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XBox (Games)

Microsoft Increases Limit on XBLA Downloads 81

Posted by Zonk from the but-for-a-vampire-hunter-we-never-would-have-known dept.
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.'"
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Microsoft Increases Limit on XBLA Downloads More

Microsoft Increases Limit on XBLA Downloads

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  • What they need to do (Score:3, Interesting)

    by artifex2004 ( 766107 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @10:12AM (#17680952) Journal
    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...

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ObiWanStevobi ( 1030352 )
      Well, you hit the nail on the head.

      What kind of margin you think they are making on a 60gig HDD selling at > $100? The 360 is going to run into further disk space troubles with their video services and game demos. I'm already a little dissapointed I have to delete Gig+ demos it took a day to download to make space for things on there. Offering HD video content and music ripping takes up a lot of storage. You cannot do that and get by with a mere 20 or 60 gigs. MS should drop the proprietary drive

      • $100 for a 60GB HDD? It's $100 for a 20GB HDD! And at least for now, 20GB is the only option.

        Losing the proprietary case/connector would be great - the stupid thing is just a 2.5" SATA drive. Let me plop any old drive in there, MS!
        • 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.
          • I guess it may be possible [xbox-scene.com].

            I almost want to try it now :)

            Would just have to figure out how to format a drive properly, and transfer my data from the old drive to the new one.
            • It's not possible yet. The drives have a signature based on the serial number, and just like the games this signature is using a well designed public key encryption scheme. I don't remember the exact algorithm, but it's 2048-bit IIRC.

              There has been success in cloning the header to another drive that's been reflashed to have the same serial number as the original, but that's not really reasonable for the average person to do. I also think there's some size tag in the signature, so going up to a larger siz

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by nomadic ( 141991 )
          Losing the proprietary case/connector would be great - the stupid thing is just a 2.5" SATA drive. Let me plop any old drive in there, MS!

          The only problem is then MS would have to provide technical support for a billion different hard drives.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by meepzorb ( 61992 )
            The only problem is then MS would have to provide technical support for a billion different hard drives.

            Um... don't they do this anyway, for Windows?

            Hiding behind driver issues is a lame excuse. They could at least lose the proprietary connector, and publish a list of HDDs that would be supported by the current driver.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by nomadic ( 141991 )
              Um... don't they do this anyway, for Windows?

              Not very well, and they hate doing it because it sucks money from them. That's why they charge for a lot of tech support services, and shift as many users to the online support system and vendors.

              Hiding behind driver issues is a lame excuse. They could at least lose the proprietary connector, and publish a list of HDDs that would be supported by the current driver.

              I think that's probably a better way to handle it, or maybe just license the exact technol

              • Re:What they need to do (Score:4, Insightful)

                by arkanes ( 521690 ) <arkanes.gmail@com> on Friday January 19, 2007 @11:31AM (#17682190) Homepage
                Hard drives use a standard interface. You don't need special drivers for your hard drive, only for drive controllers which are built into the XBox and thus not an issue. This is not a support issue, this is MS enjoying the closed, proprietary platform they always wanted the PC to be.

                • Re: (Score:1)

                  by nomadic ( 141991 )
                  I don't know the technical specifications of the Xbox 360, but I would think that even minor differences between hard drives (RPM, data transfer rate, etc.), drive space, and drive quality, might cause some issues down the road.

                  And actually MS built their empire on the fact that PCs stopped being proprietary. Course now they own the market they'd like to change that...
                  • I was thinking that too, but the PS3 has interchanagable drives, and I doubt programmers bothered to think about the extra hoopla needed for testing. Besides, there's nothing on the Xbox 360 that requires exact timing off the HDD (no games use it exclusively), so it doesn't matter.
          • Good point. Someone should come up with a standard on which the hard drives would be based so you won't need to have support for all of the different drives. Oh wait....

