Castlevania breaks 50MB Arcade limit [update 1]

by Richard Mitchell { Jan 11th 2007 at 5:30PM }

GameSpot reports today that Castlevania: Symphony of the Night will be the first Xbox Live Arcade title to break the 50 MB size limit (we were wondering how the hell they got the voice acting and audio in there). The limit was imposed so that 360 owners could transfer Arcade games to memory card, allowing them to be played on another 360. Xbox Live's Greg Canessa told GameSpot that the cap is still in effect, but Microsoft can and will make certain exceptions. Citing SOTN as one of the "most popular games of all time," Cannessa felt that an exception was in order. ~~He further notes, however, that the trial version will fit on a memory card.~~

We've blogged about the 50 MB limit before, and it will be interesting to see how (and if) Castlevania will affect future developments on Live Arcade.

Update: It looks like GameSpot got the trial version info wrong. MS informed us (and GameSpot) that it will not fit on a standard memory card.

Tags: arcade, castlevania symphony of the night, CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight, konami, live arcade, LiveArcade, sotn, symphony of the night, SymphonyOfTheNight, xbla, xbox live arcade, XboxLiveArcade

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

J.Goodwin @ Jan 11th 2007 5:41PM

Yeah, the audio alone should take up about 30 or 40 megs. Lots more if they're doing multichannel remixes of the soundtrack. Which I'm not saying they are. I'm just saying they should.

DeadPlasmaCell @ Jan 11th 2007 5:59PM

One of the comments stated that MK3 was 80mb. Wuz up with that?

Bill @ Jan 11th 2007 5:47PM

Screw the 50MB limit.

There's 256MB Memory Cards now. They should just up the limit to 250 megs for an Arcade game, not that every game will have to be even close to that much.

Alex Quinn @ Jan 11th 2007 6:00PM

they updated the gamespot page,
[UPDATE] After the publication of this story, a Microsoft representative contacted GameSpot to clarify one of Canessa's comments. While Symphony of the Night will have a free demo version, it will not fit on the system's 64MB memory unit.

aragorn @ Jan 11th 2007 6:06PM

If you consider lumines WITH it's expansion download, than that game goes way over the 50 meg limit.

I can understand why there is a limit on xbla games, but 50 megs is rediculous, and contrary to prior editorials on this website, I feel that the limit really does hinder the development process. Small Arms & novadrome are really good examples, as they were 'good'... but didn't really reach their potential.

tacklebox @ Jan 11th 2007 6:22PM

5 million people on xbox live and the 50 people that ever use a memory card have to keep everyone else from having the best experience possible. They need to increase the limit and just include a disclaimer that dont buy this game if you ever want to transfer it on a memory card.

Mitochondria @ Jan 11th 2007 7:06PM

I don't know why you guys are complaining, so far all the games that have come out for XBLA have been pretty good even with the limit and it's not like devs can't just simply add more downloadable content to their games. Not only this, but I don't want my hard drive to be eaten up by huge arcade games. MS first needs to address the hard drive size and then we can worry about game sizes.

Deezul @ Jan 11th 2007 6:55PM

I hae a memory card. Don't blame me for not wanting to carry a hard drive between my two 360s for my profile. I just stored it on the memory card and I can put it on either 360, and I'm automagically logged on when I power either one up. For this, it's great. But I still store every thing else on each 360's hard drive. I'm kind of upset that Viva Pinata is hard drive specific, as I'd love to play that on my bedroom 360 as well.

DannyOB@360insight @ Jan 11th 2007 7:03PM

I'm glad to see Microsoft are at least willing to make some exceptions. But i agree with some of the comments above, there is a 256mb memory card out now, it would be more reasonable to limit games to that capacity. Won't someone please think of the developers?
I do like how the limit has pushed the compression technologies though, that's a great bi-product of the limit.

Premo @ Jan 11th 2007 7:22PM

I would seriously give two full gigs to host this epic game on my console, so breaking 50 megs couldn't make me care less.

puddlejumper @ Jan 11th 2007 7:26PM

I'm kinda disgusted. Why? It has nothing to do with Castlevania, but they shoulda broke the limit for Lumines live!

Yes, I'm still angry over that and it will be a tainted spot for me when it comes to Q Entertainment and Xbox Live Arcade.

Now I want some more GoW maps!!!:)

Savant @ Jan 12th 2007 8:19AM

#7, Are you saying you're too lazy to move your 20GB 2.5" HDD from one 360 o the next so you can play Viva Pinata? Was the convenience of not having to carry that HDD from one room to the other REALLY worth $40 + tax?

Anyway, I hope they make exceptions for all the right games. Small Arms could've used an exception.

Insomnious @ Jan 11th 2007 8:25PM

I think developers are doing a pretty good job so far with their 50mb limit.

Perhaps a limit should be placed on original softare only (Small Arms, etc), and let the older games such as MK, Castlevania have their own limit? These games have withstood the test of time so going over the 50mb limit isn't really asking much.