A lot of news following the last second delay of yesterday’s Nintendo Direct has been seeping through the confined cracks of the Japanese publisher, and one major announcement that was anticipated is cloud saves for games on their platform.
The same day as the Direct was set, a game in Japan titled Hakuoki Shinkai: Fuukaden listed that the game supported cloud saves for the approaching Online Service. User @MIN428 posted the back of the game’s case on Twitter, in one respected section for the Online Service, the text reads “Compatible with Save Data Cloud Backup of Nintendo Switch Online”.
薄桜鬼買ってきたんだが、気になる表記が。『｢NintendoSwitchOnline｣の｢セーブデータお預かり｣に対応しています。』か… pic.twitter.com/RzeQxqZIpt
— みのり (@MIN428) September 6, 2018
This leads to the fact that upcoming games would list on their cases or in the description online that if the games will or will not support cloud-based saving. Followed up by Nintendolife, the outlet spoke with an anonymous developer confirming that they are given the choice whether or not the game decides to support the online feature.
Accepting to support the saving option will add another stage when developing the game. But will be handled by Nintendo primarily and wouldn’t interfere with pushing back the date for a game if it already has an established time frame. For older games a patch will need to be required if they agree to activating the feature.
It’s unsure why developers might decide not to allow cloud support for their titles as it primarily benefits the consumer and is handled by Nintendo mainly. As of right now there’s no official date for when we will see the debut of the Online Service, but expect to see its launch following the upcoming rescheduled Direct soon.
