Some Nintendo Switch games won't work with the upcoming cloud save feature

Nintendo is launching an online subscription service for the Switch later this month, which includes access to multiplayer capabilities, classic NES titles of years gone by, and cloud backups for game data – but apparently that last feature won't work on all your games.

Game Informer did some digging on the Nintendo website and found a "this game does not support Save Data Cloud backup" message on some titles, including Pokémon Let's Go, FIFA 19, Splatoon 2 and Dark Souls Remastered. Nintendo has since confirmed to Game Informer that cloud saves won't work across the board.

Being able to save data online has been something Nintendo Switch users have been eagerly anticipating ever since the console went on sale – without it, any game progress will be gone forever if your console gets lost, stolen or broken.

Ensuring fair play

In a statement given to Game Informer, Nintendo said "the vast majority" of games would support cloud backup, but that it will be disabled for some titles in order to "ensure fair play" and make sure multiplayer games all used a level playing field.

"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," Nintendo says. That would then "unfairly affect online multiplayer rankings", according to the company.

Switch gamers obviously won't be best pleased that cloud saves won't work on all their titles – especially since this is going to be a paid-for add-on – but it doesn't look like Nintendo is going to budge. In a few days, we should get all the official details.