When Microsoft originally announced the Xbox Live Arcade, it began with a limitation - file size. All original Xbox Live games had to fit into the 64MB memory card in order to be allowed onto the service.

This lead to some games being a little gimped - Worms for example could not fit all the weapons that were available in it's PSP counterpart, nor could it have all the sound banks. Games like Cloning Clyde also had to do some weird things in order to get them to fit within the size limit.

But the cap has continued to rise since. From 50 to 150, and now 350MB. But that hasn't stopped a few games from being exempt. Last year's hit Portal: Still Alive clocked in at around 700MB, while last week's Watchmen: The End is Nigh clocks in at a whopping 1.3GB.

Ars technica's Ben Kuchera recently spoke to Microsoft about the issue, citing that they "struggled" with the issue and eventually allowed the developer to do as they wished. Another note not spoken about is something else Watchmen is missing - leaderboards. End Is Nigh is the first Xbox Live Arcade title to not have any leaderboards whatsoever. No time based leaderboards, nothing.

Leaderboards have been in every other Xbox Live Arcade title since the beginning. Besides the obvious high score mentality, they also help you view which of your friends have also bought the game. From what I can tell it's a mandatory inclusion for Xbox Live Arcade titles, as specified in Torpex Games' postmortem of Schizoid. For Microsoft to also ignore this means WB had quite the pushing power for this game, which is not surprising.

Upcoming titles such as the Sam & Max Seasons will almost certainly be breaking the bank for file size, and I wouldn't be surprised if Defense Grid: The Awakening does too.

I recently upgraded to a 120GB Hard Drive because my 20GB was quickly running out of space. What say you readers? How much space do you have left, and can you afford to take out a gigabyte of your hard drive for Watchmen: The End Is Nigh and other large titles?