As you may be aware, Nintendo is trying to launch a subscription online service.

This is being handled in the way that someone tries to wake a loved one up by holding a pillow over their face. Poorly.

Highlights include phoning home to play 30 year old games…

…Losing your cloud saves if you let the subscription expire..

&hellip;And this <i>'thing?'</i>

Nintendo has been known for being a thrifty company. But I hold this kind of cheapskatedness akin to going to a discount grocery store, and trying to haggle already discounted and expired ramen down from 30p to 10p.

Yeah, the online thing is definitely a weird offering.. if they expand the range of games you get to the SNES (and single player, as I understand it most of the current NES games are multiplayer focused) I'd be sold on that alone if the price stated the same.


But never mind that, Square are finally back on the Nintendo train properly and are releasing all the Final Fantasy remasters on Switch.
You have no idea how excited I am to get FF 12 and FF 9 (and 10 to a lesser extent) on Switch when they come out.

Whatever else they are making a mess of for once they seem to have nailed third party support.
And with remasters and releases of Wii, GameCube and Wii U games the Switch is starting to look like a best of Nintendo console too, which isn't a bad thing. If they'd just release a proper virtual console with titles from all their consoles it would be their best console ever.

It's disappointing seeing Nintendo going down this path. I think I remember them saying at one point they'd never do DLC for their games, but we see how that turned out.

I'm really not surprised. Most companies now are taking anti-consumer turns, and they know the public won't do anything about it. They want to retain total control over their products and will take any measure to reach that goal.

Also, what's that in the picture?

Considering that when the Wii-U launched, there was nobody on hand at Nintendo able to reference from PSN or XBL, I do expect more boneheaded decisions, yes.

That seems incredibly practical.

The cloud saves thing would not be much of an issue if you actually had the ability to make offline backups like you know..... every other serious gaming platform allows you to.
After all, it's user generated data. But nope! Let's keep the savegames hostage shall we?

As much of a Nintendo fan i have been since the late 80s, i cannot condone what modern Nintendo has been doing.

It's a sad state of affairs.

EDIT: Just wanted to add that the Switch is a fantastic piece of gear. No amount of corporate idiocy will take that away.
It's just that the mistakes will keep adding up and it's sad.

It's about as elegant as the time that the Game Boy Advance series didn't have a proper headphone jack.

If memory serves, that was only the case on the GBA SP. Still stupid ofc.

What is wrong with this exactly? Barring the third of course.

You take up space with your saves that you stop paying for in server fees, and the subscriptions for 30 year old games rest on the fact that you didn't buy an individual license per game, but a subscription to play said games to which if the fee ceases, the games cease to work. Sony does this, has it in practice, but Nintendo gets the flak? I simply don't like the time span of the game usage of 1 week check in, a month would be better suited. You keep them on the Switch locally and reintegrate when Subscriptions resume, it's quoted in the article link:

Q. After my Nintendo Switch Online subscription expires, will my Save Data Cloud files and Nintendo Entertainment System – Nintendo Switch Online save data be erased?

A. Save data stored with Save Data Cloud cannot be kept outside of the duration of your Nintendo Switch Online membership. Nintendo Entertainment System – Nintendo Switch Online also uses the Save Data Cloud, so the same applies. However, if you keep the Nintendo Entertainment System – Nintendo Switch Online save data saved locally on your Nintendo Switch console, then you can use it again if you purchase another membership.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/09/your_nintendo_switch_cloud_save_files_will_be_lost_if_your_online_subscription_expires

• Your common game save is at most, a few megabytes large, not including games like Minecraft. Just for reference, even the most stingy of cloud services gives 10 GB free these days. Heck, buying your own server is cheap too. Even if Nintendo wasn't being a complete pennymiser, why stop the end user from backing up their own saves?

• Yes, Sony does authenticate things, that much is true. However their actual method is logical, and works like every other bill on the planet. The waterworks don't send an inspector weekly to make sure I'm using my water, or to glare at me for keeping water in jugs in case of emergency. And more pointedly, why all this bother over 30 year old games that we've purchased umpteen times?

• In summary, what is wrong is that a company that has been around for over 100 years is looking more like a retirement home than an agile electronics company or even toymaker. You've got to adapt and get with the times, not drag yourself along. If I had the brilliant idea to start making B&W CRTs in this day, I'd probably fold in a week.

[1] Size is irrelevant, you have data on their servers that takes up space, regardless of 1kb-100mb stacked by the number of saves. My save data usage on my Switch:

i) Valkyria Chornicles 4 Demo 122mb

ii) Crash Bandicoot 32.1mb

iii) Dragon Quest Builders 706mb

iv) Mario Kart 141mb

v) Breath of the Wild 64.0mb.

1.065gb not including the tons of other games I have for the system, that I have yet to play or are included.

They want to charge for something that is optional (your saves are also kept locally) that's their call to end the save hosting, just as Domain providers and ISPs do the same thing.

[2] I agree with the weekly thing, it's stupid, Sony however still revokes the PSPlus subscription games once you don't pay (a monthly issue). Time duration is the debate here, not the actual methodology. As to why all that bother over older games? You have played, newer generations might not have, current generations and even older generations might not have.. I want to play Ghosts n Goblins and Megaman, never played any of them. Never played Symphony of the Night and I want to. Yes, some are not Nintendo, still relevant when people desire the same of Nintendo IPs.

[3] Do you hate Nintendo or something? Seems like a bias there. Their fundemental design philosophy has always been that of a Toy Maker (one of the reasons I like them) and they are professed innovators than followers (another reason why I like them).

They have their flaws, but when Nintendo does something others already have implemented in policies way back ever since subscriptions have been a thing, cry and scream, wail and let lose the dogs of horror and dread.

Adapting and getting with the times is poppycock, Fornite is the new craze, watch those with no identity or independence, or spine follow suite.

You completelly missed my point. Allow me to explain. I have no problem with how cloud saves work. Free or otherwise i dont care because i prefer to make my own backups offline. Sony allows you to do that on PS3/4 simply by sticking a USB drive in. It's a bit more convoluted for the Vita but still doable. The point that i was trying to make is that Nintendo does not allow any of that, effectively keeping the savegames hostage on the Switch. The fact that the only method for you to back them up is behind a paywall should raise all sorts of red flags.

I hope that was clear enough.

So when you're saying offline backups, you don't mean a backup from online save which is stored locally offline, you mean backing up saves offline to portable storage devices offline? Yes, Nintendo's decision to not allow backups of saves is stupid to say the least.