PS3 downloadable games set at 500MB limit, Xbox 360 still 50MB

by James Ransom-Wiley { Nov 28th 2006 at 1:55AM }

Speaking with FiringSquad, SCE Santa Monica's director of external development John Hight offered up an arbitrary size limit for PlayStation 3 downloadable games: 500MB. That number is ten times larger than the size limit that Microsoft imposes on its Xbox Live Arcade game developers. But bigger don't always mean better.

Leniency could lead to sloppy development, leaving games unnecessarily large, in turn, increasing download times. But if Sony dedicates itself to a strict certification process -- and keeps prices competitive -- than this generous allotment of space could give PS3 developers a significant advantage; and help the service avoid XBLA's pitfalls (e.g., Lumines being split into multiple downloads). So when will Microsoft amend its policy? (Hint: when the 256MB mem unit drops.)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Erec @ Nov 28th 2006 2:16AM

Does anyone know what games have been announced for the PS3 store? I've heard more details about the store than I've heard about the specific games that will be available for download. Obviously Blast Factor is out there. Jaffe's got that game he's developing. Is there anything else that I should keep my eye on?

Core_12 @ Nov 28th 2006 2:27AM

Sony? A strict certification process? Don't make me laugh.

mstein @ Nov 28th 2006 3:05AM

@Erec - flOw is pretty cool

Eclipse @ Nov 28th 2006 12:15PM

I like the small XBL Arcade limits. Granded, 50 megs is a bit on the extreme side when it comes to smallness. That said, it basically makes it impossible for big companies to "buy" there way into XBLA. No such thing as churning out a billion and one of the same only with fancy graphics and other whiz-bang features to draw in the gamers. No, with a 50 meg limit only developers with good ideas will succeed. It also means that budgets will stay nice and small for those XBLA titles and thus prices will stay nice and trim. 500 megs is enough space for people to start investing millions into these games, and that's not what these downloadable games are for. That's what I go into the store to buy.

These games need to be high-concept low-budget test platforms for innovative thinking in game design.

joey @ Nov 28th 2006 3:23AM

Bleh... It doesn't really matter what sony does. I'm still not buying one of those expensive paperweights. "oooo look! 500MB of garbage.." yay you.

niels @ Nov 28th 2006 3:30AM

"Leniency could lead to sloppy development, leaving games unnecessarily large, in turn, increasing download times."

This argument is such BS. Yes, size increase could lead to sloppy programming, but I dont see how that affects PS3 in particular. I mean compared to an C64, programming for XBOX360 should be incredibly sloppy.

killr0y @ Nov 28th 2006 4:13AM

niels, compared to the XBox 360, the PS3 is incredibly sloppy. What's your point? The C64 used 170k floppy disks, XBL has a current 50MB cap, and the PS3 has a "around 500MB" limit. I'd rather see people coding tight, like back in the days of the C64 & Amiga, rather than just throwing tons of uncompressed textures, CG cutscenes and CD sampled music at the game, because that's exactly what bloats these games.

Burnt Meatloaf @ Nov 28th 2006 4:51AM

@killr0y: Totally. I might have broadband, but I'm not keen on waiting an hour to download a file that will use 1/40th of my hard drive space, just to play a puzzle game. Isn't emulated PacMan on the 360 over 5MB?

I still reduce my web art to indexed palette images and use PngOUT to compress them. Then, I find out that many Java-based image editing programs and web-based image tools won't even read indexed images, anymore!

Sigh.

Pulse @ Nov 28th 2006 5:46AM

:S Aren't you 360 gamers the ones that said you don't play old games, whats the point etc etc, now your contradicting yourselves by saying you'd prefer the 2d retro looking games to proper 3d games up for download, thats how I know you are just saying that to be a fanboy, you can't even make up your own minds, you just start and stop liking things when Sony starts or stops it, basically, Sony still controls your life if thats the case.

Skyler Jermyn @ Nov 28th 2006 6:09AM

Will Sony ever learn? Bigger does not mean better, especially in this case. Personally, I'm looking for some quick cheap fun with my downloadable arcade games. Just wait for wii's virtual console to steamroll everyone when it comes to this.

DeadPlasmaCell @ Nov 28th 2006 6:12AM

@Pulse:

Umm.. You're the one making the accusation..soo the burden of proof is on you chief.. I'm a 360 gamer and I've never said anything like that.. I could care less if they're 2D or 3D, just as long as they're fun. Seems to me that having a smaller MB limit would force the developers to focus more on game play and making due with what they have. Also having a smaller limit means that the costs of the games should stay low in most cases. I Think there should be a 150-200mb limit personally, it's still pretty small.

