They are giving plenty of heads up, and for a "free" service, 200MB per game doesn't sound horrible.
I thought Steam offered multiple GB of cloud storage. I tried to look up the official figure, and all I could find out was that apparently it differs on a game-by-game basis, and the size is set by the game's developer. So some games do have multiple GB of space, and likewise some don't have much space at all.
According to Microsoft's own documentation, "each game is provided storage. As your game library grows, so does your cloud storage." That's uuhh pretty vague. But of course like Steam, cloud saves are free, so at least there's that. And it's cool that your save files on the cloud work for both 8th/9th-gen Xboxes and PC (but only if you use the UWP aka Microsoft Store versions on PC, which of course I don't). Yeah it's true that for many years, cloud saves were NOT free specifically on X360, which was weird since they were free on XB1 from day one. Well after the release of XB1 they STILL were not free on X360! But Microsoft
eventually corrected that mistake. But it was annoying for many years, cuz if people wanted to get their X360 saves on the cloud to play on XB1, they had to either find an Xbox Live Gold trial, or just pay for it outright.
But cloud saves unless you play the same game on multiple systems is more hassle than it's worth.
It's handy for playing the same game across multiple PCs
or multiple OSes on the same PC (like when I switch between Windows and Linux). Or if you are moving to a new main system with a fresh OS install. But I do
NOT trust or rely on cloud storage if I can help it. That's why I
always make manual backups of all my save files. I've been doing this for decades. I keep multiple backups for each game, making some every so often as I am going through the game (although admittedly I'm not the best at keeping up with this), and definitely making one after I beat the game.
On X360 I used to rely on cloud saves a while when going to friends' houses often, but sometimes their Internet would go out, and then I couldn't access my saves (or upload them from the local system when I was done). So I went back to my old ways of using X360-formatted flash drives (and before they allowed flash drives, you had to use their proprietary memory cards). But then eventually I got real lazy and just started taking my entire X360 HDD with me, since it's detachable. Of course this was not a solid plan if a friend had an X360 Model S.
Cloud storage is also handy for non-modded consoles that don't give you an easy way to back up your save data. See it's not a problem on Sony systems. Just plug a USB flash drive (or SSD or HDD) into your PS3, PS4, or PS5 and freely transfer saves around. Back them up on your PC or NAS or server or whatever you got. So while Sony charges for cloud storage, I appreciate that they make accessing and copying save files locally extremely easy, with no limitations. I'm currently borrowing a PS5 from a friend who is traveling abroad so I can access the DLC for
Ghost of Tsushima (cuz he has access to the Director's Cut, whereas when I borrowed and played through the game on PS4 the DLC wasn't even out yet), and it was very convenient being able to just copy my save files from my PS4 to his PS5 with a flash drive.
Nintendo systems, NOPE, gotta soft-mod if you wanna do any kind of save data backing up there. On stock Wii U you could back up your data to an SD card, but it was only usable on the same Wii U the data came from! Boy did that screw me over a few times (my save data for a couple games were stuck on my brother's Wii U (who also lives on the other side of the country), so I had to start over from scratch). With original Wii some games had a kind of protection on them where you were just plain not
allowed to copy the saves to an SD card! That wasn't the first time Nintendo pulled sh1t like that either, as even on Gamecube there were "protected" save files that you couldn't copy from one memory card to another (I also recall some Sega Dreamcast save files being annoying like this). On Switch there is cloud storage, but you need to pay for their stupid-@ss Nintendo Online service. So like Sony, they charge money for cloud saves, but they charge a lot less money. But if you don't have a soft-modded Switch, then cloud storage is your only means of backing up save data. As far as I know, you can't transfer save files to the MicroSD card on a stock Switch.
Microsoft I'm not sure how they handle local transferring of files these days, with their 8th-gen and 9th-gen consoles, but their cloud storage works painlessly enough. I wasn't ever planning on buying an XB1, but I received one as a gift, and the cloud storage was how I was able to access my X360 save data on the XB1. And of course that data is also accessible on XBSX|S, as is any save data for XB1 games (including original Xbox games that are playable on 8th-gen and 9th-gen Xboxes). On PC I don't get their games from Microsoft Store, so I have full access to game files and save data to back up there too.
Remember Games For Windows Live? Save data was obfuscated from the user, and confined to the PC it originated on! As soon as that current install of your OS went bye-bye (like if you moved to a new PC with a fresh OS install), then so did your save data. There was nothing you could do to backup or transfer your save data, and that was long before Microsoft had cloud saves.
The game I've had the most complications with is Witcher 3 and that's because I've got some insane amount of hours with due to all the replays I've done. I've had it on Steam and GOG and on both have maxed out the cloudsave limits which lead to me having to jump whatever hoops each platform needed to delete and widdle down.
Dude, I ran outta cloud storage for
Witcher 3 from ONE playthrough! With that game I had to do a lot of managing of save files manually, with my local backups.
Witcher 3 cloud storage also got really weird because they allowed you to transfer your save files between PC and console versions (including Switch!) with their own independent cloud system. Not sure how that works. I think you have to use the GOG version of the game for that. I recall hearing the system was kinda wonky. But still, neat service that they offered for free. Wish more devs gave us options to access the same save data across both PC and console.
I would
really appreciate it if there was a way for me transfer PS4 save files to PC, for use with the PC version of PS4 games. Thankfully I'm not in that boat with PS5 games, since those Sony exclusives are come to PC, and I'm not even touching the games until they come out on PC. But for a bunch of PS4 games I got screwed, cuz I had no idea they would ever show up on PC.
CDPR also stores the save games in a very weird location locally that you'd normally not think to back up when doing a reinstall.
A loooooot of Steam games do this too. For all those games where I manually back up my save files, I also have to write down where those save data files go, cuz the locations are so weird. And if I haven't previously backed up the save data for a game, when I go to do it for the first time, I often have to spend time searching online to see if the location has been posted somewhere, or go hunting around for it on my own.
You can see what's being used for your Steam cloud saves by going to this link:
https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorage
Oh that's interesting!
EDIT: I also use the Steam Cloud for storing and sharing screenshots.
