Animal Crossing: New Horizons Cloud Save Support Coming "Sometime In The Future"

Nintendo being Nintendo again.

They should make it that it takes 3 days to restore your cloud save.

That way it will become tiring to cheat, and people will only use it when it's appropriate : when they lose access to their town.

This really makes me feel like their paid online subscription is an unfinished concept.
Every single game should have cloud backup, except maybe for purely online games, but even though, saving your settings should be a bare minimum.

dumb and my sister isn't going to be happy when l tell her

I've never played a Animal Crossing game but after spending over a hundred hours on Stardew Valley I assume this is the same kind of thing so I'm pretty interested, but after reading this I admit no cloud does put me off.
Touch wood I've never had trouble with my Switch but there is absolutely no excuse not to use Save Cloud considering that's what we are paying for.I don't want to spend hours on the game all the time worried I might lose my progress at any minute.

Well that unfortunate, but I understand why they wouldn’t support them. I’m elated to hear amiibo will be supported in this entry!

Ah man. We have two switches in the house and it's great that games played on one are saved on the other. We already have one switch marked as the "Splatoon" switch.

Seeing Animal Crossing is going to be one of those games played by multiple people in our house, it's going to be a pain to manage.

I don't see how this prevents time manipulation, it should still be doable in the same way it's always been done, preventing cloud saves stops nothing.

This is crazy and unacceptable.

I do think cloud saves should be supported. I'm a little worried. I've had to replace my Switch because the screen broke on my launch unit (the panel died on its own). I had to get a second unit using the extended warranty I got at EB Games Canada, it was luckily still active for one remaining week when my screen broke). I had to transfer everything over and having those cloud saves were extra peace of mind. Luckily the saves on my actual system were obviously still intact so the cloud wasn't needed in this case, but it does make me worry about the fragility of the Switch. Any and all support for cloud based saves is appreciated and it would be a bummer to lose all that Animal Crossing progress should the worst happen.

Well good on them trying to stop cheating.

Of course there is the chance this could change considering the game is a long ways off

Hey, I've seen this one!

As long as I can use my amiibo card to bring Al to my town, I'm happy. He's one of the only villagers I genuinly felt upset about leaving so when amiibo compatibility was added to New Leaf, he was the villager I brought over.
https://i.postimg.cc/qvmZtVKt/Al.png

Maybe Nintendo should actually learn how to prevent cheating without punishing everyone by withholding features.

Ah, I can still remember the creeping horror when I realised my 3DS SD card had corrupted and I'd lost 650 hours of Animal Crossing.
Though to be fair I was pretty much done with the game by then, in some ways it was a relief to break the chore/habit of going in every so often to make sure Walt wasn't moving out.

Well, I personally have never cared about cloud saves so for me this information is like "Meh". But I do understand why some people are upset about this.

Not all that concerned to be honest,until recently never had cloud saves on a Nintendo console...and have never needed them.

How does cloud save enable time manipulation?
Changing the time on the console is way easier than messing with a save.

That's terrible, they're punishing most of the player base for some hypothetical cases, on top of that, it's a single player game - if they cheat the only ones who are missing on the fun are the cheaters!
There's no reason to not have cloud saves on this game.

As always, one step forward and two steps back

@kuromantic Cheating is far less of a factor in AC though.

I'm not so much upset, as that I am puzzled. Considering AC is a single player game, why not let the choice to the player? Cheaters will find a way anyway. Same with Splatoon, although cheating there has impact on other players, too.

"...we obviously think New Horizons will be compatible with amiibo..."

What kind of answer is that? He's the game director, and he answers this question like he has no idea!

Just as the article suggests, it just isn't possible. This game is intended to be played a certain way, and this news doesn't bug me one bit.

every single PS4 and Xbox One game supports cloud saves...so why can't nintendo figure this out??

and people who want to cheat will find ways anyway..with or without cloud saves

@Kalmaro the whole point of cloud saves is protection for console loss or damage

Nintendo:
One Step Forward
Five Steps Back

Not a deal breaker, but still a bit silly. This is why my Switch doesn’t leave my house.

