XBox or PC ? Not sure this is the issue as both are mentioned.. The key word seems to me XBox Pass. Looks like a subscription game on cloud. MSFlight on cloud. Third party devs will be delighted (yes, I am sarcastic).

If this includes the whole world , this will be a great infinite flight replacement at best. If they make it as open and modable as FSX/P3D, and if they support addon development companies this will be a great replacement if we can get the depth we demand!

 

But who who am I kidding... lightning doesn’t strike twice. 

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by UAL4life

6 hours ago, BillS511 said:

Is it a game or a simulator? That is the question.

A game where you load it, select your aircraft and just flight?
Or is it a simulator? Plan your flight, check weather, prefight, program GPS/FMC, communications with ATC, etc. In other words a simulator for RW pilots and hard core simmers.
If it's the latter then I'm all in. Otherwise I'll pass.

The 3 sims that I use are games and sims by your definition.

P3D, X-plane and Aerofly , Aerofly is not for hard core simmers I guess, but has a very nice graphic engine.

6 minutes ago, UAL4life said:

If this includes the whole world , this will be a great infinite flight replacement at best. If they make it as open and modable as FSX/P3D, and if they support addon development companies this will be a great replacement if we can get the depth we demand!

 

But who who am I kidding... lightning doesn’t strike twice. 

You mean the 10-12 other entries into their MS Flight Simulator series the became the de facto flight simulators and spawned the most widely supported version available today, also built on Microsoft's work. So lightning struck 10+ times.

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by Sethos1988

9 hours ago, Woozie said:

MS isnt going for a quick cashgrab, thats for sure

And why is that 'for sure'?..

Microsoft particularly hasn't a good track record regarding their Flight Sim products, compared to others.
In the past they released a version and if you were lucky 1 patch after a year, fixing only a few issues.
After that it was: 'good luck, this is all you gonna get'. 
Also their 'Flight' release was abandoned after a year or so, just like that.

 

This might work out very well for us as Laminar and LM also see this.

They need to increase features and performance at a much quicker pace. Especially LM regarding the P3D engine...

 

@Sethos1988 Yeah I see your point of view and I don’t necessarily disagree with it, but I was solely looking at the amount of depth we got that really took off with fsx, no?

@GSalden Laminar for sure! But I doubt Lockheed as I truly think people don’t realize that they are there as a purely systems approach and everything you saw in the trailer is not in Lockheed’s interest. 

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by UAL4life

Unless you are using Level D Simulators for your career purposes it is nothing more then a Simulator, or Game, or Hobby for your entertainment purposes. Always has been that way but some like to pretend it is more then that for some reason. 
 

8 minutes ago, GSalden said:

They need to increase features and performance at a much quicker pace. Especially LM regarding the P3D engine

Why is that? LM already has released much more updates and patches then MS in their entire FS range.
See my comments above.

Edit:
LM has (in my view) a whole different approach towards flight simming.
For them it is not a commercial product, but a utility/tool to provide to their customers.
For M$ (and Laminar etc) it is a commercial/consumer product, so different rules apply.

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by Egbert Drenth

Great news indeed.

Technology wise this looks like the Google Earth flight simulator concept - streaming their own Bing data, using Azure AI to build the scenery from it. They have been promoting the Azure AI thing on the MS developer pages for a while now, often using videos about recreating historic buildings and landscapes.

If you want an impression of what that can be like, fire up Google Earth, start their flight simulator at Salzburg using the GA plane. Turn east after takeoff, fly over the fortress, then turn due north and just keep going. Many communities in Germany rejected Google taking pictures at ground level, so there is no more 3D data when you cross the border. This is where some sort of AI mechanism would come in handy, to create a semblance of things that you don't have data for.

Best regards 

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by Lorby_SI

9 minutes ago, UAL4life said:

@Sethos1988 Yeah I see your point of view and I don’t necessarily disagree with it, but I was solely looking at the amount of depth we got that really took off with fsx, no?

And you're definitely getting that depth because let's be honest, the default depth in any of the old and current sims is pretty shallow. This is all about creating the platform and the development kit, so the third party developers get enticed. It looks like we're getting the full fat simulator platform like FSX.

You know how Elon Musk is trying to go to Mars, right? Now imagine tomorrow NASA announces that in 2020 they're going to Andromeda Galaxy. To me, this looks something like this. It would be super cool if NASA actually goes to Andromeda though. I'm not negative here, I'm just having a very hard time to process what I saw in the video.

5 minutes ago, 0Artur0 said:

You know how Elon Musk is trying to go to Mars, right? Now imagine tomorrow NASA announces that in 2020 they're going to Andromeda Galaxy. To me, this looks something like this. It would be super cool if NASA actually goes to Andromeda though. I'm not negative here, I'm just having a very hard time to process what I saw in the video.

Why do you think the simulator looks like an impossible goal? Is it because of the graphics?

This level of detail in computer video game graphics has long been achieved and running this level of fidelity can be done with reasonably priced consumer parts, you don't need a super computer.

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by IG_

29 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Great news indeed.

Technology wise this looks like the Google Earth flight simulator concept - streaming their own Bing data, using Azure AI to build the scenery from it. They have been promoting the Azure AI thing on the MS developer pages for a while now, often using videos about recreating historic buildings and landscapes.

If you want an impression of what that can be like, fire up Google Earth, start their flight simulator at Salzburg using the GA plane. Turn east after takeoff, fly over the fortress, then turn due north and just keep going. Many communities in Germany rejected Google taking pictures at ground level, so there is no more 3D data when you cross the border. This is where some sort of AI mechanism would come in handy, to create a semblance of things that you don't have data for.

Best regards 

I actually think you're right. This Simulator addition, could be some kind of Bing Maps Simulator, with some planes (some propeller and jets apparently) added to it. It will be streamable, with the heavy number crunching being done, by utilizing their Azure cloud infrastructure. It looks like an enhanced version of Google Earth Simulator with added weather (have no idea of whether it's live/dynamic or static weather, though)... 

It does look very impressive, and I would probably purchase it... But if the above holds true, it doesn't bode too well, for 3rd party addons, to be honest.

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by Anders Bermann

Whoa I just had to do a double take (make that a triple actually) when I saw this headline.  Great , another fake new simulator link only to be shown it really is MS.  Beautiful trailer, but so many questions. Do you think they have learned and are willing to make it modular to expand to the 'hardcore' flight sim community without the tricks of closed DLC and open to 3rd parties.   Because thats the only way this title survives.  You can market this all you want on xbox and even if it is pc, if its just more of a game without any sort of systems level sophistication with full WX, AI etc like we have now in p3d or XP, then its another loss.  Hopefully they been watching Prepar3d's progress over the years, and the fail of Dovetails attempt.  You can learn alot from those 2 paths alone.  

Im cautiously excited about it, but this will be quite the conversation piece in the coming months. 

Edit:   Just signed up the insider program. Perhaps I missed this info in the thread.  Seems there are 3PDs.

"Join your fellow aviation enthusiasts to get exclusive behind-the-scenes updates from developers and partners, gain access to preview builds, and advanced content updates before the general public"

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by HighTowers
Missed info