Mashable was able to speak with Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime at this year’s E3. At the show, Reggie was pressed further about the lack of save management on Switch. One of the things brought up is how it’s crucial Nintendo avoids piracy on the system as well as modding and hacking.

Read up on what Reggie had to say below. You can find Mashable’s original piece here as well.

On whether the lack of file management on Switch is due to piracy concerns…

Our focus in launching Nintendo Switch was to make it a stellar game-playing device. In driving that focus there were elements that we knew needed to come later. Like Nintendo Switch Online. Like other services — the Netflix and Amazon Primes of the world. With that as background, we are keenly aware of all of the things that consumers are asking for.

For us, it really is about thinking through how to do this in a way that makes good business sense but also is something that the consumer is really going to be excited about. We’re aware of requests around cloud saves or file management, we’re certainly aware of all the requests for legacy content, we’re aware of consumers asking for ways to have multiple devices linked to one particular account, we’re aware of all of those. What we’re trying to do is deliver positive steps on all of these areas but in a way that is prioritized and makes sense for us.

On concerns about Switch breaking and losing progress in Zelda…

It is well understood. For a person who has 100 shrines, I understand the concern about losing all your data. For us it’s all about, OK, how can we do this in a way that makes sense for the consumer, that makes sense for us, that’s what we’re working for.

On whether it’s a question of how functionally it’s going to work…

It’s everything from not only how is it going to work but it’s also 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. Those are all of the things that we need to think about from a business standpoint.

On whether it’s a matter of safeguarding around these features…

We need to create them, we need to safeguard them, we need to deliver them to the consumer the way that makes sense.

On where save file management and the Virtual Console fit on the list of priorities…

Certainly the virtual console aspect is going to be part of what we do in terms of making some legacy content available with the Nintendo Switch Online. In terms of the file management, all I can say is stay tuned.

Source

Why don't they just do cloud saves? That way we don't need to worry about corrupted saves from SD cards exploiting the system

All he should say is "I think the sales indicate that the consumer base doesn't really care" and then drop the mic.

Yeah, one thing I really like about the Xbox One is the automatic storing of cloud saves. It saved my uncle when his Xbox One broke and he had to get a new one. It'd be cool if Nintendo did that, too.

Cloud is the main reason I subscribe to PS+. Paranoid about losing saves. It's saved me when I lost everything in Ninja Gaiden Sigma. I have so much on my Wii U that it's going to be a huge bummer one day when that is lost.

I mean this is just seriously such a non problem. The percentage of people who are suddenly going to have their Switch explode and lose their saves is just marginal. It happened to people for decades at times with memory cards, and people survived.

Gamers seem to need their hands held. Sure, it would suck if you sunk 100 hours into a game and lost it, but let's be frank- once most players invest massive amounts of time into a game and beat it... they don't go back to it.

for most people this will never be a problem and they will never lose their saves as long as the saves are on the harddrive of the system 

No save management at launch because of piracy is bullshit.
Implementing it with cloud isn't magic bullet, though, thinghs can go horribly wrong anyway. I stopped playing GT Racing 2 after reinstalling it from scratch hoping to solve some persistent bugs, I had done a cloud save before uninstalling, but when I reinstalled and I restored from the cloud save, it just restored my single player progresses and lost six months of both multiplayer and team progresses.


tl;dr

Save=piracy is bullshit.
Teh cloud doesn't grant a smoothly working solution by itself, rather it adds another software engineering challenge on top of the existing ones, if the need for a proprietary solution prevents from using standard and much longer tested ones.

They should have a cloud backup system in place for people that pay for their nitnendo online.

*edit: Sony got alot of call outs for its BS reasons for not doing crossplay. I think Reggies answears to save management is also BS.

Sales only indicate that purchases like the features of the system. You think that means its perfect?

Your comment makes no sense. People get their switch stolen, damaged or lost, not having cloud save in 2017 is unnaceptable. Even on the ps1 era, you could make backup saves on another memory card.

It is not ok, to have no system in place for backups of saves.