Microsoft's "biggest" game has the worst pre-install offering I've seen — gamers won't escape these gigantic day-one downloads - Technology News

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is available for preloading on PC and Xbox before release, but the install size doesn't make sense.

What you need to know

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, an upcoming game for Xbox and PC that simulates trips around the entire globe, will be released on November 19.
Available as a standalone release and as a part of Game Pass subscriptions, the game offers users a chance to pre-install its files before launch.
Currently, a pre-installation amounts to no more than 330.09MB on Xbox and 12.9MB on PC, far below the 'approximate' 50GB listed on its store page.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is the company's latest aeronautical sim game, due for release tomorrow, November 19. It expands on the 2020 release with a new career mode, various challenges, and world photography tasks. Otherwise, it's a continuation of the all-encompassing globe simulator, which occupied at least 150GB of storage on Xbox and PC for the base game thanks to the ultra-realistic aircraft and environments.

That's a big chunk of your hard drive seized for one game, as understanding as mega-fans might be since every aspect of the game has been upgraded. Thankfully, for the retail and Game Pass launch of this new edition, Microsoft already offers gamers the chance to "pre-install now (and) play on day one" and alleviate the hours of waiting for downloads on release when its servers are commonly hampered by slow speeds caused by overloading.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 pre-install size on Xbox Series X

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 pre-installs no more than 330.09MB on my Xbox Series X.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 details on Xbox Series X

Developers Asobo Studio expects the game to be approximately 50GB when installed.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

At least, time-saving incentives were supposed to be the appeal of this pre-loading incentive. However, the pre-install filesize amounts to a measly 330.09MB on my Xbox Series X. Compare that to the 50GB of 'approximate size' reported in the game's details, and I'm barely 0.64% of the way to installing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. On the PC side, the Xbox app reports an even more laughable 12.9MB with a pre-installation: that's 0.02% of the game.

Are these tiny modern pre-installs just bugs?

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 store page on Xbox Series X

The Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 game listing shows a 330MB pre-install size on Xbox.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

Installing Microsoft Flight Simulator's 2020 release has rarely been a streamlined process for me for the four years since it launched. It often limited download speeds and ignored the potential downstream of my service provider, with the same gripes following me from Xbox to PC via Game Pass Ultimate. I once spent an entire workday downloading the game to find that it had only reached around 75% completion by the time I clocked out.

So, imagine my joy when I saw that Microsoft offered users the chance to endure the lengthy installation process before the day of play, especially when Flight Simulator 2024's bandwidth demand peaks at 81GB per hour. Downloading as much of the game before launch day might alleviate the data stress on those with bandwidth caps, but it was soon dashed when I saw how little of its files I was actually loading up.

Unless Microsoft has found some fantastical way to compress its digitized version of planet Earth into little more than a few hundred megabytes, something is definitely wrong.

It's a disappointing trend that carries across to STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl, by far my most anticipated game of 2024, but similarly stricken with an unusable pre-install size of 10.12MB on PC Game Pass (confirmed by devs). At least if I had Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024's farcical 330.09MB, I could download and play a pixelized spiritual offshoot, ZERO Sievert, and pretend that I had early access to something beyond empty archives.

Unless Microsoft has found some fantastical way to compress its digitized version of planet Earth into little more than a few hundred megabytes, something is definitely wrong. Nevertheless, I'm still looking forward to playing the game with some of my favorite flight sticks that I already tested with Microsoft Flight Simulator's 2020 release. Stay tuned for my impressions of the 2024 upgrade as soon as I can download it.

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Microsoft's "biggest" game has the worst pre-install offering I've seen — gamers won't escape these gigantic day-one downloads

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is available for preloading on PC and Xbox before release, but the install size doesn't make sense.

What you need to know

Are these tiny modern pre-installs just bugs?

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