Recently, a demo of Crimson Dragon was mistakenly posted to Xbox Live Marketplace (see previous update). Some additional information has emerged regarding the nature of the demo and the game.
According to XBLAFans, the full game was listed as purchasable for 4,294,967,295 Microsoft Points. That’s a lot of points (US$53,687,091.19 worth!), and it was obviously a mistake. It is unclear whether the full game could have actually been downloaded if the user had paid 4,294,967,295 MSP. Presumably there weren’t any Crimson Dragon fans rich enough to try!
Yukio Futatsugi also reportedly told XBLAFans that the demo was a dedicated demo, rather than a limited version of the full Crimson Dragon game. (Edit: lifelower, who conversed with Futatsugi, believes this means the final game’s data wasn’t included/wouldn’t work even if we could unlock it). Futatsugi has been in contact with Microsoft over the accidental release of the demo.
XBLAFans also reports that the names of some downloadable content packs for Crimson Dragon also showed up on the Xbox marketplace:
Perhaps more interesting to XBLA gamers looking forward to the spiritual successor to Panzer Dragoon Saga than a demo they can’t play was the appearance of a trio of previously unannounced Crimson Dragon DLC packs on the Marketplace. The Accelerator Pack, Boss Pack and Rare Pack accompanied the game demo on its brief tour of Xbox Live on Sunday, but, unsurprisingly, none of them were able to be downloaded. No details about the DLC have been divulged to date.
It is unclear whether these DLC packs will appear in the final game. I hope that any DLC actually adds real value to the game and isn’t merely a way to extract real world money out of players (as with Crimson Dragon: Side Story’s jewel pack system).