Polygon: PS5 save files can only be backed up to PlayStation Plus

[Zenpai]

3 hours ago, sepheroithisgod said:

I doubt this affects many people. I actually don't know a single person that doesn't have PS+ that owns a PS4. Not saying choice isn't good, but this isn't a big deal.

 

Did someone call me?

I have no need for Plus. I only ever play single-player games (or games with a heavy single-player emphasis). I'm also a 100% physical collector and don't really have much of an interest in the monthly free games, and since you can backup your saves through USB (so far), I have no need for cloud storage either.

This decision by Sony is completely moronic. There is never a good reason for taking away options you used to have. And considering you can still do it with the PS4 games, it shows that this was pretty much a conscious decision by them. I can only hope they reverse it later with a firmware update.

[Dav9834]

Wait I read that game saves can be backed up to USB from other sites. I'm gonna take this with a grain of salt for a few more days.

And it could be patched in at launch with a big update that I suspect will need to be installed anyway

Edited November 6, 2020 by Dav9834

[TheUntold_Truth]

Ps plus is'nt that expensive. 

Wait until black friday, and buy the 12 month subcription for 30 dollars. By 3 of those, you will get 3 years of Playstation plus for $90 dollars.

Seriosuly i don't understand why people are complaning. Don't be cheap. If you can afford to buy Fast food several times a month, you can afford Ps Plus.

 

Perks For Playstation plus

online

2 free ps4 games, vita games, and now ps5 games

Double discounts

extra room for saves

playstation plus collection, and games will be added in the future.

 

If your smart, this service is so benefital to a gamer!!!!

 

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by TheUntold_Truth

[Element_Razor]

Thats is fine by me.

[KennethMcCormick]

Some posts here more or less suggest that saving to USB might be shady, like save scumming, optimising trophy pops or even modding. Well, where saves are concerned, I’m your typical "belt AND bracers” kind of person, meaning cloud, USB, and even once in a while backup on another hard drive. I just don’t want to lose more than ten years of PS gaming because of a freak accident. 

 

When your ISP is down in your neighbourhood for whatever reason, USB is a saver, whether you need that save because you just switched to SSD,  you’re restarting a game you left unfinished a few years ago, or because service went down while you were playing a digital game on your secondary PS and you just want to keep playing on primary (no fiddling with trophies, just keeping playing using the same exact time line). Or just figure Sony being hacked or DDoSed again, and you needing that cloud save...

[Sinthoras_96]

7 hours ago, sepheroithisgod said:

I doubt this affects many people. I actually don't know a single person that doesn't have PS+ that owns a PS4. Not saying choice isn't good, but this isn't a big deal.

Even with plus it sucks. You can only upload one save per game in the plus cloud. 

 

For some games it's useful to create multiple back up saves at certain points in the game to earn some decision based trophies faster for example. That won't be possible now. If you want to back up a second save in the cloud, the first one is overwritten. 

[Dav9834]

3 minutes ago, Sinthoras_96 said:

Even with plus it sucks. You can only upload one save per game in the plus cloud. 

 

For some games it's useful to create multiple back up saves at certain points in the game to earn some decision based trophies faster for example. That won't be possible now. If you want to back up a second save in the cloud, the first one is overwritten. 

I can backup all my saves from a single game with ps+, I don't know what you're talking about

 

Edit-if that game allows separate saves, and it's not bundled

Edited November 7, 2020 by Dav9834

[EDGES]

On 11/6/2020 at 6:18 PM, Potent_Delusions said:

How Sony still have fans is beyond me, truly. Their products are (usually) great. Them as a company are filth.

maybe if PC gamers would stop buying consoles and bring their PC Traditions to console, like save hacking, they wouldn't have to do this, shrug, every PC gamer that I know who has a PS4, first thing they do when playing a game is hack their save to give themselves max currency/exp etc. that is disgusting to me, this is one less bullet for PC Gamers on consoles, so it's fine by me

Edited March 28 by EDGES

[Helyx]

24 minutes ago, TheUntold_Truth said:

2 free ps4 games, vita games, and now ps5 games

 

I'm guessing it's been a while since you've used a Vita.

[Baker]

So now how would one get his hands on 100% savefiles to unlock trophies? I’m asking for my cousin.

 

 

[scemopagliaccioh]

1 hour ago, TheUntold_Truth said:

Ps plus is'nt that expensive. 

Wait until black friday, and buy the 12 month subcription for 30 dollars. By 3 of those, you will get 3 years of Playstation plus for $90 dollars.

Seriosuly i don't understand why people are complaning. Don't be cheap. If you can afford to buy Fast food several times a month, you can afford Ps Plus.

 

Perks For Playstation plus

online

2 free ps4 games, vita games, and now ps5 games

Double discounts

extra room for saves

playstation plus collection, and games will be added in the future.

 

If your smart, this service is so benefital to a gamer!!!!

