Nintendo NA: We are unable to guarantee cloud saves will be retained after canceling

[Otnopolit]

you have no idea how much a echo chamber this thread is or ERA (or any other dedicated forum) for that matter compared to all hte people to uses a console

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Going to definitely agree with the echo chamber comment, we are a small part of the gaming community. But we are noticed, and Nintendo needs to be able to get with the times, because it's very unclear and they need to adopt specific language if they're going to run this service successfully. A specificity they haven't had to deal with when it comes to online before.

 

[Deleted member 32374]

I came into this thread thinking, surely no one will defend this.

But here we are. They should have a grace period at minimum. Or provide a way to store save data to a device of your choosing. This is such an archaic system.

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Nothing surprises me regarding Nintendo being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the modern gaming landscape.

 

[Poised Turtoise]

I too expect the storage rental unit to hold my furniture for the year between when I stop the lease on my apartment, do a working vacation, and return - for free.

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Name one thing this service actually adds of value. Acting like people are expecting the world when they are just expecting basic functionality like cloud saves, voice chat, some replacement for friend codes.....Nintendo needs to enter 2018. Hell, Nintendo needs to enter 2008. People where giving Nintendos bad service a pass because it was free, now it isn't.

 

[Pablo Mesa]

I can't find the answer; Cloud Saves on the family plan isn't something ridiculous like one save per plan right? Each individual on the plan still gets their individual cloud saves on separate Switches?

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family plan is just a way to cheap the fee for families and for a parent to manage by bulk child accounts and parental controls. CS is individuals as far as I know

 

[JayBabay]

What reason would they have to not allow you to dock the switch and attach a USB flash drive to locally back up saves? Is there a serious vulnerability issue? Is that issue unique to Nintendo's platform?

I just want to understand if this is purely about money in the end, to entice players to subscribe even if they don't do much online gaming.

 

[Deleted member 4090]

Really trying to play devil's advocate with this stuff, because a lot of these services are somewhat similar to what other console manufacturers provide, but like...between this, the NES games, extra discounts apparently to come (but let's say we're talking in detail about it anyway)...is $20 really too much for this? Would you ever see yourself not having it or letting it expire?

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Preferably, I would like to be able to wait until I need to use it, and not have it between times I am actively using it. I'm probably done with PS+ forever at this point, and would like to be a bit more conservative with my renewal costs for various services.

 

[Popetita]

There's nothing extreme about my example. People sell and repurchase new systems.

I just did it this past June with a PS4 Pro. My Plus expired a good six months prior, yet I was still able to use the free Plus trial to pull my old cloud saves to download on my new hardware.

That's how it should be for users.

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How many of those saves have you realistically use on the new console?

This is why I don't think it is a big issue unless it is an MMO or something longer than a few hundred hours.

And in most of those the info is kept on your tag not a save.

 

[dat boi]

For an electronic tech company, this is incredibly incompetent in this day and age.

 

[Deleted member 33744]

for the record - I was able to download saves from 2014 this year when I went back to my old psn account, Sony just locks them down but don't actually delete them.

This is just embarrassing on N's part.

 

[Deleted member 3017]

Does the Switch save games both locally and in the cloud when you subscribe to the service?

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Does the Switch save games both locally and in the cloud when you subscribe to the service?

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Yes, but there are no ways of backing up your local saves. The Switch is the only platform on the market with that issue.

 

[FantasticMrFoxdie]

This is some bullshit


give us the option to backup our saves

how hard is that lol

 

[Alfredo]

Holy crap, just let people back up saves offline, Nintendo!!

And it's not like Nintendo will let you use cloud saves on games that actually would be useful to back up. I fully expect the new Animal Crossing not to support cloud saves. Ugh.

 

[Richardi]

for the record - I was able to download saves from 2014 this year when I went back to my old psn account, Sony just locks them down but don't actually delete them.

This is just embarrassing on N's part.

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Right, keep reading the 6 month limit, but I remember unsubscribing from plus and then a year later recuperating Souls Sacrifice vanilla save for the Delta release.

 

[808s & Villainy]

Right, keep reading the 6 month limit, but I remember unsubscribing from plus and then a year later recuperating Souls Sacrifice vanilla save for the Delta release.

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It's possible Nintendo doesn't want to publicly disclose the grace period to prevent people from abusing it with shorter term subscriptions

 

[Deleted member 3017]

Yes, but there are no ways of backing up your local saves. The Switch is the only platform on the market with that issue.

