
Microsoft Flight Simulator comes on 10 discs - occamschainsaw
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-07-15-microsoft-flight-simulator-comes-on-10-discs
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robscallsign
I'm an avid flight simulator enthusiast with marginal internet and I think
this is a great gesture by Microsoft.

I live in "rural" Canada, approximately 10 kilometers (6 miles) from a
municipality of 160,000 people, and internet access for me is a mix of LTE and
Satellite, and unlikely to improve (maybe Starlink!). Even limiting myself to
focusing on a single flight simulator platform, Digital Combat Simulator,
downloading and keeping the simulator updated requires planning and timing to
work around my bandwidth cap.

I've been following the development of Microsoft's new Flight simulator, but
as soon as the download size was announced it seemed like a non-starter for
me. But the announcement of a physical DVD changes this, and I'm now quite
interested in their simulator.

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gregjw
Wow, shocking they're actually spending the money to produce a physical
edition.

Good guy Microsoft.

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copperx
Shipping a read-only 128GB thumb drive would be more practical, wouldn't it?

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sempron64
Interesting which is cheaper to produce. I have no idea about wholesale
prices, but let's look at retail to get a rough ratio:

10 DVDs at retail cost $25 [https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-DVD-R-4-7GB-
Recordable-Media...](https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-DVD-R-4-7GB-Recordable-
Media/dp/B003ZDNZT2/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=100+dvds&qid=1594930720&sr=8-2)

So $2.50 for 10 discs.

An unbranded 128 GB usb stick is $16 [https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-
Cruzer-128GB-Flash-SDCZ36-128...](https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Cruzer-128GB-
Flash-
SDCZ36-128G-B35/dp/B00TKFCYP0/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=usb+stick+128gb&qid=1594930866&sr=8-3)

Assuming the box will be about the same size, it's likely that the DVDs are
simply still cheaper.

An interesting lament is that disk media did not really evolve past DVDs to
blue-rays or multi-layer to the mass consumer market, as 100GB blu-ray discs
are actually available (still more expensive per-GB than DVDs!)
[https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-100GB-White-Inkjet-
Printable...](https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-100GB-White-Inkjet-
Printable/dp/B00POY826G/ref=sr_1_1?crid=224DK5Z66DFRK&dchild=1&keywords=100+gb+blu-
ray+disc&qid=1594931021&sprefix=100+gb+blu-ray+disc%2Caps%2C165&sr=8-1)

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colejohnson66
One thing to keep in mind is that those DVDs need to be burned. Retail DVDs
are usually "pressed" (like vinyl) IIRC, which is much cheaper.

