When XBLA first launched the size of the games was something that Microsoft was very concerned about. They said that keeping games under 50MB kept with the idea of XBLA being a place where you could get fun, quick and interesting games. Of course that didn't last to long as games on the service got bigger and bigger until today when we have games that are clocking in well over 1GB. So what's the new limit? Where does it all end? Evidently, it ends at 2GB... for now.
This is from Microsoft's director of digital games, Scott Austin who said that the games are capped out a 2GB, but it isn't just some arbitrary size Microsoft decided on. The structure of the XBLA programming doesn't allow for games to be any larger than that. "In order to continue fostering the creation of great titles on the platform, Microsoft has increased the file size limit of XBLA titles to 2 GB. We pride ourselves in being the premier destination for downloadable games, and the new file size limit allows developers to push their creative boundaries," he said.
You may ask about Games on Demand, as many of those games are well larger than 2GB, but Austin says that that runs on a different platform that can go above 2GB. While there hasn't been a game to push the limit of XBLA yet, we're sure it's coming sooner than later.
Matthew Razak is Destructoid's Associate editor and co-founder of film site
Flixist. He began as community member "cowzilla" and was since sequestered to write brainy features material. He lives in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife.
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Contest:
9:00 AM on 09.27.2009
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I'd believe it.
MS, let me commend you on your incredibly deft ability to continue to gouge and innovate. Raising file sizes, prices, all while keeping their hardware costs at the same price and denying people logical costing hardware upgrades (no 250GB drive) for no better reason than because.
Although I would say that. I have a 120gb Elite.
My penis.
I agree, that MS should start to lower those hard drive prices a bit so we can all have a large enough one.
As games get larger, be it Arcade or Games On Demand (if anybody is retarded enough to pay those prices), I would think people will just stop buying so much. Once my drive is full I sure as shit won't be buying one of those spectacularly over priced replacements. I just won't buy anything else, unless it's really REALLY special. Sure I can redownload stuff but that's not exactly convenient if you have slow internet or download caps.
Then there's the prospect of the next MS machine not being compatible with XBLA games. I mean, I'm wondering how long we're going to have access to these games for once the next gen comes along and 360 production stops. The hardware doesn't exactly have the greates lifespan...
Sadly be that logic, it almost sounds as the Wii's limited internal storage. Except, Nintendo has offered an firmware upgrade solution making for up to 32G(around $21 on ebay)SDHC and the size's of software usually is was less than 1G. Because i don't own a Xbox360, Does MS really screw it customers here?
I thought so.
Absolutely no room on my hard drive for these monstrosities.
But anyways, 2gb is a reasonable limit, since a lot of us are still stuck with that awesome, oh-so-spacious 20gb drive that came with launch models of the 360 up until the Elite. And really, 2gb is quite a lot of space for an arcade-style game. That's the size of 3 PS1-era CDs, and guess what masterpieces have fit on 3 PS1 CDs before? That's right, Final Fantasy 8 before the story got all kinds of whacky.
But, why so much space, great games like 'Splosion Man are way above 2GB.
...that sounded gross...