How Cloud Saves Work In Nintendo Switch Online

It seems like it will be an interesting idea to see how this works. Hopefully most of the games will be compatible. I hope more word about cloud saves will be told when subscribing to Online Service.

Stick this where the sun don't shine.
Seriously, are Nintendo so blind to not see people would pay more for a full service.

@NintendoFan4Lyf It means that as soon as your subscription ends your saves on the cloud are deleted. So unless you have autorenew on your saves won't be there if you were a day late subscribing again.

Their workaround is that you can just reupload your saves from your hardrive again. It isn't as bad as people make it out to be as your saves should be on the Switch when you arent having issues. Just you need to make sure you are subscribed during a time your Switch goes kaputt.

PS+ is similar except they temporarily hold your data 6 months for free after your sub ends, then they erase it all. Microsoft on the other hand have your back even without subscription. A rare one-up from them.

As for the NES games it seams all data is saved on your switch, not on the cloud (could be mistaken). They will stay there even if your sub runs out but can only be accessed when subscription is renewed (as you can only play the games when subscribed anyway).

"What isn't clear is whether or not your cloud saves will work on another Nintendo Switch console. For example, could you feasibly sign on to your Nintendo Account while using a friend's Switch and carry on your Zelda save from it? We hope so, but Nintendo hasn't made that clear yet."

That's up to every developer to decide I think.
If I remember correctly, Diablo III will support couch co-op between multiple accounts by loading cloud backups.

It's worth bearing in mind that the way Nintendo does cloud saves today probably won't be the same as how they do them in future. Right now it's a nice feature to have but far from perfect, but Sony had a similar attitude with plus early on where not all games could be backed up.

Got it. Play Switch = cloud saves. I wish the process was simpler and a little more user friendly, but I’ll eventually become accustomed to it.

For the different options there is no need not to always have it.pocket change lol

While it's annoying, I understand Nintendo's decision to not support cloud saves for Splatoon and Pokemon, due to cheating concerns. But why in the world in 1 2 Switch not supported??

Doesn't affect me personally (as I don't plan on ever getting 1 2 Switch), but I found it baffling.

@TuragaNuva The cloud wants nothing to do with 1 2 - Switch.

I'm less and less excited, more and more annoyed.

Play Zelda on my profile. Save and close. Remove cartridge. Put cartridge in another Switch, play Zelda on my profile, load last save from the game I was just playing on the other Switch

Why can't it work like this?

Multi switch household is a constant sibling/dad gamer fight over who gets to play what. lol. I refuse to buy multiple copies of single player games.

@TuragaNuva : I thought that the only save data that was stored for 1-2 Switch was whether or not all of the games have been unlocked or not (records of scores are not saved), so it's totally redundant to store its save data in the cloud.

So my switch saves will happen on my console as normal but some of them will also go to the cloud - this means if my console explodes I will have back up in the cloud and if I cancel my subscription it’s ok cos they save to the switch anyway? I couldn’t lose anything unless I cancelled and my switch exploded on the same day right?!

@STAGGLY You nailed it. Now you can understand why this is such a greedy corporate overlord anti-consumer practice for all the Demolitions and Pyrotechnics workers that frequent this site.

"Here's the bad news though. It seems that if you cancel your Nintendo Switch Online subscription, Nintendo will immediately delete your cloud saves. There isn't a holding period or anything like that, so make sure they're backed up."

Make sure they're backed up to what?? If you can't back up your saves to an SD card yet, whats the point of saying back up your cloud saves, if for save backups, cloud saves are the only option??

@HobbitGamer I’m not sure if this is sarcasm or what it really means if it isn’t

@Retroike7 why Can’t you back up your saves to an SD card?

@STAGGLY It was sarcasm

I just don't see this as a big deal. Sorry. It's something I have never worried about. Not going to start now over $20 a year. Granted, I do look forward to their service evolving. I'm sure they will continue to try to add quirky features down the line.

