I thought you could already play portal?

orange box?

or is that a different game?

microsoft is stupid for keeping the size limit on these things. i think the hdd is required, they can still sell the core/arcade without an hdd and label it for casual gamers, but it's beginning to get into the way of many other things now (GTA, XBLA size issues, etc)

but if forcing hdd means hdd install like the PS3, then i'm all for microsoft keeping the current constraints. I can't stress enough, a console game SHOULD NEVER require an install. this isn't a PC!

I guess Microsoft doesn't like money that much after all.

no, see Valve is offering all of the games separate from the box now; trying to get the last bit of residual sales.

But most likely the reason is that MS demands a certain chunk of sales on the XBLA that Valve isn't comfortable with.

some people like me just want portal or tf2. You can purchase them separatly over steam. same kind of idea would apply here.

So... valve. PSN portal it up? probably not since those duders friggin hate the ps3 but oh well. Not like I care since I already got it off steam.

@Dakobah: i think he means that they want to sell it as a standalone for people who dont want to buy the orange box

@Dakobah: well yea but there are those who want portal alone...

@diablofreak: sony doesn't force installs though, developers make that choice and it should be about the choice.

I'm not sure why MS is so caught up on this standard of not selling all consoles with hard drives. People will need them eventually and I don't think it'll affect their sales THAT much.

Seems like pride is keeping developers from XBLA. Bite the bullet and unclench that fist microsoft; a bigger slice of a small pie is still a small slice.

I am pretty sure they mean *only* Portal, and while I think it would be a great idea, I can see why they are not allowing it.

I think it has a lot to do with the "if we let them do it, we have to let everyone do it" situation.
Its also a slippery slope type of thing for gaming size, as it would be really easy to fill up one of the older 360 hard drives. But then it IS M$ and making reason for people to pay for bigger hard drives could only be a good thing from their point of view.

Microsoft is friggin' Whacky. Still say it was a dumb move to not make HDD standard on the 360. XBLA file size restrictions would probably have been a non issue.

@Dakobah: you are correct but on the PC side of life Portal can be downloaded individually for cheap. dude yo gotta play that game. It's short but sweet.

I wonder if its more of a technical issue (what with the file size restrictions) then a marketing one.

A portal based MP games would be fantastic.

...and of course, PS3 is a waste of everybody's time. Ask Infinity Ward and Rockstar.

@Dakobah: It's the same game, but Portal was kind of the unexpected hit of Orange Box and given the length of the game, having it as a standalone XBLA arcade title makes sense.

@TaggarT6: Apparently they tried making a MP Portal mode, and it wasn't nearly as fun as the idea had sounded. Apparently really wasn't that special. So I'm content for thme to leave it as the nigh-on perfect little product it is.

That would be nice... but I wouldn't mind buying just Portal on disc for my 360 for the same price as the PC stand-alone

The way MS keeps shooting itself in the foot this generation its a miracle they're still able to stand at all.

I can help but feel the writing's on the wall for my favorite green machine.

This size limit thing is starting to become ridiculous. I understand what Microsoft is trying to do and I understand they don't want to open the floodates for XBLA games to balloon to crazy sizes but come on. It's officially starting to do them more harm than good.

Do they really think the people who STILL don't have hard drives are getting online and downloading a shit load of games? They're probably not online at ALL! If the memory card thing is the main reason than just label games that go over the limit. Call them "Hard Drive Only" or "Gold" games or something. If a company wants to release it as such and is ok with losing out on the "memory card" customers than why stop them?

i think it's more based on how stupidly small the 360s HD actually is. Portal is about 2gb if i'm not mistaken (though i'm sure on the 360 they could compress some crap), so that would be a decent chunk taken up for one game. And if you factor in that other companies would want to jump at higher sized downloadable games, then your 360 drive would be filled in seconds.

The thing is what.. 20gb? And how much of most owners are already filled with the 'required' system data, and save files?

That's kinda weird considering Samurai Warriors 2: xTreme Legends is available through live.

Release it exclusively on the PS3 then..

Why would people not want to get the Orange Box!!! TF2+Portal is worth the cash right there add in HL2 +ep1 +ep2. JUST get the Orange Box!!!

That kinda sucks, I've heard so many good things about portal, but I'm not willing to buy the orange box. There's not much point as I've played HL2, E1&2 already :/.

@Desfunk: The thing is, I'd be more than willing to upgrade to the higher hard drive (120gb) if it wasn't £120! That's bloody ridiculous. Either let me use my own (cheap) external HDD, or charge me a reasonable amount.

@Pombar:

I think the basic concept could still work if limited in short doses. For example, keep it team based where each team only has one portal gun. Or for death matches, each player is allowed only x amount of portal setups.

You could even introduce new weapons to reduce the effectiveness of portals. Such as, a portal-shift gun which would allow you to move another persons portals to another location. Or Portal-EMP grenades which instantaneously close all portals when activated.

Really the skys the limit.

@Xagest: That's classified as an expansion pack (just like Oblivion's Shivering Isles) and thus circumvents the XBLA rules. It's a system riddled with holes, sadly. :(

are they just trying to run the 360 into the ground? because that's what it feels like lately...

Hey Valve..Give Sony a call.
No size limits and free advertising.;)

How many ways can they piss away their giant next-gen lead? Oh, so many ways.

This is why console downloads won't work. MS wants to keep it a subscription based, rental affair while players want to download and OWN the game.

This kind of thng is going to continue to happen because Microsoft got greedy about their need to have everyone use only THEIR HDD. Since they are overcharging for their 120GB right now, how can they slash the price on that one then release a larger drive for the some price point? A price point that even if they made it a 250gb is still a rip-off because you can buy that laptop drive for half of that.