@Redax I agree cloudsaves should be there. It doesn't affect my decision to buy the game if they aren't there. But again if manipulating time is a pillar of the series then why exactly should doing so prohibit you from saving? As an example Breath of the Wild has cloud saves, yet I've changed my system time to pick up some in game items from amiibo more quickly. Doing so obviously the timestamp on save files reflects this and so you have to remember which one(s) are relevant. But even with that the usefulness of adjusting time and slight annoyance of remembering which save file to use has never been a deterrent for me. The bigger problem I would think would be time keeping between consoles online where if they are too out of sync then it could prevent the connection. But again there are ways around this and I would think it's still possible.

I also think Nintendo should revisit cloud saves on Splatoon 2 as they should really be apart of that game. There are other ways to prevent cheating, I don't really see someone loosing rank and restoring from backup frequently just to maintain a high rank advantage (although thinking about it there would likely be a few). Maybe the game sees that you restored from backup and if you do it frequently it lowers your ranking from say A to B or something of that nature.
Personally I just don't like that without cloud saves we can loose our gear and level status which for me is in the hundreds of hours.

So absolutely mind-bogglingly stupid. I just cannot fathom the fact that Nintendo, the mastermind behind many of the industry's biggest names, is somehow unable to think of a solution to this.... ''problem''.

What do we pay those 20 bucks a year for again???????????

Nintendo.. do it RIGHT or don't do it at ALL!! This is just unbelievable.

Oooh how did we ever live without cloud saving???? <---sarcasm

It's not as if any of the other Animal Crossing games had it and they have taken it away..

@Bunkerneath True, but we had physical memory cards that were apart from your console and you could copy between them if you wanted. So if your console died or you replaced it you could keep your save files.

If your Switch dies your save files go with it. Even recently on the Wii or Wii U you could save to the SD card and then back that up on a PC if you wanted. Not so on the Switch.

I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the modding community creates a program where you can connect your Switch to your PC and easily backup save files. It's just too bad that some will likely exploit that to cheat in online games though.

@Yosher Comments like this are the exact problem I see with a lot of Nintendo criticism these days. If people really want it to change they should try to get in touch with Nintendo through their own official channels and offer feedback in a civilized constructive manner. Instead most just scream around on forums and message boards about how dumb or stupid Nintendo is. One rule of constructive criticism in general is don't let your negative emotions dictate your message.

@rex_rex It was posted on Friday. Very punctual!

@Tsurii It's not. But at the same time it's not unreasonable to expect cloud save compatibility when you're actually paying for it. And it's not like AC is a competitive game where it could give you an advantage or something like that.

Surely there could be ways to update how cloud saves work that would prevent or at least reduce abuse...?

@rex_rex https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/switch-eshop/cadence_of_hyrule_crypt_of_the_necrodancer_featuring_the_legend_of_zelda <---- right here.

@tzahn tks man! I dunno how this could pass and I didn't see?!

@Yosher Nintendo has always been concerned about hacking and if you look back at the Wii, it's probably biggest exploit for modding the console was in it's Smash Brothers level editor save file. So I'm sure they are concerned about the Switch, hacking, and online gaming with unfair advantages. Pushing Nintendo for features we want has gone well lately with Super Mario Maker 2 and I heard that in Luigi's Mansion 3 they looked at forums features players wanted. So our lamentations in forums don't always fall on deaf ears.

Was a bit on the fence for this one, but this is one huge negative in my opinion.

@Giygas_95 tks to you too!! Im reading it! hehehe but still waiting the price drop a little bit.. the other summer games will hurt my wallet. (mario maker im looking to you! and ultimate alliance and fire emblem and astral chain)

This is an archaic practice. Some people are putting 300+ hours in these games. If any game needs cloud saves, it is this one.

Augh, please figure it out Nintendo. It's a paid service and it kinda sucks when it intentionally doesn't work.

Expect any Nintendo game that involves trading in-game items or using real-world features (i.e. the real-world clock) to not support cloud saves.

It's dumb for sure, but that's just how Nintendo thinks.

The userbase voted with their wallets.

Eight million decided it was worth paying for something that was free for 13 years prior, and then people act surprised when Nintendo pull this sort of nonsense and flatly ignore consumer demand. Sometimes I wonder how people can be so... you know... but then I remember who some of our leaders are, and suddenly the presumption of intelligence and common wisdom seem fanciful.

