Data Backup Digest

Nintendo have never been the most modern when it comes to their services. They might produce some of the greatest games, and take some interesting approaches with their consoles, but their approach to things like online play pales in comparison to their competitors.

The Nintendo Switch launched over eight months ago without the ability for players to backup their save data. It’s something the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One offer – and rightly so, since it’s now considered a standard feature for consoles.

Speaking to Mashable back in June, Reggie Fis-Aime, Nintendo president, skirted around the issue of backing up saves. Though he said he understood the concern about losing hours of save data, especially sprawling games like Zelda: Breath of the Wild, he said that Nintendo are still trying to figure out how to implement the system.

When pushed, Fis-Aime went on to say that it’s about “how we do this in a way that doesn’t lend itself to piracy or systems or our core software infrastructure that can be modded or hacked.”

Fair enough that Nintendo will want to create safeguards around this system, but why wasn’t it ready for launch? And why are consumers still waiting for it now? This is a feature that should be standard. If someone’s Switch breaks, they lose all their save data. That’s not right.

The thing is, the Switch has already been hacked. Those hackers have found a way to run unsigned code on the system, which will eventually lead to piracy. That shouldn’t be condoned, but it’s likely that it won’t take long to develop a save manager for those running a hacked console. It’s what happened with Nintendo’s portable console, the 3DS.

Consumers are now getting annoyed at Nintendo’s lack of support. Many online communities continue to vent that their console is missing the ability to backup their data. Some people push for the Switch to keep getting hacked, since firmware updates from Nintendo will try to protect against it, while others are just concerned for the state of their save games.

The fact is that hackers have made good progress without impacting the Switch’s ability to backup files. Nintendo say they want to get this feature right because their concerned about hackers; but it seems the lack of this feature is what is driving many people to look into hacking their systems.

“As soon as a hack is publicly available with save backup features, I'm going to do it,” wrote one outraged user on reddit. “They've left me with no choice at this point. Nintendo, as always, is one of the most tone-deaf companies in the gaming industry.”

“The Switch needs to be hacked ASAP. I would keep my Switch stock if they had cloud saves, but the fact that I leave it in my house all the time solely because I'm afraid of it getting lost, stolen, or broken is unacceptable.”

It’s clear that Nintendo need to wake up and enter the modern world when it comes to their console’s offerings. Here’s hoping that save game management is on the cards in the immediate future.