fair, I have no idea.

Back in my day, we were very careful with our stuff. It just seems people these days just don't know how to treat their console with care. They just sell it, or "accidentally" break or brick it. We didn't have so-called cloud saves, and we did just fine. People are overreacting.

@MisterKorman I'm afraid you are expected to start again. I'm not saying it's right or that there aren't relatively easy solutions that would prevent this but Nintendo don't seem keen to keep automated server-side tracking of this data. So in my mind Pokemon would always have been out of scope of a 'manual' backup feature. I'm less sure why Splatoon has been excluded - especially as levels and gear are (mainly) cosmetic.

I will say that throughout my Nintendo playing life (from NES to Switch via all the systems except the Virtua Boy), I have only lost a single piece of save data. This was a NBA 2K18 progress file that was stored (and corrupted while) on 2K's servers. Oh, the delicious irony.

@falconpunch We're at this point precisely because Nintendo didn't try to get into it. They wrote it off all this time and people accepted it because it was free.

Now that you have to actually pay for this lackluster service, people realize how far behind it is.

@Syrek24 Agreed. People are overthinking things on the comment section of this article and are jumping on the 'Nintendo is evil and greedy' ship which is utter ridiculous.

What do people want from a well known game company? More features to an online service they are launching?

If anyone is evil and greedy, it's some of the people who are complaining about the Switch's Online Service.

Those who are against this Online Service are selfish, arrogant and have no idea what online services and time management are and are pointing the finger at a gaming company who is doing everything they can to please people.

So the morale of the story is: The true villain isn't Nintendo, but rather the complaining commentors of this comment section who are jealous of Nintendo's success of the Switch and their loyal fanbase.

@MisterKorman I'm not sure that's right. I think the 3DS games had their save data on the cartridge (unlike most 3DS games) and there was no way to save/transfer to SD. This was certainly the case for X&Y/ORAS. I seem to recall that even the digital copies prevented loading "backed up" save data. People take Pokemon cloning very seriously.

I honestly see an automated server-side data store as the way forward (rather than an ad hoc transfer when the user chooses). This would prevent cheating for these games with online components.

@Tasuki Strange how you support a company that's blatantly arrogant too

I'm not sure if I am fine with this or take issue with it yet. I guess I'll know in time. Til then, SD cards on hand til further notice.

@Octane
P2P hosting certainly makes it more difficult.
However, a cloud-service for save games would be a central server itself. And seeing as the game will already have to check your Nintendo Network ID / Nintendo Account (which one would assume operates off a central server as well) in order to confirm that you're paying for Nintendo Online, what exactly would prevent the necessary checks from taking place?

Could it be, that for Nintendo to legally store your save data in the cloud, they must keep it completely secure, like other personal data? Could constant checks from P2P hosted games make a service vulnerable to data leaks?

Is what they're talking about here really just your single player save data, that you can't store, because overwriting that might tamper with your online stats?

I feel I need more information.

Why can't they just use the same save system as Xbox and PS4? There's no problem with saving on online shooters on those systems. What is it with Nintendo, they do make some bizarre decisions.

@PGS_71 all online shooters (other than Splatoon) save their data server side. You don't have a copy of it. You can't back it up or revert to a previous state. Problem solved.

So you are correct, the real question should be why aren't Splatoon 2/Pokemon saving their data to a server? Fortnite does.

@Alantor28
I could cut thick slices off that sarcasm for days without reaching the bone.

Come on guys. It’s only 17.99 and you can continue playing mario kart 8 online. What a deal. Also you get 30 year old roms and exclusive Wii u and 3ds discounts on games like splatoon and Mario kart 8 and ocarina of time 3ds from past consoles if you own them similar to my Nintendo reward program. There’s also cloud saves on some first party games and exclusive discounts. It’s so good. I don’t know why everyone is complaining.

I need a paracetamol now

Splatoon 2 is the game I needed it for the most, so this is very disappointing. They could at least save rank data to the server or something.