Remember when we could back up our own data on Wii? Who put what in our water that made Daddy Nintendo think we can't handle managing our own data?

I can't stand these companies treating the masses like idiots, hence why we now have Baby's First Windows cough Windows 10, which is hideously convoluted, and all in the name of so-called user-friendliness. And I quite frankly hate the idea of cloud saves. I would much rather manage and back up my data manually. And I'm still peeved that Nintendo never updated the Wii to allow copying of save data of online games (considering that the servers have been terminated, there is no longer potential harm in such data being shared between consoles).

We don't need a standard feature held hostage behind a "service", we merely need to be able to back up our data on our terms.

Such an easy fix to it... limit the save downloads to one per week or so and duping by save switching won't be a noticeable issue. and wtf is it nintendos problem if someone want to cheat? It's not a competitive game.

Anyone know if physical Switch games save onto the cartridge? I assume they do but I’m not certain. If they do then my plans to get this game digitally will change.

@Wolfgabe

Nail on the head. The angry, rage filled posts do more harm than good.

@rex_rex Yeah, Mario Maker, Crash Team Racing and probably Bloodstained Ritual of the Night are gonna wipe me out.

I understand the desire for cloud saves, but like usual, perspective is lost faster than flatulence to the wind.

Did New Leaf, or the Gamecube version have cloud saves? What percentage of you lost your data in those games? Reading this, it seems like 90% of all gamers have.

And in the event you do lose it...you start again. You dont have to trek up Mount Everest or dig your way out of a Syrian prison...just press "new game" and return to a world where if this is your biggest problem, you should feel lucky.

@Wolfgabe I had already tried to relay issues with Nintendo in the past. None of this had helped whatsoever so I have gotten fed up with even trying. It's like trying to talk to a brick wall. If you even so much as get a response from them, it's as standard as standard can be. Even when trying to e-mail them for console repairs, I get the exact same copy-paste e-mail sent to me TWICE OVER because they just can't be bothered to listen. So yes, sorry if I'd rather rant like this than try to talk to a brick wall all over again.

@Nico07 Luigi's Mansion 3 is developed by Next Level Games though, so the features that fans wanted to be added were not necessarily Nintendo's doing. Still a good point otherwise though.

@King-X That would be grand, but I have doubts Nintendo will change things here. Nintendo always has to do things weirdly and sometimes, like in this case, it's at the cost of fans of certain games.

@Yosher Don't assume they didn't relay your previous feedback to the higher ups though. Understandably any feedback directed at Nintendo would probably not immediately reach NOJ where the majority of development decisions take place.

@rex_rex I'll attest it's a fabulous game, the music is awesome. I die a lot and have issues matching the beat at time, but it doesn't stop it from being fun since it doesn't really penalize you for missing the beat, just rewards you more. Only thing is I've heard it's short, but i've put around 3 hours in so far, and haven't beaten first dungeon yet even. There's also replayability because new games mix up the map completely.

@Yorumi Fair point - I won't sit here and say Nintendo is always consistent, yet I still think the cloud save/backup need is over exaggerated. Will it annoy a small fraction of people? Perhaps, but overall, most users will not be impacted.

My point was more about "um, let's relax here, people." The world is on fire. Video games are fun. Not really a huge problem.

@Wolfgabe I had not seen any hint nor evidence that they relayed my feedback to higher ups whatsoever so, as far as I'm concerned, I have been talking to a brick wall. It's their job to please the fans, not mine, and I was not pleased with the way they treated my feedback. And I'm just tired of trying to make my voice heard to them directly.

I hope they find a way to have cloud saves a thing.

@Yosher With game development, changes do not necessarily happen overnight. Also any feedback sent to NOA of course has to be translated and processed before it can be sent over to NOJ

@Wolfgabe I'm very well aware. Even in the long run I had not seen any hint nor evidence of them listening to my feedback.

Look, I'm sure it's more effective to message them more directly than rant on forums. I'm just personally done with it because it feels like it doesn't get me anywhere. And blowing me off with standard replies gets incredibly tiring too. I just don't want to deal with it anymore.

