Wow…18 June 2020…and I just thought of him a day ago…
1 Like
This
1 Like
I heard there will be a more traditional buy-to-play option as well as a fully offline mode without data being streamed to your PC (meaning only a portion of the world will be available at the highest levels of detail). I think that the main thing they’re trying to push for with the streaming model is that they want the whole world to be present at near-DLC levels of quality, which would take so many bytes of data it would be impractical for most users, especially those on console.
You mean there are some with over 2PB of free storage space?
NASA…how do you think they fake all those Mars lander videos… 
If the per-month is purely for global terrain, then I think that would be ok. If you could get say a single continent for the base price, or perhaps a reduced fidelity global model, and then just sign up when you’re into it…like people sign up for HBO now for a couple of months and then cancel when they’ve finished watching the shows they were interested in.
Sign up in Nov/Dec when you have free time during the holidays, cancel in Jan when you’re busy, sign up again in the spring or summer when you have some more time, etc.
I do wonder about the bandwidth required, though. Will it be like streaming a show in SD, or HD, or 4K?
So you’re saying that NASA had 2PB storage medium back in 1969, I wonder how big it was back then 
1 Like
It’s already slated for Game Pass for PC, so we know how it will be handled regarding subscription option.
We don’t know yet what are the options for single time purchase, though every game on Game Pass is purchasable if you don’t want to use Game Pass for some reason.
The bandwith required was already mentioned - 50Mb/s ideally, which isn’t that much nowadays.
That was the moon, not Mars. 
2 Likes
Oops, I misread it as Moon… 
1 Like
Uh oh… mine peaks at 7Mb/s
Ouch… you can still pre-cache the scenery you know you will be flying over.
That’s more than twice what I get on a good day. The only category where my setup doesn’t fall into the ‘ideal’ range.
Same. (Well except that nothing else on my setup is bleeding-edge either.) NJ is a bit of a backwater.
50 is fine…if you live alone.
There are 4 people in my house, all of whom may be streaming hulu or netflix or youtube or playing games.
I have 110 which is usually just fine, but even 4k usually only uses up to 40 or so, and that’s peak not sustained. Streaming usually goes in bursts.
Is average ISP really that slow in US? Here in Poland I got 200Mb/s for a few years now and it’s not even mid range offer. My ISP has 4 offers: 50Mb/s, 200Mb/s, 400Mb/s and 1Gb/s ranging from ~13 USD to ~28 USD per month fee.
1 Like
I think that what gets lost on a lot of people is just how physically big the US is when compared to many other nations. That physical size brings a lot of challenges when it comes to getting cable or fiber installed everywhere. A little over a year ago I was on a 5mbps WISP connection. The ISP upgraded their equipment and so I am now on a 25mbps connection (their top plan). That costs over $100 a month.
2 Likes
Yes. It also costs a lot more to get greater speeds and availability is extremely limited the further away from the big cities you go.
Nice to have that option - in Australia we have a shambles of a national broadband network where large swathes of the connected population are getting less than 25Mbps