            Sony somehow worked around this issue in allowing you to place any hard drive in your PS3. However, the PS2 supported any hard drive with the Linux kit or home brew. It only required the official Sony drive for Official games and the only thing that did was an additional identifier in the firmware of the drive.
      • If you want music to play on the 360, either stream it from your PC (I have heard there are programs enabling this with Macs, now, too) or copy the music to a USB drive, and plug that in.

        • The product that lets you stream music (along with photos and WMVs) from a Mac to the 360 is Connect 360 [nullriver.com]. It seems to work pretty well and they have a demo version too, though it limits you to, I think, 100 songs.
    • 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...

      "With a simple piece of fabric, they could be driving blindfolded. Why won't they, besides wanting to not crash and die? Don't tell me they're allergic to cotton..."

      Generally, if you want to know why an entity does something, don't start by eliminating the primary reason.

  • Old Addage (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman@gmaiBLUEl.com minus berry> on Friday January 19, 2007 @10:12AM (#17680970) Homepage Journal
    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.

    Penny wise, pound foolish.

    I never did understand the Core system concept anyway. If games were going to require a hard drive, what good would it do to purchase a system without one? My suspicion is that Microsoft released the Core system in an attempt to keep their prices from looking outrageous. ($399 was a lot for a game console at the time.) Thanks to Sony, however, Microsoft's pricing scheme suddenly doesn't look so bad after all.

    • Re:Old Addage (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Itchyeyes ( 908311 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @10:20AM (#17681072) Homepage
      I think the core system was aimed at parents who would be giving a 360 as a present but would balk at the extra $100. A parent could give the core system at feel like it was a reasonable price. The child could purchase the memory card or hard drive themselves once they had the system. I think it was a poor choice for Microsoft as I doubt it really boosted sales in the long run. Technically it allows them to say that the 360 is $300, but practically in most consumers minds it's still $400.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by stonecypher ( 118140 )
        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 signifi

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Saige ( 53303 )
      The inclusion of a built-in hard drive in the original Xbox put a higher bottom limit on how much they could reduce the price of the console. I think I've seen it stated that they're still losing money on sales of the $149 Xbox at this point, and that part of that is the fact that hard drives don't get cheaper, they get bigger.

      By making the HD external, it offers the chance for a HD-less system to hit a low price point that also makes a profit. Thus there could be a time when the 360 core system goes for
    • I never did understand the Core system concept anyway. If games were going to require a hard drive, what good would it do to purchase a system without one?

      Not very many games require the hard drive, and those which do provide an incentive to purchase the hard drive as a peripheral later. The lower price point allows a broader demographic access to the platform, and spreading the total system cost out over time both lowers the financial impact of a competitive system and allows Microsoft to reap larger ma
    • It was indeed an attempt to come in at the price-point that was palatable for newcomers to the Xbox lineup, and those parents who remember last-gen's prices being lower. :) Still, though... I think the lack of a hard drive in every system is going to hamper games in the long term, if the possibility exists that people will not have an HDD, game companies won't want to target the demographic of "Premium only" users. Even if the premium sold more...

      But along comes Sony with a $600 and $500 console respectiv

  • Core Pack (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Itchyeyes ( 908311 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @10:14AM (#17680990) Homepage
    Microsoft should have never released the core pack. However, everyone knew exactly what is was from the moment Microsoft revealed it. It was obvious right from the get go that there would be limitations when it came to memory space. If you're using the core pack, and you don't have the storage space for this, then you have only yourself to blame. What's more, it's not like this would be the first item Microsoft offered that wouldn't fit on a memory card. XBL Arcade titles are practically the only thing left on the service at the moment that clock under 300mb.

    • The Core was a joke, but it's the joke that will probably help MS top Sony this generation. It brought the 'foot in door' cost of the 360 to $300, which is alot easier for the mind to rest on than the $500/600 PS3.

