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With Gabe raving about the XBox, I decided to give one a try...

enderandrewenderandrew Systems EngineerOmahaRegistered User regular
I'm primarily a PC gamer these days. My wife and kids use the TV while I game on my PC. But I cut my teeth on the Atari 2600 and I do enjoy some couch gaming. I'm not tied to one company or console. I owned the original XBox. I'd sometimes buy competing consoles in a generation (though I never owned a 360).

My PS3 was being used primarily for streaming. My wife was frustrated that when we'd want to watch Netflix, we'd have to do a PS3 software update. I suggested we finally get a current gen console. Even the cheaper XBox One S can play 4K movies, and it can do updates in the middle of the night.

So I buy one and in the first month I've had constant problems where it won't connect on wifi. It is 8 feet away through an open door to our router. Nothing else in the house has wifi problems. The XBox won't see any SSID in the area. It isn't just a signal issue. Wifi just doesn't work on the XBox half of the time. I have to do a hard reset and then it starts working again.

I played Madden non-stop when I picked up the XBox. I was pleasantly surprised that even this relatively weak console hardware put out good graphics. I could resume a suspended game without having to go through as many load screens. With that I'm happy.

But a week in, it suddenly tells me I can no longer access my cloud saves without paying for XBox Gold Live. I was planning on giving XBox Gold Live a try once I practiced a bit solo offline. I also picked up the Halo Master Chief Collection, but haven't played Halo since the first one launched and I'm no doubt really rusty. I'm frustrated that cloud saves don't work without a paid subscription, and that if I stopped paying, I'd lose all access to my saves. They're held hostage behind a paywall.

I posted to an XBox subreddit with this concern and was told this is absolutely not the case and that cloud saves work without Gold. My post was then buried. I went back and tried again. Sure enough, it tells me I need Gold to use cloud saves.

https://imgur.com/a/Qxi1B

I started playing offline and put tons of hours into Franchise mode with a new offline save this past month. But it kicks me out half way through a 60 minute football game if the wifi connection dies again. Single player offline games not using a cloud save kick you out and erase your progress over wifi connectivity. What kind of design is that?

It has been pretty useless for the primary intended purpose of streaming video since the wifi constantly dies.

I called up the retailer to see if I can get a refund or replacement because we can't get the wifi to work. (It wouldn't connect for most of the day today).

But I just discovered I can't back-up my save to transfer it to new hardware. There is no way to move an offline save to the cloud (even if I did pay for XBox Live Gold). And transferring saves to USB, network or external HDD was removed by design.

So I have defective hardware, and by design I need to lose access to my saves as well. Playing single player offline kick you out of games when the wifi drops. I'm a little shocked that people accept a system of this design.

I don't want to sound like a PC Master Race elitist, but I'm pretty disappointed coming from PC gaming, and sadly there is no option for Madden (or Halo) on PC.

Posts

  • LBD_NytetraynLBD_Nytetrayn TorontoRegistered User regular
    First, you might want to try this thread.

    Second, from my limited knowledge: You don't need Gold to use the cloud save feature on Xbox One (maybe check your settings?), but Xbox 360 does. Don't know if 360 games on One require it.

    Third and last, EA has their own whole thing set up with Origin, so I don't know how or if that plays into this.

    qjWUWdm.gif1edr1cF.gifJZuC7sH.png
    Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
  • enderandrewenderandrew Systems Engineer OmahaRegistered User regular

    Microsoft support just directed me to a factory reset. I expressed the concern I'd lose all my save games. They directed me to a FAQ that save games are in the cloud even without XBox Live Gold and I was redirected to a factory reset.

    Guess what? I deleted my saves and post-reset, they aren't coming back.

    Microsoft support just told me to delete all my save games.

    They clarified after all my save games were gone that you do need a subscription to transfer saves, but they remain there without a subscription. So when their FAQ says everything is in the cloud automatically even without Gold, their FAQ is lying. It doesn't sync or backup your saves unless you pay for Gold. You can't load them or get them back without Gold. Your saves are held hostage to a subscription, and their FAQ is basically lying.

    https://support.xbox.com/en-US/games/game-setup/cloud-game-saves-faq

  • LBD_NytetraynLBD_Nytetrayn TorontoRegistered User regular
    Weird... I don't have Gold presently, but I was able to download my save data to a new system just fine.

    I wish I had something better I could tell you. =(

    qjWUWdm.gif1edr1cF.gifJZuC7sH.png
    Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
  • enderandrewenderandrew Systems Engineer OmahaRegistered User regular
    It has been at least 15 minutes since the reset. I'm on the internet. My saves haven't come back.

    Support said it would only sync and backup your saves in the first place if you're on Gold, but you shouldn't need Gold to access them later, but the screenshot I posted above suggests that may not be the case (unless as you suggested, that is a separate EA cloud save that requires Gold on top of the normal XBox cloud save).

  • ZetxZetx 🐧 Registered User regular
    FWIW, Gabe's review of the Xbox One X notes that the XB1 is "a garbage system" so you may have purchased the wrong Xbox >_>

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  • enderandrewenderandrew Systems Engineer OmahaRegistered User regular
    Zetx wrote: »
    FWIW, Gabe's review of the Xbox One X notes that the XB1 is "a garbage system" so you may have purchased the wrong Xbox >_>

    Sadly, you may be right. I went back to the store for a replacement hoping the new one doesn't have wireless problems. The wife and I considered getting the X instead but there were none in stock and it would have felt weird giving Microsoft more money with how the initial experience has gone.

  • enderandrewenderandrew Systems Engineer OmahaRegistered User regular
    So the good news is that initially I didn't see the save games come back, but when I launched individual games, that prompted a sync and save games did come back, so cloud saves were working.

    I went back to the store and got a replacement XBox and so far I'm not having wifi/connectivity issues on the new one.

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