If there really are no file size limits, that complements the cloud wiping the user's saves upon sub expiry and makes the clear counterweight to PSN where, on the contrary, your save files can last for a while inbetween subscriptions but you've got finite storage space in the first place.

@STAGGLY: For similar reasons as to why some Switch games can't be backed up into the cloud to begin with: to prevent cheating/file editing/piracy. Your only two options are what's already stored on your Switch and the cloud storage itself.

I'm glad we're getting the cloud backup option at all, but I also like storing files/data that I feel are important in multiple places.

Really amusing reading all the Nintendo fanboys defending this anti consumer practice 😂🍿

Your saves are not "immediately deleted" if your subscription expires. Nintendo have said no such thing, and their FAQ strongly implies they are kept for a short period at least.

What is the point of a guide if we don't even know full details of the service?

"Tiny bit of a huge disappointment", eh? Quality...

Also, why write an guide on something where there's a number of points that 'aren't clear yet'?

@Tyranexx genuinely confused - you are saying that some saves can only be saved in the console and not on an SD card?!? How bizarre

Holy Freakin God what is happening on this website. They released a Third Article with this False information in it? Get another Source.

You're cloud saves are not deleted as soon as your subscription lapses. Nintendo will not guarantee that your Saves will be maintained if your subscription lapses. That is very different. They are not actively hunting down lapsed subscriptions and scrubbing their saves.

It is not up to developers to enable cloud saves. Cloud Saves are enabled by default. Developers have the option to request the feature be disabled. This is very very different.

Finally, Nintendo has already explicitly stated that if you sign in to another Nintendo Switch with your account, your saves will automatically be available.

"Save Data Cloud Backup
Players with a Nintendo Switch Online membership can save game data online for compatible games. Save data is linked to your Nintendo Account, so you can access it from any Nintendo Switch system by signing in and downloading your save data."

Edit:
" Yes, they're finally arriving on Thursday when the online service finally launches."

The service launches tomorrow.

Seriously who wrote this article? Did they do any research?

How about some Link to the past multiplayer?

@GrailUK I concur!

I won't be getting it, it's just so backward all.
No big discounts on games either, the NES games I've butchered over the last nearly 30 years, no themes etc
Until they add a load more I won't bother lol

@STAGGLY: To quote a piece from Nintendo's Data Management FAQ:

"On Nintendo Switch, game save data is stored on the console’s System Memory. This will not change whether downloadable software or software from a game card is being played.

Game save data cannot be saved or copied to a microSD card."

I'm curious, will it still show your friends online if you don't have a subscription?

@Nater It does work. Don't believe anything in this article. It is 100% inaccurate.

I don't think the bit about every game needing patching is true either.

@KcebEnyaw it launches on Wednesday in the UK

@chardir Thats still not Thursday.

@GKO900 Just like the Sony fanboys on Pushsquare defend the crossplay anti-consumerism...

@chardir It's not. No game needs a patch for Cloud Saves to Works. They will be automatically activated for every game that has not requested the feature be disabled when the service launches.

NintendoLife needs to retract this article.

"Guide: How Cloud Saves Work In Nintendo Switch Online"

Basically worse than the competition despite having years to watch and learn from them and that's before we look at voice chat and included games

@Rafke Just because it's cheaper doesn't mean it's a good service the only difference now it's that you have to pay for what it was free, It really doesn't fix issues that people had like better online nope it's P2P, VC console games at this point N64 games are gonna appear next generation, no decent way to save your games since the save clouds are not gonna work with all games and what happened to the leaderboard that they promised for the Nes games I think people forgot about that and more

@EVIL-C 😂 So you don't care about your game progress if it's lost because you can't save back up to an SD card or even save cloud even when you are paying for it but you care more about cross play and play with a random guy, genuine question do you even know if you play with someone from Xbox instead of Switch if that happens?

What time does online go on tomorrow for the US?

