Other Elements That Play in Microsoft´s Favor:
There are two other elements that make it difficult to predict how fast game sizes will increase, and they both play in Microsoft´s favor. XNA and Procedural Synthesis.
* XNA:
XNA is a development tool that Microsoft introduced in 2004. XNA helps developers build games more quickly and more efficiently. XNA represents a refinement of everything that has been learned developing for the Xbox, which has an architecture that is very similar to the Xbox 360. As a new development tool, it represents a change in the way that game developers might program, and how it impacts on filesize is an unknown factor.
* Procedural Synthesis:
Procedural synthesis is has a great deal of potential to effect the Xbox 360´s filesizes. In short, procedural synthesis is a way of producing graphics that Microsoft has pushed heavily with the introduction of the Xbox 360, including specific hardware functions designed to do handle procedural synthesis. It uses algorithms to produce high quality graphics out of extremely small files. For the best example of what procedural synthesis can do, check out .kkrieger, which means Warrior in German. This first person shooter is built almost entirely from procedural graphics, and as a consequence occupies about 96 Kilobytes of space. Yes, the game responsible for this screenshot here, here, and here could fit almost 14 copies on an old-fashioned 1.4 megabyte floppy disk.
You can download a beta version of this game from the developer´s website here, but be warned that it´s fairly buggy, and meant more as a technology demonstration than anything else.
Procedural synthesis is the reason that Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has such brilliant forests. Oblivion makes use of a technology called SpeedTree, a middleware product for procedurally generating forests and foliage. You can see other examples of their software in screenshots :
http://gamesfirst.com/displayImage.php?articleID=1132&image=2006_01/1137623168_full5.jpg&date=1137623170&caption=%20|%20Xbox%20360%20|%20Xbox%20Games%20Grew%20Only%20Slightly%20Over%20System%20Life-Cycle;%20360%20DVDs%20Are%20Big%20Enough%20|%20%20|%20XB360,&imageID=3041
http://gamesfirst.com/displayImage.php?articleID=1132&image=2006_01/1137623159_full4.jpg&date=1137623160&caption=%20|%20Xbox%20360%20|%20Xbox%20Games%20Grew%20Only%20Slightly%20Over%20System%20Life-Cycle;%20360%20DVDs%20Are%20Big%20Enough%20|%20%20|%20XB360,&imageID=3040
http://gamesfirst.com/displayImage.php?articleID=1132&image=2006_01/1137623150_full3.jpg&date=1137623153&caption=%20|%20Xbox%20360%20|%20Xbox%20Games%20Grew%20Only%20Slightly%20Over%20System%20Life-Cycle;%20360%20DVDs%20Are%20Big%20Enough%20|%20%20|%20XB360,&imageID=3039
You can download a beta version of this game from the developer´s website here, but be warned that it´s fairly buggy, and meant more as a technology demonstration than anything else.
Procedural synthesis is the reason that Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has such brilliant forests. Oblivion makes use of a technology called SpeedTree(http://www.speedtree.com/), a middleware product for procedurally generating forests and foliage. You can see other examples of their software in screenshots:
http://gamesfirst.com/displayImage.php?articleID=1132&image=2006_01/1137623189_Max_river04.jpg&date=1137623191&caption=%20|%20Xbox%20360%20|%20Xbox%20Games%20Grew%20Only%20Slightly%20Over%20System%20Life-Cycle;%20360%20DVDs%20Are%20Big%20Enough%20|%20%20|%20XB360,&imageID=3043
http://gamesfirst.com/displayImage.php?articleID=1132&image=2006_01/1137623201_Oblivion_09.jpg&date=1137623204&caption=%20|%20Xbox%20360%20|%20Xbox%20Games%20Grew%20Only%20Slightly%20Over%20System%20Life-Cycle;%20360%20DVDs%20Are%20Big%20Enough%20|%20%20|%20XB360,&imageID=3044
http://gamesfirst.com/displayImage.php?articleID=1132&image=2006_01/1137623178_idv.jpg&date=1137623179&caption=%20|%20Xbox%20360%20|%20Xbox%20Games%20Grew%20Only%20Slightly%20Over%20System%20Life-Cycle;%20360%20DVDs%20Are%20Big%20Enough%20|%20%20|%20XB360,&imageID=3042
Normalement tous le monde devrait a peu pres comprendre l´anglais 
