I don't think there's a need for another class.

Saying that Portal doesn't fit XBLA is saying that Portal is too good for it or XBLA games aren't good enough to be amongst Portal. That's nonsense to me.

PAAOtRSPoD:Episode One will probably be released in XBLA(there's no reason not to) and Portal could very well be a $5/400MSP(or even $2.50/200MSP, but I don't think MS would be that generous) XBLA game.(the price taking in count it's lenght) A price like that could be attractive even to people who already own The Orange Box.

It could even feature extra content, exclusive to the XBLA version.(or maybe free for XBLA, paid for disk... or the other way around)

There is a two fold issue here:

• 1: When does MS make exceptions for certain games on XBLA that are above the 150MB?
• 2: When does MS make exceptions for certain games on XBLA that are above the 1200MSP (aka $15) waterline for price?

This is the main reason why I've always wondered if they will create a third pillar of downloadable games. Pillar one was XBLA which is supposed to be for smaller downloads, lower priced, and indie friendly. Pillar two is Xbox Originals which can be large downloads, start at $15, and are previous retail releases. Pillar three would be full-scale retail games costing $20 and up (to start) with no download size restrictions and likely be composed of very recent releases.

If this third pillar existed (or there was a clear way for MS to integrate those ideas *into* the idea of XBLA without every smaller game dev bitching about their size restrictions) and MS could balance between all three then we could avoid losing games like Eternity's Child or Portal or ANYTHING for that matter.

I hope they do *something* about it...but I'm not sure what exactly that will be. Especially since they are actually creating their own third pillar of downloadables with "Community Games". So...fourth pillar anyone?

LunarDuality -- "Indie is where it's at!"

First, I think the guy from Valve is Doug Lombardi not Guy. I think their should be more tiers for downloadable games on the 360. We already have Arcade and Originals but I think we should have at least one more for retail games that are just digitally distributed and older games that may not have appeared on the Xbox before but don't fit that XBLA mentality of quick pick up and play games. That way they could still have their small XBLA games that fit on a memory card and can compete with Sony on the AAA releases like Warhawk. I think if they had this service available when Shadowrun came out more people would have been willing to buy the game if it were digitally distributed and at a lower price point. People seem more accepting of things like only a small number of modes and maps for a downloadable game than a fully priced retail game.

MS has made the whole live service exceedingly convoluted at this point. While a third pillar of downloadable content fits the current design structure it really makes no sense in any other way.

Although the real question is not where to put games such as Portal, but why are rules bent for some a rigidly enforced for others? In the long run I can only see this hurting the service overall. If a developer decided that they could not fit the size limitations and are unlikely to receive a variance then they may choose a different release method (or platform entirely).

If the limitations are based around the memory card issue, then it is time to scrap them for the good of the platform. The core system idea was a silly one to begin with and considering the size of most downloadable demos and originals an artificially small size limit seems rather ridiculous.

Lol... I didn't notice my name mistake. For some odd reason I was thinking of Guy Lombardo when I wrote the article.

Digital Distribution for retail games would fall under Xbox Live Marketplace. This is because there are many different restrictions placed on XBLA and Retail games, and in order for a full Retail game to be released, it would have to be released under a different architecture than XBLA. There is precident for this, as Tomb Raider Anniversary was released as DLC and also released as a stand-alone title. Samurai Warriors 2: Extreme Legends was released as DLC, but is a stand-alone game on its own (though may not be in the US for X360).

Some people started a petition about this.

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/portalxbla

Has there ever been a successful online petition? Without a true and accurate way to verify identity it carries the weight of no one.

Besides, The Orange Box already exists on the 360.

I know, I was just showing you guys.

It's a shame Portal was rejected for XBLA, when in my mind it would be a perfect fit on the service.

Not only is it a high quality title, but fun to play, and perhaps one of the funniest games I've played in a long time.