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Is this the first concrete sign that the 50MB limit for XBLA is over?

D

dirtmonkey37

flinging feces ---->
After reading a couple of stories on Lumines Live, I noticed that they (Q and Miz) were really pushing the fact that this is a full game that they want to charge consumers a premium price for it. Lumines Live clearly went, in my mind, from being a cool little XBLA port to a standalone title that would be worthy of being on retail shelves in a nice little box.



Why? If the 15 dollar price tag didn't instigate something, then the fact that the game is charging the **** out of everyone for packs of levels/skins/music videos did. But what really pushed me over the edge, is the music videos.




Clearly, Lumines live is not going to be held back by the 50MB limit of Xbox Live Arcade's strict guidelines. Music videos, as I bolded earlier, are no small thing. Considering the music videos are going to be in high definition and that multiple will come with the game when it ships (that terminology is still used for XBLA), there is no way in hell that Lumines Live can be under 50 MB


Video is massive and takes up a lot of space. Make the "video" super high res (720p) and now it's ****ing monster.



So, welcome to a new era of XBLA, or should I say, Xbox Live Newcade.....errr....yeah....
 
H

heavy liquid

Member
Vark said:
There's larger MU's coming out soonish. And besides, the rule was never really that 'strict'.
Click to expand...

Yep, the 256MB should be out soon. I might actually purchase it, but I'm wondering how much they're going to charge, what with the 64MB one currently priced at $40.
 
pr0cs

pr0cs

Member
I believe Lumines will be < 50MB, the video playback will depend on downloads that you have completed totally outside the Lumines game and possibly videos that are best used with the game, again outside the actual download of the game.

I've seen screenshots of the game without video so I doubt the game once released (minus any addons) will be < 50mb.
 
J

jetpacks was yes

Member
Vark said:
There's larger MU's coming out soonish. And besides, the rule was never really that 'strict'.
Click to expand...

Maybe not to big developers like you dudes, but they've told smaller devs that "there are no plans to increase the limit". They've been very adamant about that.
 
B

BenT

Member
At Konami's press event on Wednesday I noticed Contra listed as an executable on a 360. It was around 62MB, IIRC. Made me wonder WTF was in there to fill out what must be a < 1MB arcade ROM.
 
J

jetpacks was yes

Member
SnakeXs said:
Are you inferring that bigger = better? :lol

:)
Click to expand...

50MB is extremely small, and a larger size limit would allow for better games. Bigger does not automatically mean better, but it does mean more freedom. Freedom to make more art, have more music, etc.
 
J

jarrod

Banned
trancejeremy said:
Yeah, the PS1 version is 550 megs or so. I would guess a lot of that is music, and can be compressed, but still a big game.
Click to expand...
It's nearly all music, actual game code was something like 68MB iirc.
 
R

Rhindle

Member
I don't understand what the rationale for the restriction was to begin with.

If the idea was that people without hard drives should have the same access to the content, allowing demos and other content over 50MB totally undermines that.
 
S

Spinning Plates

Member
How big is the market for people out there with only a MU that d/l plenty of XBLA games?

It must suck for MU only users when they see all of the various downloadable content other than XBLA games knowing they can't get 90%.

If the 50MB limit went then surely the majority of MU only Arcade fans would crack and get a HDD.
 
F

FightyF

Banned
Vark said:
There's larger MU's coming out soonish. And besides, the rule was never really that 'strict'.
Click to expand...

I think I read that it was strict to the point where SNK was frustrated that they couldn't port their arcade games, and only recently did MS change their stance.
 
M

mikeGFG

Banned
If it doesn't change now, it's gunna happen the second Sony profits from some sizeable exclusive on their service.
 
D

dirtmonkey37

flinging feces ---->
Yeah, once the new 256MB MU comes out, I think they'll raise the limit to at least 100 MB.



Personally, I don't think arcade games should get any larger than 100 MB. If they do, they shouldn't be called arcade games.



They should be called................XNA GAMES!!!
 
J

john tv

Member
They're going to charge $15 per 50MB. Watch out! Symphony of the Night will be around $180 if you want to win the game.
 
D

dirtmonkey37

flinging feces ---->
Yeah, so anyways, I have no idea how they're going have music videos in Lumines and make it under 50MB...




Maybe that's the thing that the head of XBLA was talking about (Greg Cannessa, right?)



That there will be new games (Lumines Live) which probably are like games you'd get off the store shelves, indy games (like cloning clyde), and retro games (pac man)....
 
S

Shogmaster

Member
heavy liquid said:
Yep, the 256MB should be out soon. I might actually purchase it, but I'm wondering how much they're going to charge, what with the 64MB one currently priced at $40.
Click to expand...

Likely scenario is that the 256MB version will soon occupy the $40 pricepoint and the 64MB version's price will drop.
$40 for 256MB is still overpriced by about $10 IMO. Yeah, I know that it's a memory card for a gaming system.
 
B

Brannon

Member
I look at games like Streets of Rage 2/3, Chrono Trigger, FF3/6j, Ranger X, Cybernator, etc, and they're nowhere near 50 megs, and they're of decent length with great music to boot. And now 50 megs is too little? It's XBLA, pare that shit down! We should've had a ton of classic 16-bitters hitting the Arcade by now, what the hell?
 
S

Shogmaster

Member
DJ Brannon said:
I look at games like Streets of Rage 2/3, Chrono Trigger, FF3/6j, Ranger X, Cybernator, etc, and they're nowhere near 50 megs, and they're of decent length with great music to boot. And now 50 megs is too little? It's XBLA, pare that shit down! We should've had a ton of classic 16-bitters hitting the Arcade by now, what the hell?
Click to expand...

That's great for those who just want to relive the old 2D games, but the point of XBLA is to foster indy/small devs into creating new content with more modern engines (you know, to take advantage of the Xenon and Xenos). Those will demand more room than your 2D games from 15~20 years ago.
 
B

bluemax

Banned
I was told on Monday by a guy who did the music for a game that is coming to XBLA soon that the limit is still 50MB. I was thinking of this thread at the time but he was adamant that the limit will remain 50MB.
 
W

White Man

Member
shidoshi said:
So, SotN with hot new "custom soundtracks!!" feature.
Click to expand...

3/4ths of GAF probably have the mp3s for SotN in their music library already, anyway!

I've always been told that the 50 meg thing was a "guideline" and not set in stone, but the fact that I haven't seen one game go over that size tells me it's actually a hard rule at the moment.
 
O

Open Source

Banned
White Man said:
3/4ths of GAF probably have the mp3s for SotN in their music library already, anyway!

I've always been told that the 50 meg thing was a "guideline" and not set in stone, but the fact that I haven't seen one game go over that size tells me it's actually a hard rule at the moment.
Click to expand...

25MB is the guideline. You have to get permission from your XBLA Program Manager to go over that, which nearly everyone does. The 50MB is pretty much set in stone for now--the rules say that you can get permission to go over 50MB "in rare cases", but I haven't seen it happen yet.
 
N

nfreakct

Member
Open Source said:
25MB is the guideline. You have to get permission from your XBLA Program Manager to go over that, which nearly everyone does. The 50MB is pretty much set in stone for now--the rules say that you can get permission to go over 50MB "in rare cases", but I haven't seen it happen yet.
Click to expand...

"Rare cases" as in "from a major publisher that MS can't afford to mess with." If you're a small independent developer though you're screwed.
 
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