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Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix with high-res hand-drawn art  (Source: Capcom)
Microsoft bends the Xbox Live Arcade rules for Capcom

When Microsoft launched Xbox Live Arcade, it imposed a 50 MB size cap on all releases on its service. The reason for this was to maintain compatibility for Xbox 360 owners who do not own a model with a hard drive.

At the time, a 64MB Memory Unit was the only alternative, explaining the need 50 MB limit. A year ago, Microsoft released a 512 MB Memory Unit, which paved the way for the Xbox Live Arcade game limit to grow to 150 MB. A 256 MB Memory Unit is now standard issue on all HDD-less Xbox 360 consoles.

Even with the current Xbox Live Arcade limit three times what it used to be, some developers are finding 150MB simply not enough to fit in all game assets, particularly those intended for 1080p resolutions.

In particular, Capcom’s two upcoming re-imaginings of classic games Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and Bionic Commando Rearmed were unable to fit inside 150 MB without sacrificing graphical fidelity. For this reason, Microsoft has made an exception for these highly anticipated games – perhaps as a favor to the hardcore gaming crowd, or simply to be comparable to the PS3 (for which Sony has set no size limits) versions.

“With great help from the guys at Microsoft, we will be able to offer the same features on both platforms to the same quality as each other,” wrote Seth Killian on the Capcom Blog.

Microsoft confirmed the news to DailyTech in a statement: “Given the sizeable content in Bionic Commando Rearmed and Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Microsoft allowed Capcom to work with a larger file size limit for both of those titles in order to provide gamers with the game experience that Capcom desired, such as full hi-res textures or 1080p support. The Xbox LIVE Arcade versions of both titles will have complete feature and graphical parity with the iterations that will be available on other platforms.”

Although both upcoming Capcom downloadable games will live outside of the 150 MB limit, Microsoft won’t be changing its rule anytime soon.

“On the whole, our partners are happy with the size limit framework currently in place, and we do not anticipate the need to change the 150 MB size limit policy,” said a Microsoft representative. “We will continue to work closely with our partners to bring the best games to Xbox LIVE Arcade, and if a game warrants a file size limit exception, we will provide one on a case by case basis.”

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How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By ImSpartacus on 3/17/2008 9:10:58 AM , Rating: 5
How much could something like this possibly cost? It should be stock on all xboxes by now.

At Newegg 40GB notebook drives cost about 50$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...

So a tiny 20GB drive should be like 30-40$ in bulk.




RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By omnicronx on 3/17/2008 9:14:53 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
So a tiny 20GB drive should be like 30-40$ in bulk.
Still more expensive than 0 dollars bulk when you are losing money on every console sold ;) Microsofts business plan seems to be working, and although at first I thought it was a bad idea to not include the HD, 360 arcade prices are now below that of the Wii in Canada, and the games are also a lot cheaper. Those that can not live without an HD, also probably bought one with their 360 in the first place. In the end, the different SKUS have helped MS, not hurt them in the slightest. They are in every price range, and although JAN-FEB sales were terrible, I expect a nice rebound in March-April.


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By AlvinCool on 3/17/2008 9:37:30 AM , Rating: 2
Considering that the goal for both Microsoft and Sony is to be the mantle piece of your entertainment center, they consider losing a little money to be the correct thing to do. This will also push them to adopt Blue-Ray regardless of if they want it or not. So I guess they will be pounding sand up their own wazoos. They have to adopt anything that becomes the defacto standard for the premium entertainment center. And thats why they are bending over to make sure that games have 1080 support.


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By omnicronx on 3/17/08, Rating: -1
By Sunday Ironfoot on 3/17/2008 10:21:50 AM , Rating: 4
Didn't know the original Street Fighter II was in 720p. And anyway, it looks like a lot of the graphics have been completely redone over the orignal, not simply upscaled, then there's the addition of higher quanlity sound effects, potentially more frames for animation etc. It all adds up.


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By omnicronx on 3/17/2008 10:28:30 AM , Rating: 2
could be true, but i really doubt any of these games push the limits of either the 360 or ps3..