@Yosher Thats just it really. Ranting on forums does little to solve the problem and as I mentioned earlier a common rule of thumb when offering constructive criticism is not let your emotions dictate your message. Also its important to consider the official customer service portal for Nintendo is primarily meant for technical support and troubleshooting rather than actual feedback on games

@dougphisig I can imagine.. the necrodancer seems short as well.. but 4 euros, 4 euros.. who can complain?? multiplayer, extras, and it's a roguelike, it is never the same game!!

I hear everyone getting mad at Nintendo because they want people to play the game the way it's intended to be played (a.k.a. not cheating) but they don't get mad at the cheaters... FOR CHEATING!!!! The logic is simple, when you don't have cheaters, you have no reason to put rules in place to prevent cheating.

@Kalmaro no, the saves are on the internal memory and cannot be copied to a pc

Its an issue I've not been too pressed about. But I guess when I really look at it, it would be nice to have with AC. I expect I'll drop about 500 to 1000 + hours on the game. It would be nice to have reassurance I won't lose it

@ThatDaveGuy Unfortunately, Switch games save to the internal drive and not to the cartridge or SD card. This means there's no way to back up saves except cloud saves and those are not available for all games.

@FitnessGamer I am not sure exactly why people are so surprised at this considering how in the AC series its been fairly common practice to implement measures to discourage or punish time travel since it goes against the games primary design philosophy as a life sim

@Kalmaro no they are only saved to the console itself to prevent manipulating saves (which still is possible)

@Mallow You'd have a point if it was a free thing. But they're asking people to pay for cloud saves, so it's not too unreasonable to expect their games to support it. Especially since I cannot think of any reason how it could harm other players if people cheated their way through Animal Crossing. It's not exactly a competitive thing.

In the end it's not the end of the world, but it's just rather silly they don't allow it. And since people pay for cloud saves, I think they have a right to voice their opinion.

Yeah they actually said this WAAAYYYY back at the reveal of the cloud-save system in the first place.

Out of all the games I would want to support cloud saves this one has to be at the top of the list, there really is no excuse for not having them for a game you will spend hundreds if not a thousand hours on, it would be soul crushing to lose that data.

@Kalmaro nope, the saves are on the internal memory and the only way to back them up is the cloud saves, on the 3ds they were in the sd card so you could do a back up, on wii it was the same and on gamecube it was on the memory card. The problem here is that if anything happen to your switch you can say goodbye to your town. With my wiiu my external harddrive died because of an update and I lost almost all my saves, I never finished tropical freeze for exemple because I was in the last level and almost 100% everything, I didn't wanted to do it again. same for wonderful 101 that I almost platinum. Animal crossing is a time sink, I don't wanna lose my game but it could happen. the only way to prevent it is the cloud save on switch and we pay for it, they should support it with all their games.

@Yorumi I have to agree that what nintendo is doing is stupid because a lot of people say the same thing if the only way to back up saves is homebrew they'll do it

I don't understand the reasoning — why not encrypting the save to prevent tampering? Also, cloud save seems completely irrelevant to me considering cheating, as it's just a backup: "take the file, upload it to the cloud, load it on demand on a new console". Do I miss something, or are they just lazy and pretend do have "smart reasons"?

Animal Crossing is mostly a single-player experience. Why should they care about time manipulation? I think "not losing years of work put into a town" would be more important!!!!

@Peterjr1 Sounds like you just have to keep care of your stuff. Cloud saves are nice but hardly so thing I'd get worked up over.

@nathatruc @Rayquaza2510 @Balta666 That I didn't know. I thought the data went to your SD card, thanks for clarifying.

If it's part of the online package that we pay for, and this game needs Nintendo online to play with others, then it should come with it.

Of all the games that should have cloud saves, you think this would be a big one

Imagine loosing a save years later because the switch you're using breaks down, or something goes wrong with the save on the internal memory or SD card and it's not backed up? That'd suck big time

I don't see why they are so concerned about cheating here. The people who cheat are only hurting themselves.

Seems like the cloud saves are going to be a thing of the past someday.

@Sakura Well that’s a bother. Thanks for the reply!

This is an incredibly bad excuse, it's trivial to compare time stamps on files and the system clock, and the Switch does not support accessing save games externally. Preventing cloud saves also doesn't prevent changing the system clock.

