Please insert disc: Microsoft Flight Simulator will spread across ten DVDs

Enlarge / Not shown: Four more DVDs of game data, if you can believe it. (credit: Aerosoft)

European players who want to play Microsoft's upcoming Flight Simulator reboot next month will be able to buy a physical edition of the game that is spread across a massive ten dual-layered DVDs. The retail package comes courtesy of the simulation add-on specialists at Aerosoft, which 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 you pay Microsoft [for the digital edition]" will include over 90GB of data, the bulk of which are graphical assets for the airplanes and detailed ground scenery in the game. After installing the game from those discs, players will still be encouraged to download update files to the simulation itself, as well as stream copious cloud-based data like high-res satellite photos, geographic details, and live weather updates for an even higher level of realism.

"This is very much a simulator that depends on the cloud if you want to use it to its full potential," Aerosoft community manager Mathijs Kok wrote in a forum thread discussing the physical edition. "If you use the sim offline you get a world that looks a lot better than [Prepar3d] or X-Plane, but you will miss the full high-def coverage of the world with a photo base and all that goes with it (correctly placed trees, etc.)," he added later.

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