@MisterKorman That "standard" is making people less cautious about how they handle their systems. The battery in the cartridges lasted long enough to make the game obsolete, since the next game in the series came out and you played the previous one to death. The Pokemon company has given players the opportunity to transfer their Pokemon from one generation to the next, and recently has allowed its fans to store Pokemon on its servers. The newest Pokemon game does not need cloud saves, because they already have a Pokemon storage system in place. In the end of the day, Pokemon are what matter in Pokemon games. The past did not suck, if anything I'd take the past's finished games over the future's unfinished DLC/microtransaction ridden games any day. To top it off, save data does not matter as much as you think. Especially if you just play a game once, and never go back to it after the next generation rolls around... People are spoiled these days too, it's ridiculous.

@penamiguel92 back in the day stuff was protected in solid state storage and Mercury battery backups that were good for 25 years or so. Modern portable devices with planned obsolesence and lithium ion batteries mean worrying about saves every 3 years or so. Plus for some of us it's about transferring saves between 2 switches. What's infuriating is Nintendo blocking that ability in a feature they charge recurring fees to use to prevent abuse resulting from their own lack of planning in implementing industry standard server side profile storage for online games. Basically they cut costs, passed the cost and effort into the consumer, and now charge for the privilege. No doubt smash works the same way.

That's the catch. They're right. This is necessary to prevent scumming. But there fact that scumming is possible at all is a direct result of their own failure to host character data server side which most online games do.... For free.

This is just a fail of double face palm proportions. They could fix Splatoon, but instead they're just denying backups of any kind.

@gauthieryannick Strange... steam on my pc seems to have been offering great online services and I havent had to pay a penny.

The costs of running these services are tiny when you consider their primary function is to encourage you to play (and to purchase) games.

So dumb honestly... Splatoon's progress should be tied to your Nintendo account, you know, like any other online multiplayer game out there

@MisterKorman You managed to keep your Pokemon data safe for 15 years, so you can continue doing it for more. I doubt getting your Gameboy Advance, DS, and 3DS stolen was of any concern during that time. Why now? People don't suddenly begin to crave your stuff fifteen years later... The switch is no longer scarce, so it is nothing to worry about. It also doesn't suddenly stop working. None of Nintendo's previous handhelds had that problem, and also as long as you use accessories that Nintendo certifies.

@Ryzaerian Was it promised though? Can't remember anyone from nintendo saying that cloud saves will be available.

@Pod Yeah, I feel there is a lot more to this story

So the gamers who want to continue playing Splatoon2 online need to subscribe...but also won't get any sort of save data cloud backup for the same game.

What a strange situation. Still not seeing a reason worth subscribing for.

@Ensemen

Oh yeah, definitely.

Most people thought it was unacceptable that a save backup feature wasn’t available at launch, and that all saves were local-only. They took a lot of criticism for it, and tons of people lost their saves due to various scenarios, regardless of what the myopic fanboy crowd here will try to tell you. I’m one of those people.

So in May of this year, they announced that you’ll be able to backup your save game data in the Cloud. And at that point, most people breathed a sigh of relief.

They did include the disclaimer that it will work with “most” games, not all. But nobody expected them to drop the ball with first-party, highly popular titles like Splatoon 2.

@shadow-wolf Don't believe anything rjejr says, he has a warped sense of reality and cares only about the punchline. Also tends to refer to himself in the 3rd person which is a sure sign of madness.

Basically, I don't know anything, and when it comes to Ntinedo I don't even try to guess anymore b/c I'm always wrong, but I like getting in a good joke when I can.

And lets face it, with Nitneod there's a good chance that however this works when it launches it will be different 3 months later anyway. That's just how these things go.

@Yorumi NO

I never thought of it until I read your reply, so I'm going to keep using it, but if anybody asks I'm giving you all the credit, you deserve it.

Their explanation just makes it worse...there are plenty of online games on PC and PS4/Xbox One that support cloud saves, and they don't effect the online components, that's supposed to be handled separately. Hopefully this is just an oversight in how those games were made, and it won't be a problem going forward.

@rjejr Haha idk i think you’re spot on. That’s an excellent way to summarize the problem here, and the worst part is that many of Nintendo’s other online games like Smash, Mario Tennis and ARMS likely won’t have cloud saves either because they also have ranked online matches ...

