and if there's any reason my broke ass would want to especially buy the more expensive one

follow me if ur cool
and if there's any reason my broke ass would want to especially buy the more expensive one
Different games iirc.
X is like 10 years old, 40th anniversary is from... 3 years ago?
(so 40th anniversary is shinier, "better" map of the world, and has more planes and other flying contraptions without needing DLC I think?)
somehow X is in fact 17 years old now. it released in 2006. we are ancient.
flight simulator x is nearly 20 years old (released in 2006) and is significantly less sophisticated than the current release, both in terms of graphics and overall game feel (physics, etc). it also, somewhat obviously, doesn't have nearly as many newer planes, though the mod scene would probably fix this. X was also widely considered the series' weakest, from what I know, and you'd likely be better going for 2004 if you're okay with a much older title.
by current release here, 40th Anniversary is just a bundle release of "Microsoft Flight Simulator," the series relaunch that was released some 2 or 3 years ago. it regularly gets new content, has a very robust mod scene, and is just overall shinier/newer/better.
that said, i would argue here that even 5 dollars is too much to pay for a 17 year old flight simulator that would likely be comically easy to pirate.
this all makes sense! i figured it was something like that, but the naming schema confused me, plus X seemed like it might be a kind of light version + buy everything as dlc based on the store page. i AM thinking about grabbing some of the older titles just out of curiosity, but yah i'd probably go for one of the ones i can get for free