You know what's more insane? If you're accessing a cloud server, you can grab the time from the server and check to see if there is any manipulation of the system time! The server can also timestamp files it's receiving so that it's not relying on the easily manipulated internal clock of the Switch! Cloud saves are actually a solution to the problem! It's much harder to manipulate time when the time is being handled by device you don't control. I'm sorry, I'm not buying this reason. It has to be something else.

@Cotillion

what N needs to do is just support saves to SD and get over the 'omg piracy waaaambulance' crying they constantly do.

they need new management. as in everyone is fired and replaced. every single one of them.

@Tibob Dear god you missed your calling as a product designer, brilliant fix for an annoying problem.

What does cheating in Animal Crossing even do? Oh someone has a bunch of couches. Cool...

@FitnessGamer
Cheating what’s exactly? AC is a chill playground of a game it doesn’t have a end-state cheating is irreverent and has no negative affect on other AC players. This studio has some serious problems they refused to put a system in place to allow cloud saves for Splatoon 2 just like they refused to remove the tedious intro that plays every time you load the game, they need to take a lesson from their own AC and chill.

PS4 has significantly more online focused multiplayer games and they have no limits on cloud saves and this has never caused a problem, the apologist can’t worm their way out of this, the devs that are anti-save backup at Nintendo are 100% in the wrong this is indisputable. But no the apologist will just keep going just like they did for the decade of Nintendo not having an account system for digital purchases, bunch of anti-consumer enablers.

I'm not terribly worried about my save since I don't lose consoles and never had a Nintendo product break on me before (except for that infamous 3DS XL hinge), but it's still pretty dumb.

Hope they'll at least allow time changes ingame like they did before, otherwise keeping villagers from moving out will be fun if you don't/can't play for a while.

@rex_rex Yeah, but i'm just not a fan of the original necromancer art style, though it is super cheap lol.

@Mountain_Man Well they're not done with the game yet and can't confirm/deny every detail. He's basically saying it's 99% confirmed unless Nintendo says otherwise for some reason.

I understand why they aren't allowing cloud saves. It's a bit of a bummer for some, I understand that too.

I am glad Amiibo functionality is confirmed. My dream is that every Amiibo on the market has at least some functionality. They don't all need to be unique animals or anything. I would be happy for at least one theme'd item from every series.

Pokemon, I am looking at you!

disappointed but not surprised, im really tired of these excuses. we're paying for cloud saves now so why cant they take the extra time to find a work around? heck why DO they have to find a work around when this is a nonexistent problem with every other company?

No it doesn't make sense, and their reasons are lamentably stupid! While I can see some people back up their game, advance the time on their Switch, then restore the last back-up, most sane people won't do this. That Nintendo feel they must lock out a backup system (and that includes the ban to do personal manual backups) because of the actions of a few people that want to "cheat" is myopically daft and actually cheating everyone else. So what if people want to cheat anyway? They bought the game. You still got their money. If they take someone's save file and somehow hack it so they can complete BOTW in a couple of hours, that's their problem.

@FitnessGamer If people want to cheat, that's their problem. Nintendo still got their money for the game! Why punish the vast majority of people that do play games as intended, and are denied this basic courtesy of backing up a game? I'm referring to Nintendo's stupid ban on manual back-ups too, not just to their dopey online service.

Seriously, screw NSO! Yet another reason why the service is garbage! And besides, it's not like you can change the time on your Switch if it's connected to the internet. So this is dumb and another reason for me not to support Nintendo's greediness.

yes, what worries me a lot is the fact that we may no longer be able to manipulate the time just to be in winter mode, put on sweaters, make snowmen, and be on Christmas day. I was manipulating the weather just as well to see what's new in the shops, sisters fairy fingers, méli-mélo

I should certainly hope they support amiibo after they sold us all those figures and cards. Animal Crossing has been the main source of amiibo for years now.

So how many years is it going to take for the online service to be worth the monthly fee? I still don’t see a good reason to pay for it yet.

Does that mean it saves like a normal game?

@Mallow too much logic, you’re supposed to be foaming at the mouth. 😉

Oh please I hope so! I wanted a lite for Animal Crossing too, will this be affected by no cloud saves?

Better than nothing.

Really hope so 💙

Didn’t they have this kind of chatter way back at the start of Switch? I am sure I remember chat about back ups then. I can only remember it being something to do with wording on the back of the Zelda box I am sure and Nintendo had to clarify that should anything happen to your switch, your data could be transferred.

