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Nintendo Switch Cloud Save Data Disappears If You Cancel Subscription (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the public-service-announcement dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Nintendo Switch game save data stored in the cloud is only available "as long as you have an active Nintendo Switch Online membership." If you eventually cancel the $20/year subscription, Nintendo is "unable to guarantee that cloud save data will be retained after an extended period of time from when your membership is ended." That wrinkle in Nintendo's plan was not included in the details of yesterday's Nintendo Direct presentation, but it can be found digging through the FAQs and customer support pages on Nintendo's website this morning. On the plus side, Nintendo clarified that you will be able to transfer cloud-based saves between Switch systems just by signing in with your Nintendo account on as many consoles as you want. But Nintendo also said it will continue not allowing local backups of save data to an SD card or other outside storage. UPDATE: It's worth noting that cloud saves on PlayStation systems remain accessible for six months after you cancel a paid PlayStation Plus account, while cloud saves on Xbox Live are offered for free in perpetuity.

36 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah, and? by Desler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why would any expect Nintendo (or any company) to continue to store your data when you stopped paying for the service?

    1. Re:Yeah, and? by sanf780 · · Score: 1

      The question I have is: how about the competition? Does Sony or Microsoft keep your cloud saves (that you need to pay for)? If they are not, then this article is FUD.

    2. Re: Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There isnâ(TM)t an expectation that they would. The problem is blocking you from storing it locally on an SD card. Thatâ(TM)s just a greedy prick move.

    3. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The rub here is that Nintendo disallows local storage, something that Sony and Microsoft both allow. This changes cloud storage from what it should be used for, i.e. one of multiple backup options that is handy when it is available, into "the basket in which all my eggs are stored." And you're renting the basket.

    4. Re:Yeah, and? by StormReaver · · Score: 2

      If they are not, then this article is FUD.

      No it's not. Just because all the bad actors act the same doesn't make the bad behavior any better. They all still suck.

      I still have saved games from 15 years ago on my hard drive, and sometimes I still play those old games from time to time. And I don't have to pay someone in perpetuity for them. This article is yet another reminder of who owns your data when you store them on someone else's machine.

    5. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In college, I played EverQuest. Get off my lawn sonny, it was our World of Warcraft, and we walked uphill both ways in the snow to play it, and we liked it!

      Anyway.. back to my point. In college, I played EverQuest for a little while, then stopped because I actually wanted to pass my classes.

      Like any MMO, the character details were saved on Sony's servers.

      Almost a decade later, I got an e-mail from Sony saying that my old EverQuest account and characters were available if I wanted to return to Norrath.

      Nintendo are FOOLS to delete that data.
      If you put a player back to square zero, they have lots of equal choices of where to start from scratch.
      Keeping the data means the player will be comparing their time/money investment in your service, to square zero on other services.

    6. Re:Yeah, and? by Ormy · · Score: 1

      Rare insightful AC. Mod up.

    7. Re:Yeah, and? by Saffaya · · Score: 1

      I think it is game dependent.
      For example, I have cloud saves of Dragon's Crown from my PS Vita. Used the PSN cloud to transfer to another Vita several years after. And never payed a dime to Sony as I never had a network subscription.
      (In addition to the local saves copied onto my PC's hard disk)

       

    8. Re:Yeah, and? by Galactic+Dominator · · Score: 1

      Why would Nintendo expect customers to pay for cloud storage when it is not transferable to local?

      Seems like there's dummies enough to go around.

      --
      brandelf -t FreeBSD /brain
    9. Re:Yeah, and? by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      It seems Nintendo didn't say they would delete the data, merely that there was no guarantee they wouldn't. The difference between those two clauses is huge.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    10. Re:Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This changes cloud storage from what it should be used for, i.e. one of multiple backup options that is handy when it is available, into "the basket in which all my eggs are stored." And you're renting the basket.

      Now that is just not true. It is a second basket (the first being the console itself).

      Don't get me wrong, its still a shitty arrangement. But no need to make up lies when the truth is damning all on its own.

    11. Re: Yeah, and? by JeremyEthridge7 · · Score: 1

      The reason they disallow saved on as cards is because they is how you can install homebrew on the Wii and Wii u. Thy want to keep switch locked as long as possible.

    12. Re: Yeah, and? by rea1l1 · · Score: 1

      Once again producers cripple the product for their entire paying customer base in order to fight off copyright infr8ngers that never would've bought the product in the first place. I really expected better from Nintendo.

    13. Re:Yeah, and? by Luthair · · Score: 1

      Interestingly Microsoft only does this on the Xbox One, I pulled out my 360 recently thinking I could backup the saved games on the console and despite updates you cannot push them w/o Gold .

    14. Re:Yeah, and? by Yaztromo · · Score: 1

      The question I have is: how about the competition? Does Sony or Microsoft keep your cloud saves (that you need to pay for)? If they are not, then this article is FUD.

      As the update mentions, Sony keeps them for 6 months, Microsoft apparently keeps them forever.

