Yesterday, Nintendo announced that the Switch will be getting cloud-save backups in September. That means you have four months to drop your Switch into a lake, or let your dog chew it up, or accidentally back over it with your car.
A dramatic reenactment of one of the many ways your Switch could die before September.
Since the Switch came out in March of 2017, it has been impossible to back up your saved games.
That means that, should you spill coffee onto your Switch while it sits in its dock, you could lose the 180 hours you’ve sunk into The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Should it fall out of your backpack while transferring flights, it will likely take with it your 60 hours of progress in Splatoon 2. Should it take a tumble into the bus aisle during your commute, you’ll probably lose all your progress in Skyrim and Steamworld Dig 2.
Those risks are as present today as they were yesterday, before Nintendo’s announcement. Happily, though, this fraught period of nervous hardware preservation now has an expiration date!
We can relax knowing that, come September, those willing to pay $29.95 per year for Nintendo’s online service will be able to access cloud-save backups. A year and a half after it came out, the Switch will get a basic-arse feature that you would think a wildly successful console would have had ready to go at or at least near launch.
Until then, however, we must be even more vigilant. Safety is in sight, and a failure at this point would be all the more heartbreaking. The only thing worse than losing all your Switch saves in a freak jet skiing accident would be losing all your Switch saves in a freak jet skiing accident in late August, mere days before Nintendo turns on cloud-saves.
After September, dropping your Switch into the sink will result only in you losing an expensive piece of gaming hardware, rather than an expensive piece of gaming hardware and hundreds of hours of video game progress. So if you’re going to fuck up royally and lose your entire Stardew Valley farm, you’d better do it soon.
Your Switch is now the sidekick in a buddy cop movie who’s on his last day before retirement. It’s the daring cat burglar who decides to pull one last job so she’ll be set for life. It’s sitting there, counting the hours, daydreaming about retiring on a tropical island and wondering how far it can stretch its pension. Just four months, and you’re home free. Tick tock.
Comments
11 responses to “You Now Have Four Months To Lose All Your Switch Saves In A Freak Accident”
Doesnt Xbox have cloud saves for Xbox Live silver out the box?
I just find the picture really funny because it implies there was a tragic incident involving a single green plastic cup.
Also because the Switch’s screen is plastic and wont crack like that either.
They got into a fight and the green cup won.
Green cup is OP. Needs a nerf.
What a fucking stupid article. You can do better, Kirk.
Could say the same about your comment.
OK, OK, I withdraw that. It was harsh of me.
Pretty sure there’s work being done on usb saves or something if you can manage to get homebrew running. Since apparently Nintendo have to make sure no one hacks their system.
Son, it’d be a shame, a real shame, to lose all ya game saves. ‘Specially when we’s providing a service, yeah, a service, that can helps ya with these … unfortunate accidents. We is the only game in town, so you ain’t got much of a choice.
As long as we’re happy to pay for the privilege, of course.
Not impressed that an SD card option doesn’t exist as an alternative.
Given the exploits that are coming fast for the Switch, why would you want to lose or break it?
What a disgusting article. Zero mention of consumer rights, zero mention of the ripoff scam that it is, and zero mentions this is anticonsumer illegal in many countries including here in Australia.
I’ve already written to the ACCC complaining of this, and yet Kirk Hamilton wants to only make jokes. We know he’s a bigger joke. And so is the games media.
60 hours of Splatoon 2?!
Filthy casual.