      This joke is only half up though. The real punchline will be the 'new' XBOX 360's released this year with Many-GB HD's (and a cheap/cool chip inside). You know that's what this is about.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pojut ( 1027544 )
        "This joke is only half up though. The real punchline will be the 'new' XBOX 360's released this year with Many-GB HD's (and a cheap/cool chip inside). You know that's what this is about. "

        I'm a little...well, put-off by the idea of the new version. How much you wanna bet that they took care of the little firmware hack.

        Then again, once someone creates a removable modchip in the form of a USB thumbdrive...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cheapy ( 809643 )
      I was impressed yesterday when I saw the demo for Lost Planet was somewhere around 350mb. Even more so impressed when I saw that the multiplayer version was only 160mb.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by suv4x4 ( 956391 )
      Microsoft should have never released the core pack.

      Unlike the PS3, you can actually upgrade the Core Pack to pretty much match the "full spec" of XBOX360.

      You have a Core Pack and need more space? Get the XBOX 360 hard disk and put it on your machine. As easy as that.
      • If you read my comment, you'll notice I have no sympathy for people who were suckered in by the marketing and purchased the core pack. However, it was still a foolish decision on Microsoft's part. They have forever segmented their console into those who have storage space and those who don't have it unless they're willing to fork over a substantial amount of money. As a result, while they can make things like demos and video downloads that make use of the hard drive, any standard games for the system wil
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Er, what do you mean "unlike the PS3"?

          Ignoring the fact that the base PS3 isn't crippled in the first place like the 360 core, you can use USB wireless networking devices and memory card readers and replace the included hard drive with any standard 2.5" notebook drive.

          It's very simple what he meant by Unlike the PS3, you can actually upgrade the Core Pack to pretty much match the "full spec" of XBOX360. I shall explain it to you.

          By that he meant Wa, wa, wa, I hate Sony, I love Microsoft.

          At least that's how

    • I believe the core pack really only made sense for people who were not interested in xbox live and had no need for any storage besides game saves. Why anybody would pick up a 360 if they weren't interested in online gaming is another question though...
      • I believe the core pack really only made sense for people who were not interested in xbox live and had no need for any storage besides game saves. Why anybody would pick up a 360 if they weren't interested in online gaming is another question though...

        The online community tends to say the same of HDTVs - why anyone owning an SDTV would pick up a 360 is beyond them, but there certainly are lots of people doing this (remember the issue with the fonts in Dead Rising on SDTVs?).

        Further, there are only a bit ove

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by stonecypher ( 118140 )
      Microsoft should have never released the core pack.

      Why not? The core pack made their platform available to a poorer demographic of users, who happen to be the first adopters in the console game industry, and the hard drive upgrade makes them larger margins than the full box. NPD estimates that this maneuver grew their initial market by 18%, meaning that more people bought a given game, meaning more games were developed, meaning they have a stronger library, drawing in more players. They've been riding
  • Why are the memory cards only 64M? can't they use standard flash which you can get up to 2G rather easily?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Itchyeyes ( 908311 )
      $

      Need I say more?
      • How do you figured? Really a 64M card being sold at $50 or whatever comes out to something like $45 profit. they could sell a 2G card at $100 and still have that same if not more than $45 profit and the user would actually benefit from it. Ohh yea, I forgot, never mind.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      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? :)

      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
    • Because that means you have to buy a bunch of them, and there's no significant vendor competition. What is it with people in this thread having forgotten that Microsoft is trying to make money here?

  • Downloads per Mem card... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by steveo777 ( 183629 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @11:02AM (#17681768) Homepage Journal

    However, how many folks are out there downloading Live Arcade games without an HDD?

    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?)

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by EGSonikku ( 519478 )
      *content* wise it is said to be the same. However, this isn't just an emulated version of the PSOne title either. They literally ported it using the original assets and so it has true 16:9 widescreen support and higher resolution textures. All the music, cgi, and cheesy dialog is intact ;-)
      • I always loved that cheesy dialog. Especially since it always sounded like they recorded everything in a tin can (you know, for the in-a-castle echo effect).

