Topic: Miyamoto: "eShop won't have restrictions"

Even XBLA has a size limit (4 GB, the max size of the Ram I believe), so I'm sure the 3DS will have one, too.

Are downloads RAM limited? Because the 3DS obviously doesn't have gigs of RAM. I believe it has 128MB max.

the wii has 88 megs of ram ;-;

@Mickeymac: Nope, XBLA has a 2GB limit that Microsoft said cannot be raised. Also, the Xbox 360 doesn't have nearly that much RAM to begin with; it actually has half a gig. Obviously, download limits and RAM are not hard-linked, at least not equally.

It appears I misquoted. Sorry about that.

Well, if we're making bets on the size limit, I wouldn't go any higher than 250MB. At max. I'd say it's likely to be less.

Hopefully this also means there won't be any price restrictions. As in the 200, 500, 800+ point requirements from DSiWare.

It's on like Donkey Kong.

All the way to tha early morn'!

didn't ninty trademark that?

I heard they were in the process. Else they would have sued Oxygen for airing a girl from The Bad Girls Club who said that this season.

Good.

It's worth mentioning that the PS3 does not have download size limits.

So it can indeed be done. Not necessarily practical to be downloading 10GB games, but it's possible.

You're only restricted by how much space you have available. Which is the case with Steam downloads on PC

It's also probably worth mentioning that Sony loses money on PSN and a likely reason for that is their hosting costs. Having a size limit(regardless of actual size) can help save money.

Loss leading. It's not necessarily a bad thing.

It only works if you're actually leading though. Arguing that PSN is offering a superior experience would be tough. I'd even go as far to say that the advent of PSN Plus(is that the right name) is an admission of the failure to properly capitalise on PSN.

If Nintendo were going to follow either of the other hardware maker's online strategy it should be MS.... but really Nintendo, Sony and MS should all be copying Valve.

But those are full PS3 games, correct?

That would involve Nintendo requiring a paid subscription. I don't think Nintendo has any plans of following anyone else.

@HolyMackerel: That would definitely be ideal. We've all heard the horror stories of Nintendo screwing up sales potential for WiiWare games due to price structuring...I would certainly hope they'd learn their lesson on that eventually.

@Oregano: I'd say this article makes a good argument in favor of Sony's approach with PSN. Considering time frames and the cost or lack thereof to simply play online, it seems to me that Sony's on track to be MORE profitable than Xbox Live. Of course, the current PSN outage is seriously hurting that possibility.

@lz: The largest files on PSN are generally downloadable versions of retail PS3 games, yes. That said, there are PSN exclusive games that are actually larger than XBLA's file limit...R&CF: The Quest For Booty, for example. And then you have the HD remake of Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, which was canceled from XBLA due to file size restrictions but kept on track for PSN (though recent developments show it coming to XBLA with highly compressed and therefore inferior audio/video to make it fit).

Of course, no sane person would argue that larger files automatically mean better games. But the potential is there. And of course, everything is relative. A 2 gig download on 3DS would seem silly given the storage capacity of the retail game cards. But a lousy 2 gigs on a Blu-Ray seems a lot more wasteful. And of course, 2 gigs doesn't go as far on PS3 as it would on 3DS anyway, so you could probably get the same relative size/quality game on 3DS for less than half the storage, taking into account what the system is capable of. Those high D's don't come in small packages, y'know.

Not a chance. XBL is still ahead and has been profitable for several years. PSN would have to make up for several years losses to be profitable. In the same way that whilst Sony actually makes money on the PS3 now it's still $6 billion in the red and will never be profitable.

Also as I pointed out earlier that's included PSN Plus which was a change of strategy for Sony. Which considering they doubled their revenue and were still in the red shows how bad they were doing before hand.