 

 

" hey gamers™, plus is very good, you get tons of features  like:

-Online after Sony decided you should pay for it

-Saves after Sony decided you should pay for them

-2 ps4 games after Sony decided 5 are too much for your own good

-Plus collection, but only if you bought the ps5, naughty boy,  and we don't know for how much, who cares, who does not pre-order, amIrite?

Double discounts, when they feel to have that occasional sales where you need plus to buy games at the same price of other sales.

What are you waiting for, be smart and buy Plus!

* gamer, gamers, Playstation 4, Sony, Plus Collection, are all terms owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. All rights reserved *

[ZealousZealot]

Hopefully they'll patch in physical back-up in the future. I found being able to back up saves to usb drives particularly useful for any buggy trophies. That way I could keep reloading the the save state just before the trophy should've popped if it didn't the first time. Provided peace of mind for any games that only auto-saved.

 

I've never had ps+ and I probably won't get it. Fundamental tools like backing-up saves to a external usb shouldn't be locked behind a paywall.

[deeps_rj]

I have a PS Plus on my other account so this is a bad news for me

[Infected Elite]

not a big deal at all.  Who doesn't have ps plus that is a longtime sony user? 

if you barely play sony titles, then yeah you don't need plus or to be backing up saves in the first place. 

[BeautifulTorment]

1 minute ago, LegacyJKO09 said:

not a big deal at all.  Who doesn't have ps plus that is a longtime sony user? 

if you barely play sony titles, then yeah you don't need plus or to be backing up saves in the first place. 

Me. I don't want plus. I shouldn't need it for something as simple as backing up a save file.

[HoorayForTyler]

Add this to the list of unnecessary ideas by Sony. Why are they dicking around so much before launch?

[acasser]

9 hours ago, sepheroithisgod said:

I doubt this affects many people. I actually don't know a single person that doesn't have PS+ that owns a PS4. Not saying choice isn't good, but this isn't a big deal.

 

Well, I don't.  I'm not much of an online-multiplayer gamer, and I've only triggered the "free trial" once because I needed to Gaming Session one trophy from a game where the AI can't be counted on to cooperate properly.  Frankly, I don't see the benefit to myself to bother with PS+, because it doesn't offer me anything I'm particularly interested in.  I can backup my saves to a USB -- or I could on the PS3 and PS4 -- I don't play online-multiplayer that requires it, and I don't give a damn about the free games because I'll just go out and buy them if I'm that interested.  (And as a OCD completionist, I'm not likely to go "ooh shiny!" just because a game pops up for free as I think it's likely to lead me into investing many hours into a title I'm lukewarm-at-best about or otherwise into behaviors that won't make me happy.)

 

9 hours ago, OnlyCass said:

Anyone buying a PS5 and not signing up for PS Plus to get 20 of the greatest games available on playstation included in the subscription is mad in my eyes.

 

I've played one game on that list of 20.  I have zero interest in the other 19 and have never had more than passing interest in just about all of that 19.

 

I see this as a money grab.  As a way to try and get us recalcitrant holdouts to start sending them more money because buying their console and their games isn't enough.  As one of those scummy scams to nickel-and-dime consumers every month, the way shady companies used to pull the same trick and get you to add little fees to your phone bill that didn't really do anything.

 

(If you're not old enough to remember the last one and how time-consuming and not-fun it was to get your phone company to remove those charges were, ask your parents.)

 

....

 

I keep a USB stick to back-up my save-game files.  I've used it to save-scum a little bit here and there -- Rogue Legacy (related to one trophy) and DoAX: Fortune (save-scumming the casino) come to mind.  I used it again a few weeks ago because I was fortunate enough to have a backed-up save relatively close to the right spot when I ran into quest glitches in Kingdoms of Amalur and therefore didn't have to re-play the entire game for one stinking trophy.

 

Other than that, my USB is a belt-and-suspenders thing, something I started doing after (sigh) my PS3 had to be re-formatted when a game froze in the middle of a save and I lost a ton of progress in a couple of other games as a result (including 200+ hours in Disgaea 3).

 

I'd prefer to keep using it as my belt-and-suspenders thing without Sony getting in the way and holding out their hand for a tip.

[BlitzkriegHottie]

What a damn circus. 

 

Every time I hear news from nExT gEn, it's nothing but disappointment after disappointment.

 

So far:

 

-Saves can only be backed up via ps plus' cloud storage. 

 

-Tiny HDD storage, identical to current Gen consoles, which are already struggling with several massive 100+GB current Gen games. Can only imagine what a next Gen gta filesize would be. 

 

-Games are getting more expensive for no reason at all, on top of the mandatory paid DLCs and sometimes even microtransactions. 