        Well, I am VERY tempted to acquire a 360 at this point. But I'm waiting for a bigger HDD to be included. Even if it never happens. 20GB is somewhat ludicrous. Take a quick look at the pricewatch page [pricewatch.com] for notebook drives. About half the price of the 360 drive and 4 times the storage! That's still a very nice markup for MS on accessories.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by trdrstv ( 986999 )
        *content* wise it is said to be the same. However, this isn't just an emulated version of the PSOne title either. They literally ported it using the original assets and so it has true 16:9 widescreen support and higher resolution textures. All the music, cgi, and cheesy dialog is intact ;-)

        In addition to the 'Updated Graphics' you can toggle them back to 'Original' if you like.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Jolva ( 930971 )
      Once you pay for an arcade game you download it, delete it, and download it again later as many times as you want (same for the TV shows). So you wouldn't need a memory card for every title as you suggested.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by radish ( 98371 )
      According to this hands-on [shacknews.com] from CES, it's basically a straight port but with an option of "enhanced" (upscaled) graphics. There are also online leaderboards. Of course, this is all based on a pre-release so take with requisite pinch of NaCl.
    • Well, of course, you can always delete the XBLA game from your memory card, then re-download it later for free. But, its still a huge hassle. Very time consuming. No instant gratification of playing all your XBLA games at the drop of a hat.
  • It's become obvious that the 20GB drive that ships with the premium Xbox 360 is too small for the growing amount of downloadable content available on Xbox Live. And there are rumors that a 60GB model will be coming out probably within the next year. It is also true that there are a good number of core systems out there without hard drives at all.

    Well maybe it's time to slash the price of the 20GB addon drive to encourage core system owners to get onboard XBL while transitioning to the 60GB models. This woul

  • SURPRISE (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by powerlord ( 28156 )
    So ... the XBox360 starts launching new services that need a hard-drive, leaving the "core" system, without a Hard-Drive out in the cold, and even leaving the "Premium" system players hurting.

    The PS3 with a 20GB or 60GB HD (and a User Replaceable one at that), certainly seems like a better choice.

    Heck, even XBLA upping the limit to 250GB seems like a response to the PlayStationNetwork unleashing 500-600MB demos. and 150MB download games.

    I know lots of people on Slashdot seem to love bashing Sony (and the PS

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dave420 ( 699308 )
      Well, seeing as there is no evidence for your claims, that is obviously just opinion. As this service is not even used by everyone, suggesting the lack of HDD is crippling everyone is ridiculous. Many people don't even use their XBox360s online, so downloadable games are meaningless. But don't let that stop you defending Sony's ridiculous console. Please.
      • Many people don't even use their XBox360s online,

        I never understood this. There were around 8 million X-boxes when I saw MS tout they has something like 5.5 million live users. (counting Gold + Silver memberships) What was more telling was that 2.5 million people didn't sign up for Silver.

        Why wouldn't you want to at least sign up for the Free version? There is a lot of value there, even for people who don't have a HDD.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by sirstar ( 789206 )
      XBLA = Xbox Live Arcade. Currently the games (where) limited to 50 megs. Demos can also be downloaded, and most of those are over 100 megs in size.

      They upped the size of the Live Arcade games from 50 megs to 250 megs. These are the games that you can either play a demo of, or purchase if you want (and don't have to worry about putting the disk in to play it).

      Do they have full games for the PS3 (that you can purchase online and play off the HD) yet? It's good to hear they have the demos and such. =)
      • Do they have full games for the PS3 (that you can purchase online and play off the HD) yet?


        Yup. They've got about 1 dozen or so titles so far (including a few for the PSP that you can download and transfer).

        I've been enjoying Lemmings recently. My wife has also really gotten into it. :)

        The demos are just that, demos for "Blu-Ray" games, or downloadable games. (There are quite a few demos for both type :) ).

