I was wondering, what could be in this "Development Roadmap" item. What does a partnership constitute? Normally, you would assume that in a partnership the partners contribute to each other. So who would be partners in this respect? Is it only 3PD developers? This CNN article (that someone else posted today) mentions: "But that would depend on partners too -- aircraft manufacturers, data providers, third-party communities, the simmers, and Asobo, ...". So what could we perhaps see in this series of announcements?

Could it be that these high-fidelity airports (LAX and SFO) that we have seen so far, were contributed by 3PD developers and that they are only included as a "lite version" and you can buy and unlock the full version? In this way the P3D developer helps Microsoft as they will not have to create these airports, and including these airports helps the 3PD developer to gain an early foothold into the new market for FS 2020 addons.

The same could hold true for the Airbus that we saw in the initial trailer that some people attributed to Aerosoft. This could be a simple version that helps making up the aircraft library in the simulator and helps the developer to gain an early foothold into the new market.
Hopefully this will not be the situation, and we get these all included in the sim. It was not yet fully revealed what will be included in the sim, but when you think that "Imaginesim" asked whether that LAX airport would be included, they did not get an answer and so they dropped their project, whether there could be something behind that?

 

 

My guess is that it at least includes an aircraft addon and probably an airport addon. My hope is that it also includes some regional (even if small) scenery, but it's probably too early for that.