$189 for a 120gb storage device is freaking stupid. Almost as stupid as a $99 wifi adapter that is how old now??

Memo to M$:

Here are step by step instructions on how to fix this whole storage/XBLA mess.

1. Kill the Arcade sku. It is a waste of everyone's time.

2. Kill the 20gb add on drive. See #1 for reason why. Cut the price of it to $49 to clear out what you have already produced.

3. Cut the price of the 120gb to $99-$109. A far more reasonable price point and you will still make money on it.

4. Release a 250gb for the $179 price point you love so much. People will pay it even tho they are getting ripped. (Just look at how many WiFi adapters you sell for the price of a Draft N router.)

5. Kill the DL size limitations on XBL. Devs are happy. Gamers are happy. The world is happy.

6. ???

7. Profit.

to me, that would have been the ideal distribution of portal. hell, i basically bought the orange box for portal (at least as of now, since i've barely played half life and haven't touched tf2).

not only would it sell like proverbial 'hot cakes' but it would also push the brand and probably sell more copies of the other parts of orange box to people who wouldn't have considered it otherwise.

One game from the DLC or all of them on one disc... Hmmm...

@rup3t: But it's always been easy to fill up the HDD with free demos.

So why wouldn't they want you to fill up your HDD with games you paid for? The logic makes no sense.

Are there no more "hip" people heading up the XBox 360 department?

Is it all just suits who are completely out of touch with reality now?

Put it on PSN you ***holes.

Why Microsoft still has a cap on the downloads is anyones guess, especially since most of the DLC on live is over 500+MB. Why do the arcade games have a cap, it doesn't make sense, heck RSV's first map pack was about 750MB and many demos are over 1.5 GB. So why have a cap in one section of live (the one that needs the cap removed bad), it doesn't make since.

@DevonTheDude:

I agree. I does name make any sense that there's a cap on Arcade games when many demos, map packs and movies are way more larger in size. It's fucking ridiculous, and the Xbox Mircosoft team needs to pull their heads out of their asses.

I love my 360, but it certainly does seem like they are willfully derailing the train. The Core/Arcade was a miserable idea and should clearly be pulled from the market - beyond the lack of a large enough hard drive, they are already facing a storage issue in the future with using DVDs instead of Blu-Ray.

I anticipate I'll be switching over to a PS3 sometime in late 2009 (assuming my 360 lives that long) - hopefully they'll have the price down and the online play vastly improved.

@ Mohrdikai: Ever since my Elite red-ringed in early March and M$ refused to transfer my licenses from my downloaded content I've decided not to buy 360 games/services anymore. Games I'd normally get on the 360 will now be purchased on the PS3, GTA IV being one of them. By the time the 360 DLC is available new games I'd rather play will be out anyways.

@Mohrdikai: how is this shooting themselves in the foot?
anyway, why was it not pitched to sony?

@Mr.SithNinja: The only problem with that idea is that after spending so much cash, will there be any left to buy XBLA games? Also, the price of XBLA games would increase as well. With more space comes more development costs, and that means that the games will also cost more. The best part about a size limit is that it keeps the prices low enough that people will take a chance and buy that obscure game, such as Portal.

There is some middle manager at Microsoft with a bunch of fingers pointing at him today.

LOL!

when the price of the arcade falls below the price of the wii then youll understand why theirs an arcade sku... the arcade sku is made to compete against the wii.. thats the only reason its their as a dirt cheap way into XBox gaming.

as for the arcade limit ... it is stupid ... but its very simple to resolve, have game downloads check the size available before they download if they have a 256mb card and the game is 512mb then say "this game is too big for your available space please buy a hard drive or larger memory card"

Christ, would it kill this guy to even mention the PS3. The 360 is coming dangerously close to triple-digit sales in Japan and is set to be overtaken by the PS3 in all other regions and developers still act like it doesn't exist.

@Mr.SithNinja:
I was about to post a response to this but um, I couldnt type up anything that didnt look like a blatant Ms/xbox360 flame.

before the 3 year warranty the core existed so people could replace their RRoD consoles and use their old hard drives. They aint never gunna drop the price on those storage units because well, too many people buy them. Just look at how many idiots got rid of their 360 for an Elite because it was black, hada bigger hard drive, and they thought it had better graphics lol. (I should say I worked at a Gamestop when the Elites came out, and yea... thats why my idiot customers wanted one).

@diablofreak: but the 360 basically is a pc, just an old one. Seriously mandatory hard drives might suck, optional is always better, but if enabling the use of a hard drive to significantly further the console gaming experience leads to dev making bigger and better games for us, why not be for it? It's not like you are installing something on a PC and have to worry about "do I have the latest DX drivers?" or "how many times can I install this, where's my cd key, blah blah". you pop in the disc and press X? Then wait. And if you cant wait 5-20 minutes to further the cause of gaming well then sir I dunno what to say to you. I mean go make a sammich, drop a duece, read some Kotaku, Play some DS/PSP while it's installing. /shrug

It would be better if they put Portal Flash on the XBLA.

My friend made that picture!

[www.brickshelf.com]

Good for Microsoft! It seems that Valve is always looking for exceptions in the name of their creative superiority. Valve is certainly free to release the game's constituent parts as retail releases. However, this is certainly NOT the purpose of the arcade, and the policies that this decision derives from are not 'absurd' as the author has suggested (arcade entries and demo offerings constitute two unique revenue streams and should not be used as comparabl