The upcoming release of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night as a downloadable Xbox 360 game is noteworthy for a few reasons. Beyond adding the highly regarded game to the system's catalog, it breaks the mold of an Xbox Live Arcade game in several ways.
Symphony of the Night is not a "small-scale" game in any sense of the phrase. It's also based on an existing home console game, a distinction on Live Arcade only shared by the upcoming Alien Hominid HD. Finally, Konami has confirmed to GameSpot that the final size of the Symphony of the Night download will surpass Microsoft's 50MB size limit for Live Arcade games.
Microsoft's group manager for Xbox Live Arcade, Greg Canessa, told GameSpot why the company instituted a 50MB limit in the first place.
"By keeping the file size small for Xbox Live Arcade games, gamers can put one or more games on a memory unit and easily bring those games to a friend's house to share and play," Canessa said. "Small file sizes also mean fast download times, making it possible to download and begin playing any Xbox Live Arcade game within one or two minutes."
Even though Symphony of the Night will exceed the size limit, Canessa indicated that there is still a 50MB cap on Live Arcade games, although Microsoft is willing to make exceptions to the rule. "If any games do exceed 50 MB, it's for a very specific reason that would ensure that the gameplay experience is the best it can be," Canessa said.
