Nintendo has revealed that the mandatory download size for the digital version of their upcoming 3DS game Xenoblade Chronicles 3D will be twice the size of the handheld’s stock 4GB MicroSD card.
The news was posted on the game’s official webpage by Nintendo UK and says that those who intend on downloading the game will need to buy a larger card if so. The solution to the problem is simple though if you don’t want to put the money down for a bigger sized card: buy the physical copy.
Hiro Yamada, the game’s general coordinator, said that porting the game from the Wii to 3DS was a tough challenge for them as the handheld’s specs were lower than the home console’s.
“On top of this, implementing the 3D effect, which requires double the image processing, made it even harder,” he said. “However, we used a lot of tricks technically, as well as in our working methods. We achieved the 3D effect while retaining an almost equal graphical quality, except for the resolution.
“Without the higher performance of the CPU on New 3DS compared to Nintendo 3DS, we simply wouldn’t have been able to port the game. The New Nintendo 3DS also comes with the C-Stick and ZL & ZR buttons, which was really helpful as we could just use the Wii Classic Controller control scheme without any changes.
“As stated, simply porting the game itself was difficult. In porting the game we had to use a lot of technical tricks to get the immense landscapes to show both seamlessly and without performance drops. Dealing with the 3D effect was an incredibly difficult challenge, but something we deemed necessary to provide players with a sense of immersion in these huge landscapes.”
Yamada also added that Xenoblade Chronicles 3D will take around 100 hours to finish.