Gabriel has continued his descent into Skylanders-inspired madness, and he would be farther down this particular hole if he could find a store that actually had product on hand. Apparently this "physical DLC" approach is working for them: whenever he goes somewhere to purchase additional toys, the place looks like it's been reclaimed by nature.
We were discussing the distinction between this and the Catwoman DLC that apparently has people up in arms. At least there, you've got a path to the entire game with a retail purchase. You put in your code, it grabs a couple hundred megs, and you're done! With Skylanders, everything is literally on the disc; you just need an army of little totems to reveal it, one tablespoon at a time.
How fascinating is that "HD Textures Pack" for the Xbox 360 version of Battlefield 3? In 2007, when early versions of Modern Warfare had that foreboding "storage required" emblem we hoped might represent a platform coming to terms with reality, this is the kind of thing I hoped for. It didn't happen, not yet, but I'd lo9ve for this to become a trend.
Every now and then, it's been possible to have a local data cache: Microsoft's own Forza 3 allowed for a megainstall of its automotive roster, an in Earth's forgotten history the bulk of the Final Fantasy XI client lives on there. You can choose to "install" any disc on a 360, of course, but that's not what we're talking about here: I don't mean identical data. I mean more data, a concession that DVD is becoming almost... quaint, like transmitting information on a necklace of inscribed coins or baking it into cakes.
What you understand when you look at a like for like comparison video isn't that you've got a good version made better with an installable pack. What you actually have is an unacceptable, borderline Satanic ocular penetroid brought squealing into the realm of retail acceptability.
(CW)TB out.