By Alexstarfire on 3/18/2008 12:21:33 AM , Rating: 2
It's not designed to, so why would they? 2D graphics aren't going to be pushing any limits these days.


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By Samus on 3/17/2008 5:53:40 PM , Rating: 2
Jamma-based arcade hardware is only capable of displaying 480p, but most of the content going back to Street Fighter was usually higher resolution that what the display was capable of. I don't know why, but I'd guess the DevKits were probably better graphically, but like all DevKits, they had simulation of the arcade hardware so you could confirm clock speed slowdown, etc.


By Alexstarfire on 3/18/2008 12:25:42 AM , Rating: 2
Well, even if they technically had a higher resolution than what could be displayed, you wouldn't have wanted it to be displayed at that resolution. SNES and before just didn't have the specs to make even TV resolutions look smooth. I'm not saying that many games didn't look great, because a lot of them looked awesome, considering it's an SNES anyways. It's just that the graphics were blocky, and putting it on a bigger resolution isn't going to help it.


By mgambrell on 3/17/2008 2:03:59 PM , Rating: 2
vector imaging? whats that and what does it have to do with the hand-drawn sprite art of street fighter?


By prenox on 3/17/2008 3:17:59 PM , Rating: 2
Some games do have 1080p support but most are in 720p. You can't say its just with Microsoft either cause Sony has alot of games that are 720p also and upscaled to 1080p just like the 360.


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By Locutus465 on 3/17/2008 11:51:59 AM , Rating: 2
Isn't there a way to hack in your own HDD into the drive bay? I might consider doing this one of these days :)


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By mondo1234 on 3/17/2008 12:27:43 PM , Rating: 3
this looks like a glorified thumbdrive. $50 for 512 megs? You should be able to get a 4 gig for that. Isn't it just flash memory?


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By walk2k on 3/17/2008 3:10:43 PM , Rating: 3
Yes. Same reason the 20GB HDD costs $90 when you can buy a 80GB external drive at any office/electronics store for under $50.


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By prenox on 3/17/2008 3:22:29 PM , Rating: 1
It is just a 2.5" hdd but with the custom case and power data plug on it it probably costs a little more to make than any hdd you would buy off Newegg


By darkpaw on 3/17/2008 4:58:05 PM , Rating: 2
Yah about 50 cents more. Custom plastic enclosures really don't cost much, especially when talking about the scale MS buys them on. There is nothing special about the casing, it's just a way to make a commidity drive cost 3x what it should.


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By winterspan on 3/17/2008 7:33:05 PM , Rating: 2
What a fricken ripoff! I can't BELIEVE MS doesn't give at least a small HD for the lowest model. Seriously, a 256MB memory card included?? What is this, 1997? How much could a 20GB HDD cost in bulk? or even a 2GB flash chip! They charge you $50 dollars for a 512MB memory chip!! That's outrageous And $100 for a wiFi card?? Even crazier. It totally seems like they nickel and dime you. They make you upgrade models for a HDD. Upgrade models to get HDMI. Buy a Wifi adapter separately, etc.

This just reconfirms how much better a deal the PS3 is. The cheapest model already includes a user replaceable 40GB harddrive, 802.11 Wifi built-in, built-in Blu-ray profile 2.0 player, and free online play. And you can literally throw in a cheap 80 or 120GB drive from Newegg if you want.

Comparing prices, on Amazon, I see a Xbox 360 with 20GB HDD for $349. Add a $100 wireless card, and you are now at $450. If you want to play online, you can purchase a 12-month Xbox live card for $40. Now we are at $490.

On Amazon, the 40GB Playstation 3 comes WITH a wireless card built-in and FREE online play. All for $399 . which is $90 less than the Xbox. In addition, the PS3 has a built-in Blu-ray disc movie player.

Now that PS3 has some quality games out and many exclusives coming this year, along with the Blu-ray player, It's really an incredible bargain.


