I'm not sure what sim you would get for $0.5 million. In the mid 90s, my then employer bought a sim for a Boeing widebody and the price was around $10 million for what was at the time state of the art. Yes, computer prices have come down, but I would be amazed if they had fallen that much.
Yes, manufacturers charge a huge amount for data packages - not a rumour at all.
Worth noting that it takes as much computer power to drive a good visual system as it does to model the aircraft's systems, performance, and handling.