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Microsoft Increases Limit on XBLA Downloads
1up reports that XBLA's 50MB size limit is no more. Microsoft has upped that to a whopping 250 MB, just a week after it was revealed that the upcoming Symphony of the Night would be almost double that in size. While this is great for the possibilities of the service, games, and gamers, it does mean that 'Core Pack' owners are now even more 'out in the cold' when it comes to downloadable content. Unless a HDD is purchased for the system, Core Packers are reduced to using the 64MB memory cards, which are clearly not large enough for even one 'expanded' game title. From the article: "However, how many folks are out there downloading Live Arcade games without an HDD? It probably works out to a small percentage. We asked Microsoft about those users and the memory card issues that the console will face with this new expanded size for Live Arcade titles. Microsoft said 'There is already one possible solution in the works for this category of gamer should we decide to increase the Xbox Live Arcade game file size from its current 50 MB limit. As announced at E3 last May, a larger Memory Unit is being developed which will allow gamers who do not own a hard drive to store and easily transport several Xbox Live Arcade games at a time. We have no further details to announce at this time.'"
Seriously. You can already connect a hard drive to your 360, to let it access content you have stored from your computer. But it won't let you store any content your 360 downloads. With a simple firmware update they could let people format external drives so they could be used to store content. Why won't they, besides wanting to make $$$ off drive sales? Don't tell me it's DRM through obscurity...
Excuse a dumb question as I know nothing about the 360's guts.. but is it really impossible to plop a new drive in there yourself? I'd have thought any funky proprietary formatting would be clonable by now, whether through an approved process or some shady hack.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Like the reply above me says, it's all about $. In the case of the Wii (which I own one), they use a STANDARD memory format (SD). I *could've* just used my camera's 256MB card that I already owned, but I decided to opt for the 1GB card on sale for $25 at Staples a while ago. How much does the 360's card compare to that? :)
;D
Also, for those who are confused by this memory standard and ask "well are you sure this will work with mine?" Nintendo also markets their own branded SD cards (obviously at a markup, but there's nothing wrong with that: knowledge is worth $$).
You'd think that the 360 (and even PS3) would be a lot cheaper if they used *real* off-the-shelf parts. If my $400 PC (A64 3200+, 2GB RAM, 256MB X800) can run most of today's games at a fairly good rate with graphics not quite at max detail, you'd think they could have them running even better on the same hardware since they don't have the XP overhead I have. Also, my video outputs via DVI at max 1600x1200 (on my 19" CRT), wouldn't that count as HD?
I haven't a clue as to the number, but I think it's very easy to know the why people w/o the HDD don't download a lot of games. The memory cards are $40. That's why. Without the HDD you need a memory card for almost every game on XBArcade. $40 plus each title's cost! That's BS. I've said that from the beginning too. I was outraged by the 'premium' and 'core' 360's and by the PS3 tiered system as well.
What's the biggest problem? I may have to buy a 360 now just because SotN has been ported to it. I've got the original on PSOne, and I can't get to gaming websites, so if anyone could reply to this about any extras in the 360 version for SotN that would be great. (updated graphics? more animations? extra weapons/rooms?)
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Roboblitz is a good example of creativity due to size limitation.
Its texture compression method is impressive. The same game could have been done in "huge format" by lazy programmers, but they did it in "small format" thanks to their good work.
They solved the size limit problem by something positive (and impressive). Other programmers are just waiting for bigger space limits !
-- Rastignac was here.
I think it was a poor choice for Microsoft as I doubt it really boosted sales in the long run.
NPD group, who have the advantage of statistics and understanding the market, believes that the hard drive being purchasable seperately increased the distribution base by almost 20%, which in turn will have had long-term impacts on the platform.
Generally, large companies like Microsoft put multiple billion dollar projects into the hands of more than one person. Making two seperate system types costs them significant money and introduces inefficiency margins which would not have otherwise existed. They did this for a good reason, and it was professionals who know what they're doing who chose to do it.
As a rule of thumb, if you don't have any data, don't argue with the vendor. All you're doing is making yourself look arrogant and naïve.
StoneCypher is Full of BS