@FoyGlen

"make sure they're backed up"

But how? Nintendo won't let us make back-ups of our savegames as we could on the Wii and Wii U.

@Silly_G To my understanding, 1-2 Switch is the only Nintendo Switch game that is not even registered in the player's profile and no gameplay time either.

@SimplyCinnamon53 8pm pacific, 11pm eastern

@Bustacap Ok, thanks!

@Kevember the catch is that you now have to pay to play online XD

@GKO900 Its not even that anti consumer. The only issue is if your switch brakes and your service runs out simultaneously. Even then it never says deleted on the FAQ. Plus its only 20$ as lackluster as it seems. It is cheap.

@VexingInsanity How it's not anti consumer to Not allow save backups to an SD card and only offer save cloud for 20 that don't even work with all games and if your subscription expires they don't have the decency to to keep your saves for a certain time so you can renew your subscription

"What isn't clear is whether or not your cloud saves will work on another Nintendo Switch console. For example, could you feasibly sign on to your Nintendo Account while using a friend's Switch and carry on your Zelda save from it? We hope so, but Nintendo hasn't made that clear yet."

This. This is how backwards this whole rollout is. Cloud saves is the standout feature of this service. It has been since the day Switch launched, Reggie was asked about cloud saves and he said "wouldn't that be nice?" The service launches in a bout 26 hours. And we still don't have an answer to this exceedingly basic question to a feature that would help Switch functionality reach parity not just with PS4 and XB1......but with the GBA?

I've waited a year and a half for cloud saves specifically for that feature, and 26 hours away we still don't know if it actually works?!

@KcebEnyaw I hope very much you're right! I'm excited to use that aspect of cloud saves....this article was a bucket of cold water on that year and a half old dream! The FAQ doesn't address specifically saves across systems.

Of course Nintendo does nothing to clarify concerns about how long cloud saves are maintained after a sub lapses. We'll probably have to find out from people testing it out on their own.

I'm not subbing until this is clarified.

If I read the words ‘cloud saves’ one more time my eyes are going to start bleeding

@NinChocolate Better get some gauze, then. There's still a whole day before proper roll out.

(But I share your pain)

@GKO900 I've been very critical of Nintendo's online setup for switch. It sounds very poorly thought out.

It's not about what I care about, it's a trend the industry is moving towards. Crossplay will become a big element in the coming years.

@EVIL-C Ok so you agree that Nintendo it's been anti consumer with there poorly implemented online service and people should unite and push for a save backups to an SD card, VC console and basically fix everything wrong with this service

And you never answer my question about cross play with Xbone so that means you probably haven't even use cross play and even if what you say somehow becomes true that's for the next generation that doesn't affect any PS4 owners in any way right now unlike Nintendo not allowing you to secure your save data and besides what cross play has to do with this anyway

"It seems that if you cancel your Nintendo Switch Online subscription, Nintendo will immediately delete your cloud saves. There isn't a holding period or anything like that, so make sure they're backed up."

... Are you kidding? The whole reason people care about cloud saves is you CAN'T back them up yourself.

That and the whole angle of this article is "here's how the cloud saves work... Actually we don't know how they work"

I feel insulted.

Playing since 1987, almost exclusively on Nintendo consoles. NES, SNES, N64, GCN, Wii, Wii U, NSwitch, GB Pocket, GB Color, GBA SP, NDS, NDS Lite, N3DS, New N3DS. Never ever had one of my consoles break down. And I earn money, so I can easily afford 1,7€ a month.
Quick question to all of you: How often did anyone of you lost game saves?

@MrBlacky Asking the question is answering.

@GKO900 For save backups, absolutely. For VC, I wish both options existed; both subscription and direct purchases, for those who want to own a digital copy (like me).
I've suffered mass data loss before on GC, and some of my old cart batteries have died over the years, so I'm very paranoid about backups, be they local or cloud.