      But more important is the fact that Nintendo doesn't allow you to backup your saves to local storage. The PlayStation 4 at the very least does -- you can take saves from local storage and/or the cloud, and write them to any suitably formatted USB device (and back to a PS4, naturally). So with Nintendo, you're stuck either using their service, or losing your saves altogether.

      Yaz

    15. Re: Yeah, and? by CoolDiscoRex · · Score: 1

      Yeah fine, can't expect it, but, why can't you make a local backup of that data? I don't think it would be an issue if people could store it themselves. The inability to do so is what makes it nefarious. Assuming I'm reading the policy correctly. I sure hope I'm not.

    16. Re:Yeah, and? by Anubis+IV · · Score: 1

      Why would any expect Nintendo (or any company) to continue to store your data when you stopped paying for the service?

      Because other popular services, such as Steam and GOG, already do this for us for free? GOG Galaxy supports cloud saves for literally every single game in their entire library. For Steam, developers have to explicitly add support for cloud saves. In either case, however, the user never pays a cent beyond the original purchase price for the game, and the saves are kept in perpetuity, so far as I know.

      The fact that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo haven't yet baked the cost of storing cloud saves into the cost of the hardware or software is something that I hope they'll rethink with the next generation. It's 2018 and storage is cheap. Being stingy about keeping cloud saves at this point comes across as arbitrary penny-pinching that degrades the user experience significantly.

    17. Re:Yeah, and? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      The rub here is that Nintendo disallows local storage

      Not quite. Nintendo disallows *external* or *removable* storage. Cloud save is only a backup of the saves on the device. Once you let your subscription lapse you will still have all your save games.

      Just don't send your Switch in for repair. This is actually the same as it has been since the original Wii with saves tied to the device.

    18. Re:Yeah, and? by Agripa · · Score: 1

      Why would any expect Nintendo (or any company) to continue to store your data when you stopped paying for the service?

      Why would Nintendo (or any company) expect me to resubscribe after they deleted my data?

    19. Re:Yeah, and? by Ormy · · Score: 1

      Most of YOUR comments might be insightful (but because you posted AC I have no idea which future posts belong to you), but looking at _all_ AC comments, the vast majority of them are trash by trolls. A significant proportion are just apk and his impersonators trolling each other. Another significant fraction are trump-related (when the submission is not even political), and most of the rest are random racist outburts.

  2. So in other words.. by CptLoRes · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They are holding your save data hostage for money.

    1. Re:So in other words.. by Christopher+Fritz · · Score: 1

      Not quite. You still have your save data on your Switch, completely accessible offline. Once you play your games after your online subscription expires, the online copies will be outdated anyways.

      And if you don't pay for online long enough, then they aren't holding onto a copy of your save data any longer, so it's not held hostage for money for very long.

      I do wonder how long it takes before they delete saves. Are we talking two weeks, or six months?

      Would be nice to have an offline backup to SD card option.

    2. Re: So in other words.. by CoolDiscoRex · · Score: 1
      Smart. It will keep people paying. Good business practice. Oh you may not think so, but nobody cares.

      Yeah, they spend millions upon millions of dollars for PR and marketing because nobodofy cares what you think. Companies fire employees at the mere suggestion that they may have masturbated while thinking of a woman, and they cowtow to the Twitter outrage machine cause they is so swaggeringly cool that they don't care what anybody thinks. Awwww yeah, baby, shit , motherfuckers better recognize, fool, Nintendo don't take no shit from nobody ya heard? They do what they want and man my balls are so big right now I'm going to go get my Anonymous Coward on and tell people how it is yeah yeah! Fuck you people and uour opinion, nobody cares!

      Oh man I so did it! I so told them what was up. I wish my girl could have seen me. Fuck it, I'm takin the laptop to Wendy's so she can see.

      A pimp gotta do what a pimp gotta do.

  3. Cloud for standby/backup only! by sydbarrett74 · · Score: 1

    Memorise that mantra. Cloud infrastructure should never be used as a first resort. The savings are illusory.

    --
    'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
    1. Re:Cloud for standby/backup only! by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      "Cloud" has so many meanings that it's not clear which one you are talking about.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  4. Expectation to NOT delete data? by DogDude · · Score: 1

    I'm getting the idea that the author of this little article has been brainwashed into the idea that companies are *supposed* to save your data, after you ask them to delete it. That's pretty sad.

    Delete my account, delete my data, please. That's what's supposed to happen in the first place.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  5. There is one - PS4 Plus does NOT delete by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Why would any expect Nintendo (or any company) to continue to store your data

    Because it's a BACKUP SERVICE. And the way to really make money is to make people pay for retrieval, and to actually have the backups...

    I have to say I am *really* happy with Sony precisely because they did this. I had a PS Plus subscription I let lapse accidentally as the CC I didn't realize I had been using had the number changed. So I'm 80+ hours into Horizon Zero dawn when a system update totally borks the drive, non-recoverable, full reset only option. I had been lax with the direct backups so it didn't even have the game on it, so I went to PS Plus - and found the account expired! But out of desperation I re-signed up and all of my stored saves were there - I was very lucky and ended up just losing a few days of play.

