Quote: "This is false. As far as I know the max size was 64MB over a year ago. They've lifted that restriction when Castlevania SOTN was released on XBLA."
This isn't to say anything against what he said being false, but XBLA title originally could only be 58MB in size.
It was extended to 150MB back in March 2007 to coincide with the new 128/256/512MB Memory Unit releases.
The reason for this was entirely so that people who only had the Core (now Arcade) could still download any of the titles on Memory Units alone; given purcahses are download locked to the Unit it is downloaded to unless you have attached the purchasers Live account to that given peice of hardware.
Microsoft have since lifted the restrictions to 480MB for XBLA.
This said this is ONLY for Live Arcade titles, and not titles released across the rest of Live Marketplace. So the original comparison between the whole of PSN (which has no "Arcade" section as such, specifically aimed at small fun arcade titles) against XBLA is a bit silly on the whole.
Quote: "Its not the normal downloadable content I am referring to. Its the fact that for some reason MS won't allow Epic to let people download user generated content, i.e. the user made levels for UT3. Its definitely not Epic's fault as they have done this for the PS3 without any hassle at all - in fact Sony welcomed it. After all, the more free content you can provide, the more games and consoles will be sold and the more players will be online. Everybody wins.
Epic also released the utilities to convert user created UT3 maps to the PS3 format for free and you can stick them on a USB memory stick to play them on your console. I would say they are going out of their way to try and make it easy for the players."
Unreal Tournament 3 has yet to be released for the Xbox 360, and I have no idea behind the reasoning to why this is. I highly doubt you do either though; and I'd further doubt this is due to "Microsoft's restrictions on user created content"
You are entirely free to share Microsoft XNA titles with anyone who has an XNA Creator Club account; which will be free in the coming months. Halo 3 also has a HUGE community based upon sharing screenshots, movies and levels created with Forge.
Although you're limited without subscription to Bungie (NOT MICROSOFT) on how much space you have to share with people, there is no limitation on how much you can store on your own HDD.
Forza Motorsport 2 and Need for Speed ProStreet both have just mind-blowingly large online communities for sharing car designs; which can be up to 100MB EACH in size depending on the complexity of the upgrades and paint-job. As well as unlimited screenshots and movies you can share over Live and from the Forza 2 website itself.
Quite frankly, you say there are limitations and Microsoft are deliberately trying to stop user-content; if anything they're going the opposite route. Personally I do hope they introduce an approval system to XNA titles when they add the sharing system on Live Marketplace itself, because I like the idea of not downloading buggy pieces of crap with zero quality to them.
Quote: "I would hope that any developer who is not capable of writing and testing their own online system would just use a pre-existing library to do the job. Online play is such is an important part of modern gaming I am sure there are buckets of premade systems available. I would expect there to be some libraries supplied with the SDK as it certainly contains some Network Platform (NP) utilities for things like accessing and editing your friends list from within games."
Xbox 360 Software Development Kit and XNA both have built-in libraries for networking along with helper libraries so that you don't have to recode network stuff from scratch.
All of which can be use with Xbox Live features if you choose, but it is not required; the SDKs themselves will provide the guide support as standard without doing anything, if you choose though you can alter how the guide is accessed and what additional options you'd like to have.
That is all built-in support, not something each developer has to make themselves like they do currently on the Playstation 3. With a standardisation this also means that less issues will arise from game to game doing the same tasks. Leaving developers to actually concentrate more on the actual multiplayer aspect of the game than features games expect.
If a developer runs out of time, atleast on the 360 those features are all there as standard... on the Playstation 3 they will often opt to drop them as "non-essential".
Quote: "Personally I don't consider achievements an important feature as its really just for bragging"
Prior to playing games with achievements I would've said you're right, but I've found myself over time becoming more and more in to the whole achievement stuff.
I won't say it's not about being able to brag a little, but they actually make games more fun and interesting really. Especially games like Portal for example (which btw I only have on Steam, but they now have achievements), where you can complete it within an hour; but the Valve guys setup the Achievements basically like a system of "Try and pull this one off!" stuff.
After completing the game I took another 6 or so hours trying to get the achievement to destroy all 30 cameras in the game. Some of their achievements are extremely fun to try and get... it's like on Episode 2 there is another to killing a hunter with it's own weaponry; which I would've never thought of if there wasn't an achievement.
On Steam they're certainly not for bragging rights as you can't even see what others have in them yet. It's more about personal satisfaction, and things to attempt once you've completed something and might become bored running through the same story again. After playing games with achievements for a while you certainly miss not having something to aim for.
I mean before I'd just try to complete a game. Now I have little landmarks, even for the next time through the game.
Quote: "Well, you haven't convinced me about this:
[quote]free alternative which is as good as Live."
[/quote]
Steam for Windows, is an excellent free replacement.
You have friends, messages, community groups, an online store, achievements, ability to swap between any game installed without the need for ANY discs if it's bought through Steam.
You can install digital backups of physical games sold over Steam.
Download performance can vary but generally good, and will background anything.
Most games come with free tools and SDKs for modifications, which also will appear and run through Steam. It's compatible with ANY installed game, even if it's not on Steam; and you can use it's friends features by simply adding it to the list and running via Steam itself.
Steam is on-par with Live, and is free. However it is only on-par as both systems still have their downsides.
Steam is better at somethings, Live is better at others. Both have a few features the others don't just yet; but they kinda compliment the features they lack.
Something I do like about Steam though is Games for Windows will ALSO run while it is active. So you can have both systems running.
For example I have Universe At War on Steam, and while talking to my Steam friends; I can also talk to those on Xbox Live as well as use the Live or Steam services for Servers plus earn Achievements on both.
I see a few games in the future doing this when published via Steam.
