Size matters

So Microsoft is still forbidding developers from making Xbox Live Arcade titles any bigger than 150 megabytes, according to a story up now at 1up.com.

"It [the 150MB cap] really lets you focus on the innovation," said Katie Stone, senior games program manager and founding member of XBL Arcade.

That's great and all, but why then are Xbox 360 demos regularly allowed to balloon to one gigabyte or more?

I'd bet that the newly released BioShock demo ends up being downloaded more often than just about any Arcade title not named Geometry Wars, and that sucker clocks in at around 1.4 gigs.

If I had to guess why Microsoft continues to squeeze the XBLA titles, I'd say it's probably because those are revenue-generators, and so the company wants to make sure that even gamers who only have Core systems and a memory card, rather than a hard drive, can buy and download. Plus, smaller file sizes minimize the cost of the bandwidth needed to deliver the games as digital downloads.

But the demos are free -- for now, anyway -- and Microsoft doesn't really care if hard drive-less owners are shut out, since the demos aren't generating any revenue.