By Alexstarfire on 3/18/2008 12:34:36 AM , Rating: 2
I'm sick and tired of these types of comparisons because that's not how they should be compared. Don't get me wrong, I don't think either console is worth it IMO, but this just gets on my nerve. Yes, the PS3 is a better deal if you WANT EVERYTHING it has. The point of taking things off, like Wi-Fi and an HDD was to make the console cheaper. For those who don't need things like an HD player or have a need to save stuff to their console's HDD. If you're just in it to play games, then the 360 is far cheaper. I'm not sure if the arcade model comes with a way to hook up the internet though. I know it doesn't have Wi-Fi, but what about wired? If it doesn't, then that is lame because Microsoft touts it's xBox Live service.

Course, by your comparison the Wii is the best choice since it has built in Wi-Fi AND is cheaper than the 360. You could also go add a 4GB, or however big you can get them, SD card to it.


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By mmntech on 3/17/2008 1:16:02 PM , Rating: 2
Anything can be modded but you need the caddy to clip it to the console, unless you can McGuiver something together. I had asked the same question on here a while ago. Apparently the Xbox 360 will only format drives in 20gb or 120gb partitions. Therefore if you have a 60gb drive in there, the system will only be able to use 20gb of it. However, if you have a Premium and want to put your own 120gb drive in there, you should be able to. The problem is that Microsoft overcharges for their official addons.

Of course, none of this would be an issue if they took the DRM off the downloadable games so they could be stored on a portable USB hard drive. There are other, better ways to prevent illegal use. This is directed at all Sony and Nintendo as well. I also agree with some of the others that all consoles should have at least some on board storage at this point. Even if Microsoft had thrown an el cheapo 10gb HDD in the Arcade and Core like the one in the original Xbox, it would have been better than nothing.


By mondo1234 on 3/17/2008 1:52:02 PM , Rating: 2
Why does Microsoft need to be so controlling of their hardware and software?
Sounds like a bad habit they learned from Apple...
(MS fanboys grade me down now.)


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By prenox on 3/17/2008 3:24:18 PM , Rating: 2
The problem with that plan is that the USB ports on the 360 are read-only so you can't write to any USB thumbdrive you plug into it. The only ports that can be written to are the Memory Card slots.


By Alexstarfire on 3/18/2008 12:37:23 AM , Rating: 2
But it's not like that was on accident. His point was that you should have been able to do it in the first place, not to change it to be able to do it now.


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By BladeVenom on 3/17/08, Rating: -1
RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By afkrotch on 3/18/2008 4:29:31 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
by omnicronx
Still more expensive than 0 dollars bulk when you are losing money on every console sold ;)


Microsoft has been making money on every console sold and has been doing so since like 5-6 months after it's release.


By ok630 on 3/26/2008 1:28:52 PM , Rating: 1
Die painfully okay? Prefearbly by getting crushed to death in a garbage compactor, by getting your face cut to ribbons with a pocketknife, your head cracked open with a baseball bat, your stomach sliced open and your entrails spilled out, and your eyeballs ripped out of their sockets. Fucking bitch


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By tubalcain on 3/17/2008 9:56:02 AM , Rating: 2
MS should now make a 20GB standard with the Arcade versions and 60GB with the new PRO SKUs. It would really be interesting to see $279 w/20GB HD and $350 w/60GB HD. Also offer some sort of coupon to Arcade owners who bought one without the hard drive. 20Gb is so 10-11 years ago. For $169 you can get a 200GB notebook drive and yet they want to sell you "their" 120GB for $189. They claim that they test these things but I think it has more to do with slapping an enclosure on it and security. They need to relax and let you use whatever hard drive you want like Sony does. I really feel bad for the developers who need to make games with a 150MB limit. Its bad enough you pay for LIVE.


By FITCamaro on 3/17/2008 10:25:50 AM , Rating: 2
While you are correct they really should drop the price of the 20GB addon drive to about $50 tops. If they make it cheap enough, game developers can more easily require it since Microsoft now lets developers use the hard drive in games. That leads to better games since data can be buffered on the hard drive instead of having to constantly read from the disc in games like Mass Effect.


