Nintendo Switch Online Service Debuts This Month With A Big Cloud Save Perk

by Brandon Hill — Friday, September 07, 2018, 10:42 AM EDT

The Nintendo Switch launched to much fanfare early last year and quickly became Nintendo's biggest hit since the original Wii. However, the hybrid console was not without its faults. For one, there was no way to transfer save games from console to console, which could be a major problem if you had to send your console off for repair.

Luckily, Nintendo Switch Online is set to launch this month and will bring with it cloud save functionality. As we were lead to believe by Nintendo, the feature would only be available in "supported" games. However, we're learning from a Nintendo Life trusted source that it won't just be select group of first-party games that will have immediate support for cloud saves -- all existing games will support the feature.

"All existing games will default to “enabled”. I specifically asked Nintendo about that and had that response. If a dev/pub wants an existing game to not support it, they have to ask," says the source. "When submitting a game, you are encouraged to enable cloud save. You have to have a good reason to not support it."

That's definitely good news for what should have been a feature included with the Switch at launch.

According to the Japanese gaming giant, Nintendo Switch Online will launch in the latter half of September. It will be priced at $19.99 per year, which is a relative bargain compared to online services from Sony and Microsoft. In addition, one- and three-month subscriptions will cost $3.99 and $7.99 respectively.

Besides the cloud saves and online play for select titles, you will also have access to a library of retro-tactic NES games via the online service. At launch, roughly 20 games will be available including Super Mario Bros. 3 and Dr. Mario (among others).

Nintendo Switch Online Service Debuts This Month With A Big Cloud Save Perk

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