    Now maybe after a year or something, sure, delete the data. But there should be a decent amount of time where people who just made dumb mistakes with auto-pay can restore what they have, and the amount of goodwill a company earns from something like that is incalculable (for some odd reason mentally I give Sony more credit for keeping my saves than having an update fry the filesystem in the first place).

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:There is one - PS4 Plus does NOT delete by shess · · Score: 1

      Why would any expect Nintendo (or any company) to continue to store your data

      Because it's a BACKUP SERVICE. And the way to really make money is to make people pay for retrieval, and to actually have the backups...

      I have to say I am *really* happy with Sony precisely because they did this. I had a PS Plus subscription I let lapse accidentally as the CC I didn't realize I had been using had the number changed.

      Ha! I had to resort to purchasing prepaid cards from the local supermarket to fund my Playstation account, because they couldn't charge my cards or PayPal. Customer service wanted to know if I was sure I had entered my credit-card information correctly (sure thing, dumbass, I've never used a credit card before, thanks for the tip!). So I think this is a mixed bag, they might intend to do one thing, but then in technical terms they might do an entirely not-what-you-wanted thing.

      Now maybe after a year or something, sure, delete the data. But there should be a decent amount of time where people who just made dumb mistakes with auto-pay can restore what they have, and the amount of goodwill a company earns from something like that is incalculable (for some odd reason mentally I give Sony more credit for keeping my saves than having an update fry the filesystem in the first place).

      We're talking metadata, here. They could save all the data for all the people for all time and it probably won't add up to a terabyte of data. The biggest reason to delete old data is simply book-keeping - if someone dials back in after ten years unpaid, it's not a question of whether you can still restore their data, it's a question of whether you even want to deal with them, because the upside is really limited.

      Certainly not a week or two weeks, I've been on camping trips longer than that. I'd say a year is a minimum, but honestly I'd go with 18 months or even two years. Why? Why not.

      There's also a super-crazy notion ... maybe just keep the damned things as long as you can successfully connect and use the system they were saved from. That way you don't have to make multiple subtle support decisions.

  6. No it is not by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    I can verify that after I restored a lapsed PS Plus subscription, I still had all my save data.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  7. No local save, no thanks by fox171171 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I find the thing people are ignoring, and yet is the most important thing, is:

    But Nintendo also said it will continue not allowing local backups of save data to an SD card or other outside storage.

    I see no reason to ever own such a device. After hearing that, I wouldn't use a Nintendo Switch if someone gave me one.

    1. Re:No local save, no thanks by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      There IS local save. There is no backup of local saves other than to the cloud. This is also been the case for 12 years now. People losing save data when sending their Wiis into repair has been common for a long time.

      After hearing that, I wouldn't use a Nintendo Switch if someone gave me one.

      That's a lot of talk right there. I'm going to call you out for virtue signalling.

    2. Re:No local save, no thanks by fox171171 · · Score: 1

      There IS local save. There is no backup of local saves other than to the cloud. This is also been the case for 12 years now. People losing save data when sending their Wiis into repair has been common for a long time.

      After hearing that, I wouldn't use a Nintendo Switch if someone gave me one.

      That's a lot of talk right there. I'm going to call you out for virtue signalling.

      I misunderstood, thinking there was no local save options at all. I most certainly would not pay a subscription to save games. Not allowing local backup sucks, but is not as bad as I had interpreted.

    3. Re:No local save, no thanks by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I most certainly would not pay a subscription to save games.

      Agreed, that opinion I would completely stand behind.

  8. Re:Remember to boycott Smash Brothers by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

    Smash isn't the sort of game I would ever want to play in the first place. I am holding on and waiting for the new Animal Crossing to come out on Switch.

  9. This reads morelike a CYA by 91degrees · · Score: 1

    Nintendo obviously aren't willing to hold on to data for longer than it remains profitable. If someone decides to take a break for a few years then it may make sense to delete all information about them. At the very least, Nintendo wants to make sure it has this option.

    Cost of storage and the bad PR means they probably won't. I feel those who do lose their data are in first world problems territory though.

  10. Nintendo are notoriously backwards with this stuff by AbRASiON · · Score: 1

    They're utterly terrible. What keeps them going is really well polished and fun games that appeal to kids and family.

    The switch is apparently a pretty great indie console and transcends the home / portable functionality really well but by god their online services have always been incredibly mind blowingly backwards. The voice chat I believe requires the use of a cell phone or some incredibly complicated cabling mess for example.

    Never every buy a Nintendo console, with the expectation of even 1/3 of the features of the other 2.

    Worst part (like many modern, locked down devices [Apple!]) is that the potential of the device is wasted, due to poor restrictions. It has a display, speakers, wifi, inputs, storage etc - but how many of the great things possible are allowed?
    Frustrating to enounter arbitrary limitations, something Nintendo excel at.