European players who want to play the next Microsoft release Flight simulator restarting next month you will be able to purchase a physical edition of the game that is distributed on ten massive two-layer DVDs. The retail package is courtesy of the simulation plugin specialists at Aerosoft, who announced the publishing partnership with Microsoft and developer Asobo earlier this week.
That physical package, which Aerosoft says should cost “very close to the price it pays Microsoft [for the digital edition]”It will include over 90GB of data, most of which is graphics resources for aircraft and detailed terrain terrain in the game. After installing the game from those discs, players will continue to be encouraged to download update files to the simulation itself – stream abundant cloud-based data such as high-resolution satellite photos, geographic details, and live weather updates for an even higher level of realism.
“This is very much a cloud-dependent simulator if you want to use it to its full potential,” wrote Aerosoft community manager Mathijs Kok in a forum thread discussing physical editing. “If you use the sim offline, you get a world that seems lot better than[[[[Prepare]or X planeBut you will miss the full high definition coverage of the world with a photo base and all that goes with it (trees positioned correctly, etc.), “he added later.
Including all of that data in a physical package “would not mean 10 DVDs but thousands of DVDs,” said Kok.
However, despite all that exclusive data online, Kok added that “the boxed version makes it possible for people with a slower internet connection to install the sim without downloading the ‘content’. Hence, the simulator it’s 100% the same in every way. The boxed commercial version only offers you a nice box, a printed manual and about 90GB that you don’t have to download.
The past and future of record juggling
The rise of popular downloadable gaming services like Steam means that disk-based releases for major PC games have been a relative rarity for years. Many titles that get a “retail” release these days end up simply sending a box with nothing more than a download code inside.
But Kok still thinks there is an audience for this particular product. Please note that in many parts of the world boxed [flight sim] plugins still work very well, “he writes.” The boxed version of X plane We handle it extremely well, and we are very proud of that. How we learned that Microsoft Flight Simulator it was a very large product (over 80GB), we knew there would be a lot of people who could use a boxed version. “
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This shot seems very familiar to me … because it is the same airfield from which my previous flight took off, as shown in the new MSFS.
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This, if you’re wondering, is what the real thing looked like in front of my lap. The rest of this gallery is made up of MSFS images.
Sam Machkovech
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Is Seattle over there to the northwest?
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Yes, it is, and we can see it better by placing the camera in a third-person view.
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Use the buttons of the game to look around.
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More images of a virtual takeoff from virtual Renton.
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They sent me a sequence of another virtual flight buzzing around the Seattle area. This is identical to what I saw in my gaming session.
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The abundant details on the coast are critical in recognizing where you might be flying. What is the coast? That is important in a region where there are millions of peninsulas.
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Incredible edge details, all paved with Asobo Studio’s metadata use to represent your own 3D geometry and buildings.
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The flight continues.
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City data isn’t 1: 1 with real life, but some of the benchmarks are remarkably accurate. This is not just a satellite scan hitting the ground below.
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MSFS you don’t waste time with your volumetric cloud system.
In the United States, at least, an Ars analysis shows that average home download speeds have largely outpaced the increase in game download sizes in recent years. But that may not be the case worldwide, especially in remote areas where fast broadband is not as prevalent.
For users who may not have DVD drives in their PC towers these days, Kok said Aerosoft plans to offer a “cheapo” USB DVD drive through its online store. “I got one, under $ 20, and it works brilliantly,” he said. And while the same 90GB package could easily fit two Blu-ray discs, Kok says that’s not on the cards for this title; While “DVD drives are becoming rare on computers, Blu-ray drives have always been rare,” he said.
Flight simulatorThe release of nine discs dates back to the era of CD-ROM gaming in the late 1990s. Back then, pre-rendered games like Cleft would be packaged on five CDs, while massive PlayStation role-playing games like Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy IX they spanned four separate discs. Before that, the Amiga version of Monkey Island 2 it was distributed on 11 floppy disks that had to be exchanged frequently during the game.
These days, massive console games like Final Fantasy VII Remake and The last of us: part 2 They are seeing physical releases that include two Blu-Ray discs. Retail versions of games on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 may be forced to span even more discs – both consoles adhere to the Blu-ray standard rather than push for some kind of newer, denser optical disc format (although both systems will support 4K UHD Blu-ray video, whether or not games can be shipped in this higher capacity format has yet to be stated.)
That assumes, of course, that physical disks continue to exist as more than just a small niche in the overall gaming market. With Capcom recently announcing that 80 percent of its full game sales are digital, it’s no wonder that both Microsoft and Sony are experimenting with diskless consoles, just as Sony’s Kaz Hirai predicted ten years ago. That’s not a great sign for struggling physical game retailers like GameStop, which may face a world of nothing but zero-disk games relatively soon.