@Syrek24 If I lost my save in a game like Monster hunter generations, which I've put hundreds of hours into, I'd be hugely disappointed for sure, but it's not like I'd lose all reason to live. I'd get over it. But the point is that in this day and age there's no reason why I should have to be in that situation.

Honestly, I feel like you're the one who's over reacting, to the many understandable frustrations with the way Nintendo is handling this paid online service. It's not unreasonable to expect a certain standard of service if customers are paying for online, and we don't see what Nintendo is offering as meeting that standard, even considering the comparatively low price.

For all your self righteous posturing about living with a greater purpose and not being upset over trivial matters, you are the one who has devoted more time commenting on this than anyone else.

@JamesR As far as I'm aware Fortnight at this time is online only without the PVE of PC, so it's always connected to a server. Both Splatoon and Pokemon support offline play which means no server connectivity.

In the case of Splatoon you can also find things in the Single Player campaign that act as buffs for online play by rewarding bonus XP etc.

@Ryzaerian Ah okay. Missed that apparently

I'm glad this is the case.

CLOUD SAVES ARE DANGEROUS.

@Mr_Pepperami yes value is different to everyone.. we all know that voice chat app is a bit poo tell me something I didn't know... As for the subpar games?! Expalin

@CANCEROUS well as far as I know only 10 of 20 games have been announced so that may change but what they have announced so far isn’t the best. You could argue that having just NES games in itself isn’t good enough given the type of games that live and psplus give away every month but I understand there is a price difference so I get that the offerring won’t be as good. I do personally think it should have at least SNES games as well. As for the games, I had an NES growing up I’m old enough to know these games very very well and this first batch has a lot of the most basic first releases on the system with very limited game play appeal. Yes games like SMB3 and legend of Zelda are classics and dr Mario is pretty good but games like tennis, soccer, ice climbers really aren’t that great. Even the original Mario bros is meh. Look as said everyone’s opinion on value is different and to you these might be great titles but I had my fill of a fair few of these growing up and they were questionable even back then

Also regarding the voice chat in my view it really isn’t acceptable to be charging for online play and not have easy communication between parties. That is utterly basic. When it was free you can’t complain as we were lucky to get anything but when you are paying it’s non negotiable for me

@Mr_Pepperami that's true.. I understand where your coming from now.. but I do feel some value can be added with the additional features that are being applied. I'm sure aswell that SNES games will be a thing moving forward.. I can't imagine that it would solely be NES games for the next 12 month of service. I personal feel for what we are getting it's decent value for money. We do get additional discount as members.

@shadow-wolf "Smash"

Honestly, I'm not even worried about cloud saves with Smash, I'm worried about system saves with Smash.

Little discussed fact - with 4 accounts on Wii U and 3 of us playing SSB4 on our own accounts SSB4 combines all of the accounts into 1. Of the 30 or 40 games on Wii U that was the only game we had to ever do something so stupid. It actually caused dissension in our household because I questioned both my sons as to why they were playing the game on my account and saving it there when they both had their own accounts and knew they shouldn't be playing on mine - they were younger then. They both told me they hadn't played on my account, only their own. And after some research I believed them. But it bothers me to this day.

What happened was we bought the game and my kids jumped on it day 1. I had other stuff going on so I didn't get to it for about a week. But when I opened it for the very first time ALL of the characters had been unlocked and about a third of the challenges had been completed. Well not the DLC characters, those came later, but the in game characters. I was so annoyed. And mad at my kids for playing on my account, which they hadn't. A bunch of people on here told me it was a feature, nto a bug, meant I didn't have to work so hard and we could do all the challenges faster that way. Which is nonsense, if we wanted to do that we would have just played on one account, nto multiple accounts.

So for Smash I'm less worried about cloud saves, more worried about system account saves. Especially if there is a story mode like Subspace Emissary called "Spirits". I don't want to boot up my game for the first time and find out my kids already finished it. And they've been old enough since we've had the Switch that I'll know this time it's Ntineod's fault not theirs.

End rant.