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By Alphafox78 on 3/17/2008 10:26:32 AM , Rating: 2
Ebay = 20GB for $45
thats what I did at least, as I got the arcade for Christmas.


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By Alphafox78 on 3/17/2008 10:28:07 AM , Rating: 3
What is really annoying is the fact that when you get a 20GB HD the usable space is only 13GB... ?!?!?!


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By barjebus on 3/17/08, Rating: 0
RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By omnicronx on 3/17/2008 11:39:24 AM , Rating: 4
What are you on? You obviously cant touch the 360 paging system, and on a 20 gig unit, about 10 gigs are used for caching, end of story. I am still not quite sure what you are trying to prove here.


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By barjebus on 3/17/2008 12:26:20 PM , Rating: 2
/shrug, I don't own or know really anything about 360's. Yes, it is obvious that you can't edit your page sizes. All I was explaining was why your 80gB drive only shows up with like 76gB on it, apart from the fact that hard drive advertising uses the deceptive 1000kB megabyte instead of 1024.


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By FITCamaro on 3/17/2008 12:59:46 PM , Rating: 2
It's not deceptive. An 80GB hard drive literally has 80 billion bytes on it. Unfortunately though, that does not translate on a computer into 80GB of storage.


RE: How much does a 2.5 in 20 GB Harddrive cost?
By barjebus on 3/17/2008 1:19:48 PM , Rating: 2
It's obfuscation for the purpose of making smaller drives for the same price. I know the whole SI debate junk, but I think it's the stupidest idea ever. Computer's use binary, so why would a hard drive maker, whose product is for a binary system, advertise is something other than binary???

It's exactly like deciding to market a product in Canada using the imperial measurement system instead of the metric one, specifically to confuse consumers, or make information about the product harder to understand. Or marketing something in metric in the U.S....the person buying it wants it in the format they use, and in these cases it's metric for Canada, imperial for the U.S. and binary gigabytes for computer users.


By rdeegvainl on 3/18/2008 9:21:28 AM , Rating: 2
But I get the one liter pops all the time.


By Alexstarfire on 3/18/2008 12:50:41 AM , Rating: 2
I think you guys completely misunderstand a lot of things when it comes to hard drives. As the first reply states, the HD literally has 80 billion bytes, which is not 80 GB in binary. 80 billion bytes = 78125000 KB = 76294 MB = 74.5 GB.

For your 20 "GB" drive this equates to 18.6 GB of actual space. I can't say anything about yours appearing as 13 GB of space since I don't know how the 360 works, but it has nothing to do with page files, that's for sure.

BTW, at least on XP, the max page file is 64 KB. This is really only for HDDs that are going to have HUGE files on it, like DVD files and such. You can get some slightly better read time on it, not sure about writing though. Don't think writing is any faster than normal, but IDK for sure. The reason for this is so you don't have as many page files. I'm sure you know that each hard drive has space reserved for the Master File Table. The bigger the drive the bigger the reserved space, and also, the smaller the file table the bigger space you will likely need.


By prenox on 3/17/2008 3:20:51 PM , Rating: 2
I thought that the 360's unusable space was for that 6gb of space to appear to the 360 like the original xbox hdd while emulating?


By stonemetal on 3/17/2008 1:21:55 PM , Rating: 2
On mine it was 9.9GB Free they load it up with a bunch of junk just like a box from dell. Then they reserve some for system use.


By FITCamaro on 3/17/2008 12:56:36 PM , Rating: 2
Thats because there is space reserved for other things. Backwards compatibility for one.


Microsoft should bite the bullet
By hduser on 3/17/2008 1:18:20 PM , Rating: 6
I think it's a mistake to release the 360 without a hard drive. Now developers have to program to the lowest common denominator which are systems without hard drives. It takes away the developers ability to fully utilize the 360. While the hard driveless system made it affordable, it's limiting those who own hard drives right now.

