Microsoft Flight Sim’s Physical Release Is Huge

You kids with your new fangled sex robots, PlayStations, and god only knows what else; you have it too good. Back when “rose-tinted glasses” meant enjoying the Luftwaffe bombing your nearest city, Microsoft Flight Simulator was a new thing, and it hardly fit on the storage device it was placed on. More commonly known to you youngsters as “OMG, WTF is that?” the floppy disk was the only way to store information on a disk. A floppy disk is a square thing before we had iPhones and iPods. To install Windows 98 you needed 38 of the bloody things and they only held 1.6 MB per disk.

I’ve spoken on my displeasure of digital media before or rather a lack of physical media for those that desire it. Call me old fashioned all you like, I enjoy putting a disk in the PlayStation and the Xbox if only for the look of wonder on the face of my cats. Yes, it does take up a bit of space in the real world, but at least I own it and can look at it, unlike Stadia.

I also have this inherent thing about downloading all the bloody time as well. Downloading The Last of Us Part II‘s 100+ GB isn’t fun, though neither is the game. What also wasn’t fun was installing an operating system from 38 different floppy disks, however, we’re coming back around to those times.

Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) is the thirteenth Microsoft Flight Simulator game ever to release, ignoring spin-offs and predecessors. Yes, from yesterday’s news on a “boring” simulator to another dad game. You’d think during lockdown I’d have had a kid or something but despite it feeling like a lifetime, the lockdown hasn’t been that long. Though it seems the physical edition of Microsoft Flight Simulator will take a lifetime to install, as it was announced on Monday that the venerable series will release on 10 DVDs. Double-layered DVDs, nonetheless.

Yes, in partnership with Aerosoft, publishers of rival flight sim X-plane, Microsoft Flight Simulator will be released in a boxed edition with a manual and 10 disks. The boxed edition will come in two different variants, as both the standard and the premium deluxe. Meanwhile, those that will be buying digitally can get the middle of the row option with a deluxe edition.

What do you get with the premium deluxe? Going by the press release published on Monday and then comparing that with the last release in the main series, not a lot. 30 planes and 40 airports seem fine at first, but FSX released in 2006 featured 24,000 airports.

It is still quite a few airports but for a series that’s held up by its “realism” of being globetrotting, I could see some being disheartened. I know there is a bit of confusion as I look down the list to see only one airport from Great Britain, a heavy hand-full in Colorado, and several of the world’s biggest airports are locked in the premium deluxe edition. Heathrow and Frankfurt, two of the world’s busiest airports you have to pay $120 dollars for. Not to mention, this physical disc version of the game is only releasing in Europe, so far as we know. It will be interesting to see what actual fans of the series think of all of this.