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by calbanese ( 169547 )
      So ... the XBox360 starts launching new services that need a hard-drive, leaving the "core" system, without a Hard-Drive out in the cold
      They saved their hundred bucks. They can't start bitching about it now. Would you say "I bought a BMW X3 but the X5 has better features. I don't care that I saved money by buying the X3, BWM is screwing me"?

      The PS3 with a 20GB or 60GB HD (and a User Replaceable one at that), certainly seems like a better choice.
      Except that core purchasers bought the core system to

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by sirstar ( 789206 )
      BTW, The Xbox 360 HD is user replaceable as well... just with a 'official' Microsoft Xbox 360 drive... Nothing saying that they won't/can't be replaced with a bigger one in the near future (seeing as how they are planning on a larger drive soon).
    • Heck, even XBLA upping the limit to 250GB seems like a response to the PlayStationNetwork unleashing 500-600MB demos. and 150MB download games.

      Just for the record, the X-Box demos have been a gig or better for quite a while. The Live Arcade titles had the limit so '1 or 2 games' could be saved on a memory card along with your profile and some game saves. There is all kinds of content (map packs, demos, movies etc...) that are WAY over that.

      Hell you could 'Rent' Superman Returns in 720p and it's a 7 gi

    • The PS3 with a 20GB or 60GB HD (and a User Replaceable one at that), certainly seems like a better choice.

      Yeah, if the PS3 had a lot worth downloading. There are several really good 360 Arcade titles now, the only decent title on PS3 I can think of is Flow and it doesnt really amuse me all that much.

      Also I don't think they are reacting to PS3 at all, I think they are reacting to developer requests for more space (so everything doesnt have to be procedurally textured) and also as part of the upcoming XN

  • WHS, of course (Score:5, Insightful)

    by amliebsch ( 724858 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @12:09PM (#17682870) Journal
    I will bet dollars to donuts that the 360 will be able to use Windows Home Server as NAS. This has the advantage of being a good solution for gamers who want big storage capacity while simultaneously creating a Microsoft ecosystem for the home computers.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by crabbz ( 986605 )
      Probably true. I always thought they should just let you mount an smb (or nfs :-)) share and use it. No need for Home Server. But if they can tie in one of their other products, why not?
  • It was mainly Nintendo, and the Ultra 64, I mean Nintendo 64, that pushed for live action cut scenes versus all the pre-rendered junk we got on the PS1 and PCs. This of course was brought on by the lack of space in the carts. The problem is if the 360 starts getting PS1 ports, even 250MB will not be enough

    • Don't forget that PS1 video was encoded in motion jpeg. One could probably crunch down the images quite handily with a modern codec. In fact, I seem to recall that one of the PS1 Resident Evil games was ported to an N64 cart with all of the video intact.

  • 64 MB memory-cards are beyond ridiciolous in the age of dirt-cheap multi-GB usb-sticks. 20GB for a HD is also ridicolouse. Even 2.5 disks start out around 80-100GB today, and there's no reason whatsoever for buying a 3.5 HD smaller than say 3-500GB.
    • there's no reason whatsoever for buying a 3.5 HD smaller than say 3-500GB.
      Actually, 250GB drives have the best price per gigabyte at the moment. At least in Australia.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Eivind ( 15695 )
        Ok. Quite possible. Allthough last I checked here the best price/GB was to be had at around 3-500GB, but I guess it can vary somewhat depending on country and/or retailer.

        The basic point though, was that 20GB is ridicolous, *especially* for a machine that is its first halfyear of a ~5-year lifecycle.

        On the other hand Sony *still* sells 8MB (that's 1/125th of a GB) "memory-cards" for the PS2 for a price very similar to that of a 1GB flash-stick in a non-proprietary format. I guess what I'd like would be

  • I don't own an xbox or anything but seriously, if you bought a core system you are kind of retarded. One of the reasons I don't own an xbox 360 is because even if I get the premium, the mere fact that the Core system exists limits the capabilities of the hypothetically-purchased premium system.

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