WiiWare's restrictive 40MB file size has caused a few casualties in its time, with promising projects making the jump across to other formats where there's a little more room to breathe. While we still don't know much about 3DSWare, other than this fetching (if temporary) 3DSWare logo, a new interview with Nnooo's Nic Watt suggests we may see a larger limitation on the handheld's downloads.
Referring to the studio's episodic WiiWare shooter escapeVektor: Chapter 1, Watt said the game will be released as a bundle on 3DSWare rather than split into chapters. Interviewer Daan Koopman was quick with the follow-up question:
Daan Koopman: But since you want to put all those chapters together is it reasonable to say that the limits on the eShop are bigger than what we have seen before?
Nic Watt: I can't possibly comment on that at the moment, but we had an interesting conversation with Nintendo about it.
With Nintendo promising to improve the eShop we certainly hope an increased file size is one of the planned improvements. We'll keep you up to date.
[source blip.tv]
Comments 57
Fingers crossed. We all remember the heartache of Meat Boy getting canned for WiiWare (Being one of the more prominent examples) so hopefully Nintendo has learned this time around
A tight restriction on the size of WiiWare files is one of the biggest stopping-points for the service. If this does turn out to be true, then we could potentially see games which are bigger and better than what we have on Wii!
Yay~! Can't wait~!
i think nintendo shows cleraly with the 3DS that they have learned from their mistakes.
cant wait for the update in may
Please give more game sizes. I would love to get a game that is great graphics, and lasts a long time.
Maybe we can get meatboy in 3D
Bigger file size is not that necessary in 3DS, considering that handhelds tend to be "smaller" than consoles.
I wouldn't hold your breath on this. Nintendo is odd when it comes to anything that might be beneficial to pirates, space would be one of those things.
That size restriction on Wiiware games is killing the service. Even big companies like Konami had to give us trimmed down sequels because of the stupid limit. Remember the Rebirth games with their lousy 5 stages each? We got a new Contra, Castlevania and Gradius but they were too dang short. Come on give us more than that.
I would've thought a file size larger than 40 MB would be nessesary in order to have 3D.
Yay! I would love me some Plain Sight on my 3DS. =3
Fingers crossed
What is the current DSiWare file size?
It's funny about the file restriction limits on WiiWare, for me it means I don't have to eat into my monthly download as much.
Case in point, Megaman 9 is obviously smaller than 40MB, but on the PSN I believe it was some ridiculous size like 120MB. Devs can also get lazy with deleting unused data and such too.
Not holding my breath. Considering the social aspects of the 3DS have been pretty lackluster, a greatly improved digital platform is not something I would expect.
I want to be proven wrong though.
Nintendo should!
I believe there's no excuse this time, as the main memory storage for 3DS is the SD card, and I'm sure you can plug in much bigger cards, so you CAN up the limit Nintendo.
Yeah, limits can make developers be creative, but it also LIMITS others too. You do want some of those nice XBLA and PSN games don't you Nintendo?
There has been rumors of Super Meat Boy coming to the 3DSWare service, especially since they don't want to release bad games. If this is true, then that explains why we have evidence supporting a 3DSWare release of said game.
The file size limit shouldn't be lower than the size of a normal 3DS cartridge.
I want Nintendo to start releasing retail games for eShop, like Sony has done for PSN.
I don't like this "may be", it should "definitely"!
Sound cool. I just hope that this isn't a April's fool joke
I wouldn't mind retail DS games being released to download on 3DS. It could be done.
It should have a larger cap, since you can boot directly off the SD card.
Actually double the size would probably be enough for a lot of developers to work with. 80MB may still sound small, but it may be just enough for devs to make some clever, innovative games far better than anything on WiiWare or DSiware.
Still hope it bigger, but simply doubling the size seems more likely for Nintendo.
@Zranoll-From what I read on the internet, Team Meat is VERY intrested in bringing Super Meat Boy to the 3DS. But yeah, the file size needs to be bigger if 3DSWare is going to be a success.
I wouldn't be too surprised if it wasn't, maybe this way we may get some games that were too big for the Wiiware limit. I'm having my fingers crossed that Team Meat will bring SMB to the 3DS.
I bet Wiiware was restricted due to the small storage of the Wii. 3DS can potentially hold GBs of data with the aid of SD cards, so there's really no reason Nintendo shouldn't increase the potential size.
An 'interesting' conversation, huh? I hope they were drinking Dos Equis.
Double it. That's what the SD card is for.
Raising it to 100MB would be enough methinks...but how can 40MB be restrictive if you are a developer? I mean...we see people these days make hardware on the 16-bit machines (which provided fewer then 3MB!).
Whilst I agree the limit needs to be lifted a little, these devs should be making good games with that limit like the old days.