I've crossplayed on Switch, PC, and Xbone. Not often, but I've used it, and it's great. Seems like a logical evolution in network infrastructure and abilities. I'd happily try it on my PS4 if Sony would do right by its players. But they're far in the lead and have no reason to change. Xbox was guilty of this too last gen.

@TheFongz Everything in this article is factually incorrect.

@FoxyGlen Fix your egregiously inaccurate article.

@GKO900 1. It never states they delete it and its extremely unlikely that it'll break before you renew it if that were the case.
2. Theyre preventing cheating. I appreciate that they're doing this despite there being other ways to do it. Id rather functional online games rather than online game that don't work and have data
3. I admit save backups to an sd would be ideal for some games like botw but for the games they've blocked from having cloud saves would never be able to be backed up to an sd anyway bc of cheaters. But o see your point there.
4. 20$ isnt much for a year. I mean you do get NES games, special offers and the ability to play online on top of cloud saves. I admit it would be nice to have more. But cmon man its 20$ and Im certain they'll add more features down the line. I mean 3 NES games a month + Special offers yet to come.
All in all i see your point and I see the issue but its not terrible but its no great either.

@GrailUK Round these parts, not really caring = fanboy apparently. :/

@MrBlacky You'd think everyone round here was on the verge of their machine breaking/melting down/being washed away at sea/stamped on by their angry parents. Also when mentioning games available with the online service they're thinking about when the plugs are pulled 5-10 years from now. If I lost my Zelda save I'd just start again. No biggie.

@WiltonRoots Well...so be it. I'm a Nintendo fan. I reckon they make the best games.

Well, I guess I can wait a day to get real info from Nintendo, seeing as the service launches TOMORROW lol.

@MrBlacky The only save I ever lost was on a second copy of EarthBound due to the internal cartridge battery. Replaced the battery and Bob was my Aunt.

The honeymoon is over Nintendo. Now I hate you.

Wow. Horrendous.
Isn't this sort of article really hurting your journalistic integrity?

@EVIL-C "I've suffered mass data loss before"
I know the feeling almost all my n64 games lost their save data because of the battery but for that time and been a cartridge base games it's understandable even when PS1 had memory cards and N64 too but it didn't work for all games especially the Nintendo ones, the console that started with saves problems was Wii because it didn't allow save backups to the SD for online games that's when Nintendo paranoia started and I lost my saves for games like Mario kart SSB brawl because my Wii died
And that is why save backups to an SD card are important even more than save clouds but no one cares apparently

Also you now why Nintendo and Microsoft join to get cross play and what's the reason for cross play

@VexingInsanity Don't try to defend their greedy tactics while I can see your point keep in mind that we are in 2018 almost 2019 actually and they delayed it for this mediocrity of service there's no excuse for putting your save data backups of your own games behind a paywall that doesn't even work with all your games and especially the important ones like Pokémon and others with the excuses of preventing hackers and punishing people who don't even do it , and while it is cheaper it doesn't mean it's worth the price when it lacks basic features if you compare it to any of the other consoles either PS4 or Xbone you'll understand the reason why people are disappointed

Nintendo did answer the suggestion to use your account on different switches and they said yes the online and cloud is tied to the account and not any particular Switch

People need to quit griping. For $3.99, I was lucky if I could rent 2 NES games for 1 day each back in the 80's

"What isn't clear is whether or not your cloud saves will work on another Nintendo Switch console. For example, could you feasibly sign on to your Nintendo Account while using a friend's Switch and carry on your Zelda save from it? We hope so, but Nintendo hasn't made that clear yet".

From nintendo.co.uk:

"Save data is linked to your Nintendo Account, so you can access it by signing in. If you move to a new system, you can pick up right where you left off in your game by downloading your data".

Seems pretty clear to me.

No, they don't exclude Splatoon to prevent cheating. They do it because they are to lazy or inept or both to provide cloud saves for it in a manner that prevents that. Other online games on other consoles don't seem to have this problem.

This save game protection racket is despicable.

