A Switch Design Flaw Allows No Backups, and Nintendo Doesn't Care If your console breaks, all the work you put into those games is gone for good.

Cloud saves are a beautiful thing. If your PC or console dies, your game progress doesn't die with it. Unless of course, you have a Nintendo Switch. then you're screwed.

The Switch is designed where everything is kept on the unit's internal hard drive. No progress or information can be saved externally, including to a microSD card. This has prompted fans to appeal to Nintendo for some sort of fix, given that all the hours spent on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild can instantly be lost through a fluke impact with the ground or some other unforgiving surface.

Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said the company is aware of the issue. "I can’t say there’s a solution coming, but we do hear the message," he told Kotaku at E3, before changing the subject to something else.

Granted, Nintendo has designed the Switch to be incredibly durable, even handling damage from a 1,000-foot drop. But as the proverbial saying goes, "sh*t happens" and the archaic save system means catastrophic loss for gamers that invest tons of time in their Switch games. There had been early hope that cloud save would be a feature, but it has yet to materialize or even be talked about. And from Fil-Aime's response, it doesn't sound like Nintendo's upcoming online service will solve the issue either. When further pressed on the issue, Fils-Aime talked about priorities and how everything on the Switch needs to work together, as well as piracy and modding, which Nintendo hates. But he could offer nothing more than a "stay tuned" on file management.

Cloud saves have been around for almost a decade. The term cloud computing was coined in 2006, with rudimentary implementation beginning soon after. Both Microsoft and Sony have embraced it with their respective consoles, and PCs have the ability through services such as Steam. It seems borderline unconscionable and tone-deaf that Nintendo would not have some sort of plans to secure the saves of its fans.

Of course, if Nintendo has something in the works, and is playing this close to the vest, apologies will be in order, but given how companies like to trumpet great features they have coming, Fils-Aime's reluctance to give even a sliver of credence to the issue seems to indicate Nintendo is not prepared to deal with it in the near future.

It's a shame really, as the Switch is a great little unit with some amazing games coming. Cloud saves would make it even better