Oh well, more reasons for me to not buy Splatoon. The cartoony paint rubbish was already a turn off, but having heard it was super fun and one of the best FPS games around, i was willing to try it. But if i can't save my online progress, then i am not interested.

Games like Pokemon or DS i don't really care for cloud saves too much. Pokemon might be a bit annoying if i lost 100s of hours of grind progress but i don't mind replaying them as they have great replay value.

Fifa no go
Splatoon no go
Any game with huge focus on online multiplayer that doesn't allow cloud saves is just a no go for me.

Oh well DOOM Eternal will be here soon anyway. Not long to wait.

@1UP_MARIO i can't actually tell if you are being sarcastic or serious 😂😂.

I'm personally going to hold off on the online till i know more about free games, i don't actually care about or want to play a single NES game. Although to be fair i will probably get it anyway for access online to play Diablo 3 and Doom.

@rjejr I wouldn't be surprised if that kind of system is present for Pokemon (Let's Go, Gen 8, etc.). Game Freak has always forced 1 save per console.

@electrolite77 so true. Another example is people at my work place want more money when they work sundays, talk about entitlement.
I just don’t understand why consumers want more for there money these days

I need that trip to the chemist now

So just to be sure, does this mean that Dead Cells does have cloud saves after all?

@Grumblevolcano "Game Freak has always forced 1 save per console."

But it wasn't' 1 save "per console", it was 1 save "per cartridge". People could share one console and each use their own game in it. Gamefreak seemed to say, if not explicitly, that the save file was too large to fit more than 1 on 1 cartridge.

Now that the save files are on the console, or a large Micro SD card, each account should be able to hold it's own save. And that's what they said June 1.

**************************************
Q: Now that these games are on Nintendo Switch, it's possible for multiple accounts to use the same device. Can multiple people play the same game? Or will it be similar to the handheld games where you can have only one player per game?

Mr. Ohmori: You can have multiple accounts on the Nintendo Switch, so each account can have its own save file. For example, if you have siblings they can play on their own accounts.
******************************************

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/06/pokemon_lets_go_pikachu_and_eevee_creators_share_all_the_details_you_need_in_new_q_and_a

Now you know me, and you know I dont' believe a word Ntinedo says, so this may turn out to not be true, but at least we have it in writing. And speaking of not true, that was the - will it or wont' it have online - article about Let's Go Eevee. FYI you didn't comment on it, I checked.

Have you ever changed your avatar, you must be using that one for at least 5 years now. Which is fine, I was just asking, not reprimanding. I can't recall you ever having a different one but you may have, but it's certainly been awhile.

@leo13 : Yes, you are correct about the save file with NBA 2k. I think they gave a 5GB estimate if you save on every mode or something. Capcom backs up your saves with Resident Evil Revelations too. I don't recall save files being an issue on my N64 or Gamecube or PS2, etc.

There is so much toxicity on this sites comments section recently. And too much complaining.

Thank God Xenoblade does, but you could also get around using up core crystals this way too.

In Splatoon 2 this is dumb. Save the info to a server.

Isn't it already? How does the phone app know my rank and what not?

@Syrek24 Dude, why not just direct deposit your pay check to Nintendo?

Fanboyism to the extreme.

Why should people expect things for a service they will pay for?

Wouldn't Splatoon 2 just update the status and overwrite after every match and each time the game is launched? Does it not have an online account, like all online shooters?
Same with Pokemon, it sounds like this game should cloud save by default and update to the latest save every time there's a connection. If someone plays offline then disable trading and other online features.

That's just stupid.

I'll be passing on the online service. Just not worth it.

@JamesR sure, but it's still a better solution than not having a backup at all.

As someone who spent 230 hours in Splatoon 2, the fact that cloud saving isn't supported for all the gear I've acquired is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You can't even manually backup anything, so if something happens to your Switch, it's just gone...

In typical Nintendo style, two steps forward, one step back.

@rjejr That's very strange. How does that even happen? I'd hope it would work fine with the Switch, you have to select an account before starting the game so it should be different for each account. We'll see I guess

@shadow-wolf I'm hopeful the saves will be there. Not hopeful they'll be cloud compatible. 😛

The reason given is hogwash. How do MSFT & Sony do it?