@Scrubber: A normal 3DS cartridge is 2GB, which is also the size of the included SD card, and more than the 3DS's internal memory can hold. That would mean games that fill up the entire included SD Card, and that thing has to have other data in it too, namely extra data created by games for stuff like Streetpass and Spotpass. I don't think it would be a good idea for games to be the size of 2GB. No matter how much I would like to buy games and download them straight to my system, it doesn't seem like it would work. It works for Sony because they put lots of memory on their systems so they can hold many games. Most people probably aren't going to upgrade their SD Card on their 3DS, so they wouldn't be able to download 2GB games when the SD Card is the 3DS's biggest resource for data outside cartridges (The camera even saves pictures to the SD card by default).
i dont see much problems else than for indie developpers who might not have all the experience to make very compact and efficient games. i mean... we saw long and huge games on the snes and theyre tiny ... heck, emulated they take 1 or 2 megs. 3 sometimes...
a good game developper shouldnt have any problem with crmaping a game for 3ds under 40 megs.
now, we only need to wait for it to be accessible. the 3ds is restricted for its launch. they better not screw the web browser...
Hopefully the eStore doesn't release 2 good games and 500000 bad ones like DSiWare. Don't fail epicly, please Nintendo. & Let all 3DS owners start off with points on the eStore like you did with the DSi! Would be awesome because I have no extra money to spend on points and what-not. All I can say to everyone here is, cross your fingers for a better shop and faster browsing on it. I always felt on DSiWare that it took almost a minute to load up one game. I'm glad they didn't take on the eStore going in on the 3DS with release, because that shows they are working harder to make the shop better for us. This is why I love Nintendo. They take there time with things.
Gameloft announced a game for 3DSWare. That's a good indication that the size cap will be raised quite a bit. Most of their games are well over 100 MB.
Hallefreakinglujah
Haha yeah, right. More storage. APRIL FOOLS! You can't fool me.
I hope they announce the limit soon, i'm still waiting for confirmation on which SD card size is better, the 3DS holds 300 different titles, so dependind on the size limit i'm going to select the SD card that can old as much games without getting any free space not utilized.
I use a 8GB SD on the Wii, because the limit is 240 different titles (20 pages by 12 titles each) so if you assume the max size is 40MB (320blocks) but on average (on my case between demos and games) is goes as far as between 24MB and 32MB, so 240x32= ~7GB.
If you got more than 240 titles you'll need a different SD anyway...
Please be true
bigger games are always a good thing!
@pixelman Gameloft's released loads of stuff for DSiWare though, that's got an even smaller limit (16MB isn't it?)
The WII had a 40MB size limit for it's digital games.
DSiWare though unconfirmed had around 20MB size limit.
This was unconfirmed but none of the game sizes past 20MB.
Though most DS games were between 64-128MB, with some of the huge ones getting as big as 512MB.
I think a limit of 100MB would be perfect. It's big enough so they can cram content in while still being able to put in some decent graphics.
Knowing Nintendo though, I'm sure the limit will be 40MB.
@41
Nintendo pretty much promised to provide a better online service with eShop. I doubt they'll stick with 40MB. Highly doubt it.
Knowing Nintendo, they learn from their mistakes usually to then come back to make it better.
40mb is a terrible (and stupidly arbitrary) limit. It should be 256 at a very minimum.
The 3DS should have had a larger internal memory. I would suggest 15 gb would be nice.
(crosses everything possible)
maybe a meatboy 3ds
@Nintendoftw Memory comes in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, and so on. It would also increase the cost of the system.
Anyways, I think Nintendo should have at least allowed the 3DS to accept SD XC cards. SD HC cards can only hold up to 32GB and that could become a pain.
@47
I sort of disagree. Odds are I'll shell out the money for at least a 16 gb card, but I really don't see much use in using anything more than that. My 4gb card has plenty of DSiware crammed in there and 2gb of music, with plenty of room to spare for 3D photos. The next step up from 32 gb is 64, and that's just overkill in my eyes.
32GB could be a pain?!?!?! jeebus! you plan to back up your PC on 3DS?
I really want to Use the 3Dwares already lol i want more games on the Ar card
@Superducky If they allowed you to download 3DS games which are 2GB then you could only hold 16 on a 32GB card. There's also 3D videos/pictures, game data, and music that would take up more and more room.
Where did the development skills go? I mean serioulsy, 40 MB not enough for a flashy bitmap jump'n run?
"3DSWare File Size May Be Bigger Than WiiWare"
Lets hope so. The wiiware filesize is one of the things that does annoy developers a lot.
@ #41 "hardy83": "Though most DS games were between 64-128MB"
That is way too high. Most of the DS game were between 16-64 MByte.
From my understanding, it's really easy to switch SD cards on the 3DS. Just copy/paste. So hopefully it won't be a problem to upgrade my SD card later.
Does this mean Nintendo Fans could possibly have another shot at getting Super Meat Boy? I sure hope so, that game is wickedly fun!
Team Meat got a 3DS dev kit, but if you look at their blog, they plan on beginning work on a 2nd game very soon. They're also working on the mac version of Meat boy
That said-- quit it with the size limit Nintendo. I'll buy a bigger SD card if needed
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