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Yeah, it's bad. It's not as bad as I thought though. If your games were only saved in the cloud during the subscription period, this would be a disaster. As is, it's just really stupid. People should keep voicing their disappointment.

 

[Quad Lasers]

Really trying to play devil's advocate with this stuff, because a lot of these services are somewhat similar to what other console manufacturers provide, but like...between this, the NES games, extra discounts apparently to come (but let's say we're talking in detail about it anyway)...is $20 really too much for this? Would you ever see yourself not having it or letting it expire?

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Life happens. There's numerous reasons where you might find yourself momentarily not paying for a subscription and losing access to your local data. Sudden financial strain, natural disasters, etc.

"It's so cheap, why wouldn't you literally always have it paid for" is not an acceptable response.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Right, keep reading the 6 month limit, but I remember unsubscribing from plus and then a year later recuperating Souls Sacrifice vanilla save for the Delta release.

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The grace period is a minimum guarantee. You will absolutely not lose your data in 6 months. Sony might keep it for longer but they can't guarantee it.

Nintendo can't guarantee anything.

 

[SimpleCRIPPLE]

Its amazing to me that a huge company like Nintendo is still figuring How to Internet.

 

[base_two]

Life happens. There's numerous reasons where you might find yourself momentarily not paying for a subscription and losing access to your local data. Sudden financial strain, natural disasters, etc.

"It's so cheap, why wouldn't you literally always have it paid for" is not an acceptable response.

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EDIT: Misread. But this is a highly unlikely situation. So much that it's not worth considering at $20 or $4 a month. Like suddenly people on ERA are near poverty, living paycheck to paycheck, and can't afford to keep their subscription active if they are interested in this service. Not buying it.

 

[Deleted member 36708]

Wrong thread

 

[AndreGX]

EDIT: Misread. But this is a highly unlikely situation. So much that it's not worth considering at $20 or $4 a month. Like suddenly people on ERA are near poverty, living paycheck to paycheck, and can't afford to keep their subscription active if they are interested in this service. Not buying it.

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It's the unlikely situations when you'd want Cloud Saves the most! Hell, the entire concept is based around unlikely situations, so it's beyond ridiculous that it's not available in the more extreme cases

 

[Deleted member 1849]

EDIT: Misread. But this is a highly unlikely situation. So much that it's not worth considering at $20 or $4 a month. Like suddenly people on ERA are near poverty, living paycheck to paycheck, and can't afford to keep their subscription active if they are interested in this service. Not buying it.

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It's not highly unlikely at all. Especially for a portable.

A lost, stolen, or damaged console and a few months until you decide to buy a new one so you decide not to pay for the service while you can't make use of it.

There you go. There's your common scenario.

And as people have pointed out. The entire purpose of cloud saves is to help in the case of unlikely events.

 

[FantasticMrFoxdie]

Life happens. There's numerous reasons where you might find yourself momentarily not paying for a subscription and losing access to your local data. Sudden financial strain, natural disasters, etc.

"It's so cheap, why wouldn't you literally always have it paid for" is not an acceptable response.

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IIRC Not even anything crazy like that, selling your Switch or deciding you want to upgrade to a new Switch requires you have to have both/two Switch consoles at the same time.

jfc The defense here is just embarrassing

 

[Quad Lasers]

EDIT: Misread. But this is a highly unlikely situation. So much that it's not worth considering at $20 or $4 a month. Like suddenly people on ERA are near poverty, living paycheck to paycheck, and can't afford to keep their subscription active if they are interested in this service. Not buying it.

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This is a forum with thousands of members and even if it wasn't, this is a policy that has the potential to effect millions of people.

Really sit and stew in how trash this post of yours is.

 

[Delusibeta]

I think the large part of the problem is that Nintendo is alone in not committing to holding the save data on their servers when the subscription expires. In comparison, when Sony introduced the equivalent feature back in 2011 (!), they committed to holding saves for a minimum of six months after your PS+ subscription lapses. As far as I can tell, this is still Sony's policy. Microsoft introduced free cloud saves with the Xbox One, with the upload limit being on a per-game basis (in a similar manner to how Steam handles cloud saves), so for 99% of users it's functionally unlimited.

Of course, for all we know Nintendo intends to hold all saves uploaded to their servers indefinitely, or they could wipe the saves the second the subscription lapses. We don't know, and Nintendo hasn't made a commitment.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

How many of those saves have you realistically use on the new console?

This is why I don't think it is a big issue unless it is an MMO or something longer than a few hundred hours.

And in most of those the info is kept on your tag not a save.