Microsoft should bite the bullet and slash the price of the 20gig hard drive for the core system owners and let the developers assume there's going to be a hard drive in every 360.




By Hiawa23 on 3/17/2008 1:24:54 PM , Rating: 2
The point is it really doesn't matter what you or I think about whether or not all 360s should have an HDD, MS doesn't think so, so devs will have to work around this & the console has been out close to 3 years, has the best games of the Next Gen consoles, so looks like devs are doing okay, plus the the 360 sells the most software by a huge margin. I agree with many, every console should have a HDD, but gas prices should be $.99/gallon too. It is what it is, & if devs have an issue with this then just put the games on the PS3..


Bionic Commando
By Desslok on 3/17/2008 10:11:26 AM , Rating: 2
I loved this game as a kid! Can't wait to see how it turns out.




Missing the Point
By tirminyl on 3/17/2008 12:15:05 PM , Rating: 2
Most people are missing the fact that for SF2HD, the sprites have been compeltely redrawn and the animation has changed as well. So not only are they including the new redrawn characters, new animations, and new music, online play but they are including the classic characters, levels, and music. There should be no complaints with that.

As far as Bionic Commando, I am not sure what other features it may include besides the SF2HD Beta for the 360.




hard drive
By adam92682 on 3/17/2008 1:10:11 PM , Rating: 2
What's the point of paying extra for a 360 hard drive when you are still limited by people who own systems without the hdd?




sweet!
By omnicronx on 3/17/08, Rating: -1
RE: sweet!
By TerranMagistrate on 3/17/08, Rating: 0
RE: sweet!
By sweetsauce on 3/17/2008 12:53:46 PM , Rating: 3
Huh? First you pull inferior hardware out of your rear, then associate it with limits on arcade games? Only thing "inferior" about the 360 is the processor, and thats arguable. Dispite what sony pr might tell you, i'm positive every developer out there doesn't want to spend countless hours rewriting their code so that they can put some of the graphics processing on the cell, therefore allowing the ps3 can keep up with the 360 graphics wise. Unless you're a developer owned by sony, theres just no payoff in doing something like that.


RE: sweet!
By FITCamaro on 3/17/2008 1:04:40 PM , Rating: 1
For a games console, the Cell is just as crappy a CPU as the one in the 360.

Enough bickering over the hardware. The console generation is here and the hardware is what it is. Both are capable of producing the same level of graphics.

Microsoft does have a disadvantage in that its base system did not come with a hard drive. It has allowed developers to start using the hard drive though for games which means in time, games will use it more and more. So if you want to play them, you'll have to get the hard drive.


RE: sweet!
By TerranMagistrate on 3/17/2008 7:27:58 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
First you pull inferior hardware out of your rear, then associate it with limits on arcade games?


It is too difficult for you to comprehend the concept of less available space for the majority of the installed base (20GB or no HDD at all) thus requiring limits on the size of downloadable content?

Think please.


RE: sweet!
By Hiawa23 on 3/17/2008 1:15:30 PM , Rating: 2
The only bad news indicated here is for Microsoft and their inferior hardware offering (smaller, not standard on all SKUs, proprietary HDDs) where they have to make exceptions on a case by case basis just to keep pace.

Definitely funny, I'd say.

clearly someone who knows nothing of what he/she is talking about. What does the hardware have to do with MS imposing a filesize limitation for those who don't have an HDD? I own both the 360 & PS3, & if the PS3 is more powerful than the 360 it aint by much, infact there are some areas that the 360 outshines the PS3, so please if you know not what you are talking, shhhhhhhhhhh...


RE: sweet!
By TerranMagistrate on 3/17/2008 7:35:02 PM , Rating: 2
So you don't consider HDD of the Xbox 360 a part of its hardware? Well it is, hence the appropriate "inferior" description I had for it. The non-standand minuscule HDDs on all but the Elite bundle makes the overall hardware inferior.

There, I spelled it out for you.


"Nowadays you can buy a CPU cheaper than the CPU fan." -- Unnamed AMD executive

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