Cya
Raziel-chan

Wow, this article still hasn't been corrected. This is just pathetic.

Nintendo should just allow us to use the SD card to store our game saves, specially RPGs. Our progress, our file, our choice. It really feels like our save files are held hostage.

On cheating concerns in online games...this can surely be managed at this time and age as aptly pointed out by many that commented.

@Razzy It's legitimately to prevent cheating, but that's only because Splatoon (and other online games) never (ever) should have been storing character profile data such as ranks and gear on the client side, at all to begin with. That should have been server-side from day one on the WiiU. Maybe they were cheap, maybe they were inept at the whole online thing back then, but for Splatoon 2, they still could have simply patched the game to store the profile data server-side and not store it locally at all now that cloud saves exist so the server capacity to do so exists. That's the shame of it that would have prevented a lot of hacking in addition to scumming. And is bog standard for online games. It's weird that they're crippling the integrity of hudreds of hours of gameplay in a heavily dedicated game by disallowing any and all backups, local or cloud, to prevent cheating that is possible due to the fact that saves should have been only in the cloud to begin with. And they'll likely do the same with Smash. That's not really a "service" fail, the online service is probably doing the right thing by excluding it, hacking-wise. That's a Splatoon and Nintendo online games fail. They didn't set up character data the way it should have been from the start. So, yay NSO for preserving game integrity, boo Splatoon team and Nintendo's netcode teams for not planning for secure profile data as a part of the game from the launch.

@GKO900 I wouldn't say greedy. Id say lazy. They clearly didn't study the competition. But the price of this is way cheaper than the other two. Though id rather pay for ps+ switch edition. They shouldve done better. But Im just glad its not expensive and undervalued rather than the cheap and still undervalued service we have

@NEStalgia That's pretty much what I meant. :B All this could've been solved at many points in the past, or could even be solved now, since Splatoon is patched for every content update anyway. But nope, let's do it the stupid way.

Cya
Raziel-chan

@Razzy It's true. Though in their "defense" I have to admit "saving face first and foremost" is the standard Japanese way to do business. And it's similar in Korea as well. The first bad choice must never be acknowledged or changed because that could make the company, or the manager that made the choice look bad. That can't happen. So the entire thing must be refit to make sure it looks like he was right from the start. So the whole thing may be a matter of "Tanaka-san didn't know we should be storing player profile data online back on WiiU. We can't change it now because then it looks like he didn't know what he was doing, and then the whole team will be seen as poorly organized. How can we avoid cheating, while making him look competent? I know, we'll block all backups and say it's to help you ensure there's no cheating!"

But this was still easily rectifiable while saving face with the launch of Online in saying that some games will store only in the cloud, and you can't manually recover saves on those games. For online games like Splatoon, that's not a problem because it requires paying regardless, and you have to be online to play (single player data could be stored locally and with the regular cloud.)

The west does the face saving thing often enough too, but here it's out of fear more than out of reverence and unity, and is thus less uniformly applied. Plus Westerners have a knack for wanting to make managers look bad.

@GKO900 That sucks. I'm sorry. Time will come for all those batteries, unfortunately. It is impressive how long some can last, though.
My GC 1019 memory card glitched out and corrupted most of the data. I doubt I'll ever find the time to play those games again.
I never liked how the Wii didn't separate online data from progress data. They were packed together, so I too have no SD card backups of my online-enabled Wii titles. Wii U has poor memory management, and Switch (not including the cloud} has none at all, and even that is flawed with files deleting if your sub runs out. Ridiculous...

Sorry if this has already been answered in a comment - I had a quick scan and couldn't see it - but does anyone know yet whether your existing save files automatically go to the cloud, or do you have to manually open each game, create a save and then that goes to the cloud.

Please do your research.
The Nintendo FAQ clearly states that Save Data in the Cloud will be kept for 180 days after your Subscription ends. You just cannot access the Cloud until your renew your Subscription.