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I don't see why it matters?

People are arguing against something that's beneficial to them and others.

How could anyone like the idea of having their cloud saves held hostage? This isn't normal. The more people allow these companies to get away with, the worse it's going to be.

Edit: It's also nice for people that repurchase games, or buy a game that they rented in the past. Just pull your old save off the cloud.

If Nintendo offered a physical method of backing up your saves I could see the cloud thing not being an issue. But they don't.

 

[Pablo Mesa]

This is just embarrassing on N's part.

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can I borrow your time machine, cause you seen to have tested nintendo too even tho is not even out

how hard is that lol

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given all the documentation and flaws in X1. a lot without easily enabling HB and Piracy

 

[Kirbivore]

It's the unlikely situations when you'd want Cloud Saves the most! Hell, the entire concept is based around unlikely situations, so it's beyond ridiculous that it's not available in the more extreme cases

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To add on, this was even explicitly stated in the Direct presentation. When something unexpected happens.

 

[saiko]

I feel that Nintendo went about this the wrong way. They should have tried to one-up the competition and offered cloud saves for free. At only $20 a year, it's not like people are expecting to get much value out of the service. Cloud saves should be a basic feature at this point.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

I think the large part of the problem is that Nintendo is alone in not committing to holding the save data on their servers when the subscription expires. In comparison, when Sony introduced the equivalent feature back in 2011 (!), they committed to holding saves for a minimum of six months after your PS+ subscription lapses. As far as I can tell, this is still Sony's policy. Microsoft introduced free cloud saves with the Xbox One, with the upload limit being on a per-game basis (in a similar manner to how Steam handles cloud saves), so for 99% of users it's functionally unlimited.

Of course, for all we know Nintendo intends to hold all saves uploaded to their servers indefinitely, or they could wipe the saves the second the subscription lapses. We don't know, and Nintendo hasn't made a commitment.

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If Nintendo communicated a minimum grace period, I would probably not be posting in this thread. Between no guarantee from Nintendo NA, and the very clear "no" from Nintendo UK, that's not the case.

As it stands, when it comes to data storage, no guarantee might as well be no storage. It's gambling with your data.

 

[Wil348]

I can accept the Online app and that we probably won't see anything but NES games on the service, but this is so ridiculous and scummy on Nintendo's part. At the very least keep people's saves in the cloud for extended periods after subscriptions lapse.

 

[Platy]

That is some WEIRD wording, nintendo

 

[ghibli99]

This is kinda weird, but I'm assuming if you do resub, you'll sync everything on your Switch to the cloud again. Guess it sucks if your system dies or you lose something during that downtime period.

I also just realized I never did renew my Pokemon Bank sub... guessing that content is toast.

 

[ZugZug123]

I guess I will never take my Switch out of my house and never play online again. Not going to reward willful incompetence. This will also cause me to change back to buying most indies on PC and leave the Switch to Nintendo exclusives to minimize the damage if the system breaks.

 

[Delusibeta]

I can accept the Online app and that we probably won't see anything but NES games on the service, but this is so ridiculous and scummy on Nintendo's part. At the very least keep people's saves in the cloud for extended periods after subscriptions lapse.

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It's annoying, because it's a solved problem: AFAIK, both consoles time-stamp the downloads, and refuse to load them if you attempt to launch them while your subscription expired.

Of course, they do have to check-in again after you renew the relevant subscription, but worst case scenario that's a monthly online check-in.

 

[delete12345]

it's not available in the more extreme cases

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May I ask what extreme cases that would be?

 

[Auros01]

I get that other companies have done it differently but I'm not sure why this is surprising. You stop paying for the service, you lose the benefits of the service.

I'm not saying I like it but I'm not surprised.

 

[Popetita]

I don't see why it matters?

People are arguing against something that's beneficial to them and others.

How could anyone like the idea of having their cloud saves held hostage? This isn't normal. The more people allow these companies to get away with, the worse it's going to be.

Edit: It's also nice for people that repurchase games, or buy a game that they rented in the past. Just pull your old save off the cloud.

If Nintendo offered a physical method of backing up your saves I could see the cloud thing not being an issue. But they don't.

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It matters because people are being a bit hyperbolic about a QoL feature they may not use that much.

Also, the service is 1/3 of what other services, not PC, are asking the players to pay.

The part I bolded sounds especially hyperbolic to me. No one is holding anything hostage, they are not getting away with screwing you. They are not in some room laughing at how they got you. It might not be ideal but it also is not the worst thing ever.