 

And, the worst for me:

 

-They still can't figure out how to properly emulate their own fucking software, it's 2020 and there's still no PS3 backwards compatibility. That wasn't an issue for me in current Gen, but my ps3 just died, wtf am I supossed to do with all of my ps3 games now that they have completely stopped supporting the ps3? They're painfully incompetent in this regard, just as awful as Nintendo when it comes to porting stuff. 

 

How can anyone be hyped for next Gen is beyond me.

[HoorayForTyler]

18 minutes ago, LegacyJKO09 said:

not a big deal at all.  Who doesn't have ps plus that is a longtime sony user? 

if you barely play sony titles, then yeah you don't need plus or to be backing up saves in the first place. 

Imagine playing a game and it crashes or you’re so far into a game and a game breaking bug occurs requiring you to go back because it has an autosave feature...*cough* Mad Max *cough*...thus making you waste hours gameplay because you’re going for the platinum.
 

What about people who want to transfer game data to another PlayStation? You should not have to pay money to back up a save. Your argument does not hold up.

[soliunasm]

30 minutes ago, LegacyJKO09 said:

not a big deal at all.  Who doesn't have ps plus that is a longtime sony user?

 

I only buy PS+ for one month when I'm in the mood for multiplayer which is rare to never. I primarily play singleplayer games and most of what PS+ gives out I already own as well, plus I don't really "own" my PS+ games either. It's the same deal with XBL, I don't really pay for it unless it's $1 or I want to play multiplayer which is almost never so it's a complete waste of money.

 

30 minutes ago, LegacyJKO09 said:

or to be backing up saves in the first place. 

 

What kind of logic is this? "You don't play online so you clearly don't play games on your PS4"? That's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard of. Singleplayer games take dozens of hours to complete and people would like to keep their save files safe after all the effort and time they put into them even if they're most likely never going to retread that save again. Why should you be forced to pay someone else money just to back them up when you've had a local solution for two gens now? Even the handheld systems allowed you to backup data locally albeit the Vita requiring Content Manager to do it.

 

 

Microsoft was also doing this during this gen, you can't back up any of your Xbone save files to a USB at all, they are automatically backed up to the cloud but you don't need to pay for that backup. Problem is that it auto-downloads saves from the cloud as well so savescumming requires a lot of finagling with offline mode to even work on their end. On Sony's side it looks like we still have to manually back it up like on PS3 and PS4 unless you have auto-backup enabled. You also had to pay on the Xbox 360 to backup any save files to the cloud but you could back them up locally, however locally backed up save files would not work on the Xbone itself, they had to be uploaded directly from the Xbox 360. Using save files from the Xbone on the Xbox 360 (So, backwards compatible ones) required you to pay for Gold as well.

 

I'd argue this issue might be because PS5 doesn't have that patch that enables external SSDs to work yet. I wouldn't doubt Sony would do this and I'm not holding my breath on a patch fixing that, but I'd throw that into the air at least as a possibility. It's really scummy they're doing this after letting you back up your saves locally for years.

Edited November 7, 2020 by soliunasm

[Cloud_SOLDAT]

This behaviour doesn't surprise me. Two years ago consumer protection in Germany reported:

 

"[...]In our opinion, a large number of the general terms and conditions used by Sony in this context are not compatible with the law and are therefore ineffective. The regulation regarding the expiry of credit balances on the PSN account, for example, is customer-hostile. According to the terms and conditions, charged euros must be used up within 24 months. Otherwise, they may be collected by Sony. A regulation that can also be found with other players in the industry. In addition, we have criticized clauses according to which parents have to bear all costs that arise from the purchases of their underage children. This mainly affects games and so-called in-app purchases."

[Elvick_]

8 hours ago, scemopagliaccioh said:

Not in this case, though.

The products you're comparing are  consoles,  "console wars" are 2-4 sides that want to establish the product they bought as  the better one, the companies find an advantage in the hype machine they create. 

You sound like a contrarian. You can compare things without being a fanboy, and thus without the bs console wars that involves stupid memes, lying, and dumb assery.

 

Nobody needs to have "refrigerator wars" to pick the better fridge. Clownery.

Edited November 7, 2020 by Elvick_

[ArmoredSnowman]

This is most likely done to prevent save modding. 

[BadWolf760]

I guaranty this is a security issue. I believe this is to close an attempt to circumvent the PS5 from hacking attempts or people trying to run unlicensed code or home brew. Hopefully they find a way to prevent that as well as allowing USB backup. It would be a shame to see this feature lost.

[soliunasm]

23 minutes ago, BadWolf760 said:

I guaranty this is a security issue. I believe this is to close an attempt to circumvent the PS5 from hacking attempts or people trying to run unlicensed code or home brew. Hopefully they find a way to prevent that as well as allowing USB backup. It would be a shame to see this feature lost.

 

I doubt it. The only thing that has used save data to get into the system was the PSP. Everything else is either browser or update exploits. Nintendo is typically the one that gets hit with save data exploits while Sony is everything else under the sun.