Many features have been used as selling points for Nintendo’s Switch Online service. From being able to play updated NES games with added online support on the Switch to using an application on your smartphone to enhance your gaming experience, one of the biggest points made by the company was the cloud saves. Nintendo has explained that they would delve more in-depth with details about their online service this month, leading many to make the safe assumption that on the now-delayed Nintendo Direct, they were likely going to touch on the subject and give it a formal release date. However, the delay has caused multiple issues on the Nintendo website as much information has gone online ahead of the formal announcements by the company.
One of these pieces of information released prematurely has caused quite a stir online, specifically small details added on the pages for Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu!, Splatoon 2, and other games. At the bottom of the page there is small message indicating “This game does not support Save Data Cloud backup”. Nintendo has since made an official statement in regards as to why these games do not support cloud saves and responded to a request for comment made by Game Informer.
“The vast majority of Nintendo Switch games will support Save Data Cloud backup. However, in certain games this feature would make it possible to, for example, regain items that had been traded to other players, or revert to a higher online multiplayer ranking that had been lost. To ensure fair play, Save Data Cloud backup may not be enabled for such games. To ensure that Save Data Cloud backups cannot be used to unfairly affect online multiplayer rankings, the feature will not be enabled in Splatoon 2.”
Many of the other games affected by this are third-party and have cloud save support on other systems. It is still unclear at the time of writing as to when the Nintendo Direct will be rescheduled and if Nintendo will touch upon many questions being asked about their online service as a whole.