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.