Glad to see them trying to clarify that everything won’t be lost, still hope there may be a direct to give us a bit more detail.

@CashMadness Well, to be fair, there isn't a good reason to subscribe to either Sony's nor Microsoft's online services either. Unfortunately we all lost the right to complain about this in 2002 and if anything, you should be praising Nintendo for not charging as much as the others charge you to access your own internet that you've already paid for 😉.

@Nintyfan You don't ''lose'' the right to complain once something is implemented. If it's stupid, it's stupid, and you're allowed to voice your opinion.

Don't know about MS, but on PS4 I can back my saves up without having to subscribe to PS+. And yes, it costs more, but you get also a ton of discounts, and free games every month. I don't buy many digital games when physical is available, so the discounts would be lost on me, but it's worth it for the discounts alone IMO.

Regardless, it's still stupid that online is held captive behind a paywall. It always was. It was stupid 10 years ago, and it still is today. At least Microsoft offers dedicated servers for their games as far as I'm aware, so that's something I guess.

Awesome at least there are trying to listen to feedback, as long as we can back up our saves somehow I will be happy.

It’s correspondence time!

I hope it is somehow compatible with the amiibos !

@Octane With XB1 there's no physical save backup but cloud saves are free for everyone (you don't need Gold or Game Pass).

@TioRogerio That has already been confirmed.

Cloud saving looks like the obvious solution for AC. Not being able to transfer save data for AC to another Switch in any way just seems rather weird, especially considering how used to upgrading we all are. Oh, well.

Can't shake the nasty and probably unworthy feeling this is all part of an expectations management plan / distraction by Nintendo.

In case anyone was wondering, google's "Correspondence time is undecided." was actually "The support [as in, implementation/availability] date has not yet been set."

Good to hear there will be something, even if not at release. Though, it sounds like it'd be very limited.

@Nintyfan This is an old article that got updated, so the person you responded to made their comment back in June of 2019. Just a heads up.

@Rhaoulos u can thank cheaters and hackers for that

@cmk8 I mean, of course it's part of a plan to manage expectations. But that's not a bad thing. I don't think distraction is the right word, though. It's also a solid idea for other games and hopefully they'll simply have it available to all games that don't support cloud save normally.

With the news about cloud saves, I look forward to the complaining about people hacking, scum saving and getting items before they were supposed to. Good job, peeps. Can't have it both ways. lol

@Grumblevolcano You're right. I've heard it before Don't know why I couldn't remember it!

@BenAV Yeah same, I don't know why this has to be so confusing.

Okay, now do the same thing with Pokemon. And every other non cloud supported games on your cloud storage premium membership, Nintendo

@Monkeido Great. I have half dozen Animal Crossing amiibos and lots of amiibo cards.

@HalBailman Yeah, Nintendo have been REALLY stubborn since the switch. They launch the console without save backup. The solution? Allow external backup😆😆😆😆😆.

@CobraA1 Yeah, but the question is what else could it be other than item duplication and cheating?

If this game gets Save Backup functionality, they need to add it to Pokémon too...

Allowing users to back up save data, especially when it's something they pay to do, is not a big decision to make. It should not even need to be considered. Let people back up their saves.

Beep,Beep,Beep....please stand back, this company is reversing......

This is worrying, does this mean the game will have micro-transactions? Because if not, who gives a fuc* if someone is cheating. Some people cheat and most people don't.

@TAndvig No. This is Animal Crossing, Nintendo wants to keep the game fair for everyone by banning cheating. They've been doing that since the GameCube version.

@TioRogerio Me too, still have to find out what the amiibo's actually do though. I guess we will find that out in a Direct soon. ^^

@sanderev Their not being fair if they are implementing or witholding functions that would increase ease of access. Also cheating in these games as far as I know doesn't affect other players.

@TAndvig it could affect multiplayer.

Dumb. Short and simple. So basically I'm stuck with the switch I originally start a save file on. No deciding to go from a lite to a regular switch or to a pro model if that really will ever be a thing. Your town with poof and you'll be left to start over.

I think I won't buy animal crossing the save situation is getting worst everyday, I only got one profile on my switch but if I start this game and decide to buy a new model or a special edition I'll lose my hours of animal crossing. Nintendo make really stupid decisions.

