Nintendo has announced that the file size of Xenoblade Chronicles 3D for Nintendo 3DS is twice the size of the handheld's stock 4GB MicroSD card.

A notice posted on the game's official page by Nintendo UK says that those intending to download the game will need to buy a card with more storage space. Alternately, users can avoid the issue altogether by buying a physical copy of the game.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3D general coordinator Hiro Yamada that porting the game from Wii to 3DS was a challenge as the handheld has lower specs than the home console.

“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 said Xenoblade Chronicles 3D would take around 100 hours to complete.