Jdoki @ Nov 28th 2006 7:01AM

All of a sudden that 60Gb hard drive is looking pretty small.

I don't think Sony get it. One of the great things about the XBLA is that the relatively small file sizes download quickly, even on a 1Mbit connection. If I just want to try out a new game, such as Small Arms - it's only a couple of minutes away.

Add in that Sony don't allow resuming downloads and that in some (all?) cases you have to download the full version if you decide you like the demo and it feels like a pretty annoying process.

I'm not defending Microsoft's decision to supply a 20Gb hard drive - I just don't see how that extra 40Gb is any better when some will be taken up with game installation files (4GB, 5GB+ lost for each game that requires/supports it?), any 1080p content such as movie trailers will naturally result in larger file sizes, and now downloadable games can reach 500Mb.

It's grerat to have the option of using any old laptop HDD (something MS should really have allowed) but on top of the already high PS3 price it's a bit sickening.

Erdos Kronecker @ Nov 30th 2006 12:30PM

OK, the argument "It's better that Xbox 360 games are *required* to be smaller makes it better because of loading times AND because it helps developers focus" is bullshit. Also saying that all of a sudden 60 GB is too small now is also bullshit.

Nobody is forcing developers to make games that big for PS3. It's only less of a constraint. It's like saying "OH NOEZ DEVS ARE FORCED TO MAKE 54 GB OF BLURAY CONTENT!!!". If the developer wants to incurr in extra costs, *that's their problem*. The developer can still make games of the same quality as Xbox 360 Arcade games, or bump em up. It's also not obligatory to play every PS3 game to dump 4 GB on the HDD, that's your choice. If you do chose to do that, when you finish the game, or when you stop using it, why keep those files on the HDD? If you must, then better yet, if the HDD is too small for you because you want to dump all your PS3, PS2, PS1 games, Arcade games, music and movies , you can always buy an extra, bigger, and especially, cheaper HDD (at least from the point of view of a 100 bucks 13 GB 360 HDD).

The limit is also there because PS1 games were much bigger than their N64 counterparts. I don't doubt that the limit will be surpassed, since final fantasy games reached numbers above 2 Gigs.

lolx @ Dec 5th 2006 12:14PM

same old joystiq, always bias

niels @ Nov 28th 2006 9:04AM

My point was, if you are going to accuse the ps3 for having too much space for games, you might as well accuse *every* system since the C64, because compared to C64 all consoles have enormous amounts of space. Why pin the blame on the ps3? I dont get it. Enlighten me please.

niels @ Nov 28th 2006 9:05AM

And btw, I agree that tighter coding is important, and I agree that sloppy programming is bad. it just seems rather ridiculous to me to make a difference between 50 and 500MB. You dont think that the actual code of the game runs in the 100s of MBs do you?

Pip @ Nov 28th 2006 9:13AM

I think with Microsoft offering 5.7GB movies for download they should just offer games themselves at this point. I mean, whats the difference?

No more pre-orders, more money to the developers.

nick @ Nov 28th 2006 10:22AM

the only reason why they set the max at 500 is for the PS1 downloads for the PSP.

Sycomunkee @ Nov 29th 2006 1:00PM

Small Arms = 1 GB (1000 MB) compressed into 50 MB

1up Yours Podcast
09/15/06
http://zdmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/Podcasts/091506.mp3
He Talks about Small Arms at the 14min Mark

Check out my link!

Brian B. @ Nov 28th 2006 11:14AM

Only Xbox fanboys could actually argue that it's a bad thing to have possibly bigger and better games available for download. Nice work guys.

Oozer @ Nov 28th 2006 11:27AM

Yeah, but after the 420MB padding, you're only left with 80MB ;).

niels @ Nov 28th 2006 12:45PM

Eclipse, I think you fail to understand that neither 50MB nor 500MB places any constraints on being tight in coding. I think in current games the actual code that is programmed fits well under 50MB, so that 50MB does not lead to any better coding than does say 500MB. However, I think that in current games most space is taken up by graphics, music, etc. In that case, having more space is better, since it could increase the quality of graphics, music...

skr1lls @ Nov 29th 2006 5:50PM

Anytime you put the phrase, "If Sony does this right, they could really benefit..." you might as well just count them out because they never do anything right. Happens everytime. Track record is like 0 for 50 in my head. So why say keep saying that is what im asking now?