Yeah, on some aspects Nintendo is still a 20th century company.

@Nico07 I think modders have made a way to do that for some games. Youtuber Nintendo Prime mentioned how modders found a way to backup your Splatoon 2 saves. It probably requires voiding the warranty of the Switch to mod it though.

@frogopus Yeah, I already know a lot of people will plan on doing that. Me though I like to be honest and going out of my way to lie just to retrieve data I should be able to do myself as I could with the 3DS still leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. I don't want to be a liar just because while the ability obviously will exist in some way, shape or form, they don't want it to be broadly used.

But of your system breaks and you get a new switch and retrieve your save data on the new machine, how is that not transferring data to another switch?

@Wazeddie22 I mean AC and Stardew are both sim games but that’s about where the similarities end. For one, Stardew has goals, a story, and character development, while AC is just, “Do whatever you want”. Stardew has character bonding while AC villagers treat you identical whether it’s your first day around them or your 100th day. AC is real time while Stardew uses an in game clock. Stardew is mostly about farming and foraging, with some combat, while AC is about fishing, bug catching, gardening, decorating, etc etc (it’s pretty varied). Overall, AC is just more relaxed and less goal oriented than Stardew. I recommend both but for ENTIRELY different reasons and don’t think someone who enjoys one will necessarily enjoy the other - I have friends who love one of them and HATE the other. They’re really that different.

@mist
Probably means you can't directly transfer save data from one Switch to another through the traditional method via bluetooth, but you can retrieve the save data through this custom save data backup system that Nintendo is talking about.

So transferring your saves from one Switch to another is possible, but it won't be particularly convenient.

Thank you Nintendo. Cheaters and hackers have to always ruin the fun.

This article is over half a year old, why not write another one instead of updating this one? The comments are filled with outdated replies and a lot of the article is outdated as well.

Not buying until cloud saves are implemented

@mist That's what I'm trying to figure out.

@mesome713

That's nonsense with a game such as Animal Crossing where items aren't traded etc.

I'm tired of Nintendo thinking they're my father and need to instill parameters that decide how I play a game I purchased.

I'm guessing Resetti wasn't draconian enough.

@sanderev How so? Please enlighten me.

@Flowerlark That is exactly my point as well, these games don't work the same as other games. Cheating is just affecting the person who cheats. It's not Fortnite, where if someone cheats, that decreaces my chances of a fair fight or even winning the game. Someone need to explain to me how this affects other players negatively. I am struggling to see that issue.

I totally agree with Nintendo. This kind of game should not have cloud saving.

They could’ve made it online only. (They probably would’ve if the switch wasn’t portable).

"Available some time in the future" - that's when I'll buy it then, if I don't die first...

@TAndvig Yep, this sucks. The game has a real time function that you have no choice to turn off. I have a busy job that includes me having various random work hours and to be on call quickly to work. I’m paying for this game but will end up missing events and festivals (the most exciting parts) because i’ll be at work? Before i could just time travel back to the event and get my fill but now i’ll miss out. How is that fair, the fact i cant play the game how i want?
Then the fact that my younger sister wont be able to play on her own town sucks, she’ll probably mess my town up if i allow her to play on it.

Apparently 30% of Switch Lite owners also have a Switch, so this is potentially not a niche issue.

@TAndvig It effects Nintendo because all the special event DLC they're going to come out with will not be worth buying if hackers are giving it away like candy.

Who cares if someone cheats in AC? It’s not like a racing game where everyone else does worse because a cheater is doing better. If they want to ruin the game for themselves, why does everyone else have to be punished to stop it?

Why Nintendo, that's so backwards. To prevent cheating? Who cares? Animal Crossing is not comptetitive. So that other dude online has more flowers on his island than I have. So what?

I don't want to spend 100+ hours in a game, only to lose all save data to some random "fup" just because of Nintendo being backwards. Ugh. Preorder cancelled, will buy when SOME way of secure save-game-backup has been implemented.

@SpaceboyScreams But how can that be an issue with Animal Crossing when that have never been an issue with DLC for other games? Sounds to me people are just making up excuses to defend the devs on this. Sounds more like they are just doing the simplest thing to avoid bleeding a few sales here and there. Instead of being consumer friendly and take the time to find other alternatives to avoid loss of profit.

