Subscription

[Dominique_K 10,133]

I see a lot of negativity about subscription and streaming. How many of us don't have a music streaming app. ? Do you buy CDs or even buy and download tracks ? 

Spotify : I download the client and stream down the music I am in the mood to listen for 10 €/month.

FS2020: I may have to download the core and stream down the scenery I am in the mood to fly. What's wrong ? 

Edited June 18, 2019 by domkle

[Airboeing 87]

I don't have a problem with either as long as the pricing is comparable to updating major versions of Prepar3D or X-Plane, but let's see which business model(s) will be available for MSFSXX.

[Dominique_K 10,133]

14 minutes ago, Airboeing said:

I don't have a problem with either as long as the pricing is comparable to updating major versions of Prepar3D or X-Plane, but let's see which business model(s) will be available for MSFSXX.

Quite right, the devil is in the details but I don't see anything in principle to oppose the idea.

[ca_metal 2,015]

I would rather have everything on my local storage, just because I fear we can face performance problems (loadings and high latency) due to the internet connections.

Having said that, I'm all ears to hear what they have to offer. If it's good enought, I would subscribe for sure. 

But we have to remember nothing was said by Microsoft until this point, so we don't even know if they plan to offer it as a subscription service. I still think everything will be storaged locally, like any other of their games. We don't know the orthos coverage yet, it might be smaller than we think, hence not needing large storage space.

[MikeT707 1,181]

I totally support streaming as any content could be updated all the time. What I mean by that is if I fly in a particular area one day, it could be updated behind the scenes by the content creator the next day, therefore the next time I fly in that area I would have updated scenery. Another scenario could be that the scenery content creator may make an update to tessellation to render ground detail with higher resolution or perhaps more efficiently. That update would be available the next time I sign in and steam scenery content. Conversely, if I had to download everything to my hard drive and an update was made, I may have to manage another download and installation or perhaps remove all scenery content and re-download it again.

Streaming allows for constant updates without user download and installation efforts. Think of how many issues exist when P3D releases a minor version. This would be eliminated with a streaming approach as would the need for a user to own a high amount of hard drive storage, which can be expensive.

[Noooch 1,084]

By 2020, 5G will be on the market via Wi-Fi (octobre 2019 in France). So streaming cannot be a problem for anyone anymore.

[Heimi 91]

How said that MSFS 2020 is for streaming? 

The game pass is not intended for being a subscription for DLC, but more like a flatrate for games.

You pay 10 bucks per month and can choose from hundreds of games to play. Rather than buying 1,2 or 10 games for 50 bucks each once.

There is no need to get the game pass to get MSFS, you can also pay once and have it. The game pass ist just a general subscription fee to all content from MS games.

Edited June 18, 2019 by Heimi

[vortex681 806]

3 minutes ago, Noooch said:

By 2020, 5G will be on the market via Wi-Fi (octobre 2019 in France). So streaming cannot be a problem for anyone anymore.

Widespread 5G coverage in the UK isn't expected until 2022 or later. Plus, if it's anything like the current 4G packages, it will come with a limited amount of data per month.

[Paraffin 2,197]

2 minutes ago, Heimi said:

How said that MSFS 2020 is for streaming? 

The game pass is not intended for being a subscription for DLC, but more like a flatrate for games.

It's not about GamePass, it's about the Xbox Cloud service coming this October. Here's one description from a site:

Quote

 

Project xCloud is the codename given to Microsoft's forthcoming cloud gaming platform that is planned to be a complementary service to its Xbox One and forthcoming Project Scarlett games consoles.

It is a streaming service, in that all games will be hosted on remote servers and live gameplay video will be sent to a compatible device over the internet. In return, controller codes are sent in the other direction so, for all intents and purposes, it feels like you are playing a game loaded on the device itself, whether it be a smart TV, PC, tablet or smartphone.

 

We don't know if MSFS will use some or all of that capability. Maybe the client running the main sim on your computer, with just the scenery streaming and buffered. The speculation about streaming is based on the level of scenery detail shown in the introduction trailer, with an assumption that it's way too much data to store on the user's hard drive. Of course the entire world can't be mapped that way when there isn't enough satellite and OSM data, so maybe only certain areas will show that much detail. We just don't know yet.

If it's streaming that much scenery every time you fly, a subscription would be a good pricing model for Microsoft to cover the bandwidth and server farms. But who knows? We have no info about this yet, we're just guessing about what they might be planning.

[Montie 124]

5 hours ago, domkle said:

Do you buy CDs or even buy and download tracks ? 

 Yes I do.

[Dominique_K 10,133]

 On a side note, I still have somewhere (or at least I think I do) the lovely metal box ACOF came with. I doubt that FS2020, will come to us the same way 😂.  

 

[snglecoil 1,828]

3 minutes ago, domkle said:

 On a side note, I still have somewhere (or at least I think I do) the lovely metal box ACOF came with.

 

Same here! I can't bring myself to get rid of it!

[Greggy_D 935]

3 hours ago, Heimi said:

There is no need to get the game pass to get MSFS, you can also pay once and have it.

MS has not stated this.  The purchase model is still unknown.

[ca_metal 2,015]

3 minutes ago, Greggy_D said:

MS has not stated this.  The purchase model is still unknown.

Well, based on their other games, you can buy them all, not needing to have the game pass.

There's a bigger chance to keep like that than forcing people to subscribe something to use it.

[G-RFRY 1,705]

There can be an upside MS can keep your sim updated and repaired at the click of a mouse.