I know it is a nice feature, but it not being exactly what you want is more of an inconvenience than an attack by Nintendo to the consumer.

You are welcome to not support it and vote with your wallet.

 

[Hassel]

Psn also does not keep your saves for an extended period if you unsubscribe. They use 6 months as a threshold.

How is this different from psn?

 

[delete12345]

Psn also does not keep your saves for an extended period if you unsubscribe. They use 6 months as a threshold.

How is this different from psn?

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We just don't know how exactly long the duration of "extended periods of time" refers to. Being vague about a feature induces bad impressions.

 

[Christo750]

Life happens. There's numerous reasons where you might find yourself momentarily not paying for a subscription and losing access to your local data. Sudden financial strain, natural disasters, etc.

"It's so cheap, why wouldn't you literally always have it paid for" is not an acceptable response.

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I totally get financial strain, and I'm not discounting that problem at all. But the vast majority of people complaining about it here are going to be invested in this ecosystem, right?

$20 per year equates to less than $2 a month. And let's say you go on a family plan with even ONE other person. $17.50 per year, is $1.45 per month.

My point is not just "it's so cheap", my point is that it's ASTOUNDINGLY cheap. Like, we're complaining about crumbs.

If you really don't want to buy it, fine. But I don't see the argument that it's fucking bullshit just because it's a service that costs money (like it literally is on every other console).

 

[Deleted member 5764]

I feel that Nintendo went about this the wrong way. They should have tried to one-up the competition and offered cloud saves for free. At only $20 a year, it's not like people are expecting to get much value out of the service. Cloud saves should be a basic feature at this point.

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Xbox already offers free cloud saving with automatic sync across devices. No real way to "one up" that. This definitely falls closer to Sony's offering while lacking the 6-month guarantee. At the end of the day, I'm sure some crazy folks will purposefully test the limits of saved data retention if Nintendo is unwilling to disclose how long they'll keep the data for.

 

[Aokiji]

im failing to understand the logic that goes on in nintendo board rooms

 

[Deleted member 4518]

Makes sense, it's part of the service - so if you cancel then it's gone. I assume they have some data retention but I doubt it's terribly long.

It'd be nice if they didn't do this, but you pay for cloud saves. So, if you stop paying - you lose access to it.

 

[Aokiji]

Life happens. There's numerous reasons where you might find yourself momentarily not paying for a subscription and losing access to your local data. Sudden financial strain, natural disasters, etc.

"It's so cheap, why wouldn't you literally always have it paid for" is not an acceptable response.

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youre talking to the same people who said "always online draconian systems arent that bad because when isnt your box connected to the internet"

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Psn also does not keep your saves for an extended period if you unsubscribe. They use 6 months as a threshold.

How is this different from psn?

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see:

The grace period is a minimum guarantee. You will absolutely not lose your data in 6 months. Sony might keep it for longer but they can't guarantee it.

Nintendo can't guarantee anything.

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Nintendo UK also don't say anything about an extended period of time, so it could be 0 days for all we know. When it comes to data, no guarantee is basically as good as nothing. It's a complete gamble.

Sony also allow you to make your own backups through USB. Nintendo do not, so you are relying on their cloud service.

 

[PCPace]

Holy crap, just let people back up saves offline, Nintendo!!

And it's not like Nintendo will let you use cloud saves on games that actually would be useful to back up. I fully expect the new Animal Crossing not to support cloud saves. Ugh.

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Nah I bet Animal Crossing will have cloud saves but be able to detect if you try to dupe them and Mr Resetti will be PISSED OFF

 

[AndreGX]

May I ask what extreme cases that would be?

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Switch breaks, is stolen, or lost shortly after reporting your credit card is lost, stolen or cancelled for whatever reason.

 

[Pablo Mesa]

I feel that Nintendo went about this the wrong way. They should have tried to one-up the competition and offered cloud saves for free. At only $20 a year, it's not like people are expecting to get much value out of the service. Cloud saves should be a basic feature at this point.

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it can be free and people will still complain cause its not whatever head canon they believe the service shall be.
people think Nintendo is some sort of either drooling moron or some sort of high intellectual super villain. they simple are not tech conglomerates like S and M, they are were they are cause they make good games.

yes in paper they could hire someone else to run the online for em and carbon copy PS+ or XBL but Nintendo is someone really hands on approach to thing they will rather learn thing from zero emselves.

so it could be 0 days for all we know

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or a 100 for all we know, this whole thread runs on people just deciding to run with the worst case scenario as a fact for whatever reason they want it to be