I get why people are upset but I also don't. Back in the day we had very little means of knowing how or when things would come out. And yet people have great memories of those times and some might not be fans without them. I think it was better in some ways to have less info... anticipating every aspect of a game means you build a concept of your own experience before you even start. It also means you're projecting a huge amount about something that hasn't happened yet. There's a well known bias in psychology where negatives stand out more than positives (a bad day is more bad than a good day is good, especially in memory). I hope people can avoid this here.

Yeah cloud saves would be good but that being enough to make you not get the game?? How statistically likely is it that you would ever need to rely on a cloud save that wasn't about theft or damage that Nintendo would cover? How has cancel(ing preorder) culture come to video games?? I'm only saying I think people will miss it less than they think. At least get the game and resell it if you want, you might miss out otherwise.

@ShadJV Id forgotten id even posted that comment it was so long ago.lol
But still,thanks a ton for your response and description.Similarities and differences.
Obviously since last posting I've looked into it alot more and seeing as I'm still playing Stardew Valley and now My Time at Portia and soon to try that Rune Factory 4 it's clear to me these are the kind of games im now into so I will most likely try Animal Crossing too.
No Cloud Saves do worry me but not enough to not buy the game.It sounds like Nintendo will come up with something,they must know they may lose alot of buyers of they do nothing.

@TAndvig duplicating items, making sure you have the best possible outcome, savegame manipulation, cheating, etc. It will give you an edge above other players in multiplayer. And with a game like Animal Crossing I can see why Nintendo would want to protect against that.

This is why many massive multiplayer games use servers to store user data. But if they did that with Animal Crossing you couldn't play when there is no wifi.

@sanderev the more I am reading about all of this and thinking about it, I agree. I think this is a bit of a damned if they do, damned if they don’t situation for Nintendo. If they left it open to manipulation and cheating then yes, multiplayer could become pretty frustrating, and I think they have gone with the option they think is safest for them.

Is it a choice that’s going to make everybody happy? No. But for me, I am at this stage just looking forward to playing it.

@sanderev But it still doesn't affect my gameplay, think you're missing my point here. If I play Animal Crossing and I don't cheat, having another player cheating isn't going to affect my gameplay/game session. It will of course have an effect on their gameplay, but them cheating isn't going to change anything about my game session. It isn't like a massive multiplayer or a regular multiplayer game, where cheating usually will effect the other players. As in destroying the balance and making pvp fights unfair. Because of how Animal Crossing is played out, a player cheating and gaining an adventage from that won't create a disadvantage for other players (e.g. me or you). You talk about Animal Crossing as it is a competition, but from what I remember playing New Leaf. it isn't competitive, so the disadvantage is non-existent.

@CairiB How does it affect others? It isn't competitive, so how does cheating create a disadvantage for you as a player? Either I'm lacking information and there is a competitive function with these games or people are really grasping for straws here defending the devs.

@sanderev Stardew Valley is a good example, people use mods in that game but them using mods that gives them more items or make things look nicer, doesn't affect my game session. Hence, not a disadvantage therefor it does not affect my gameplay so then how does any of this make it non-consumer friendly for us?

@Wazeddie22 well I feel silly, didn’t realize how old this article even was! But I hope you enjoy it, I’m super excited for the game, I love the series! I’m picky with sim games, mostly because I get stressed with the length of days, but I loved AC because it’s slow and relaxing. I do love Stardew too but the game charmed me so much I didn’t even care about the limited hours in a day. Either way, hope you get many enjoyable hours out of this game! Can’t wait for it!!!

Maybe once they implement this “exclusive version“ of Cloud Save Backups (esque) method in New Horizons, hopefully they’ll implement this version of “Cloud Saves” into Splatoon 2, any Pokémon games, and any other games that don’t have Cloud Saves.

Maybe they’ll eventually implement the “full version” of Cloud Saves in New Horizons, but every time you use Cloud Saves, Mr. Resetti will rant at you about using Cloud Saves, just like he did about resetting the game. Using Cloud Saves is like a “more advanced” method of resetting.

i hope they will add it.
My Gf is playing AC on my switch now but in the future she maybe gets her on switch and she dont want to start all over so i hope it comes