If Bing didn't exist - would MS have still made a new sim?

[ThrottleUp 617]

I dont own the sim yet but having spent hours watching YT vids and reading these forums I was just wondering about something. 

Its almost like MS created this amazing virtual Earth first and then having realized its potential they stuck a flight sim onto it. Would that go some way towards explaining some of the bugs/missing features that I see other simmers mention in numerous threads?

Which lead me to my other train of thought. If there was no such thing as Bing or any other satellite photo database online would we still have seen a new sim from Microsoft?  I guess what Im getting at is was there a desire at MS to release a new sim all along or was it solely the tech of satellite-photos that drove them towards this? 

No doubt it looks fantastic and I marvel at all your screenshots and uploaded videos, even though theres bugs they will be ironed out in due course. I look forward to getting it one day once I have a capable system. 

[jay907uk 21]

Well I feel I can't believe they have released this and missed of Airports. Especially the likes of Stuttgart and Istanbul and the others that have been mentioned.

In my opinion not very good customer service, when this happens.

Jason

[sweetmusic 9]

Bing maps and the use of AI algorithms certainly saved developers a lot in terms of time and manual labor.

And don't forget the positive impact made by high-speed networking.

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by sweetmusic

[ShawnG 1,823]

I think Plan A was Microsoft Flight... release a sim in dribs and drabs during development.  Then the sim community exploded in rage at not wanting to fly a Hawaiian GA sim.  (For the record, if you did want a Hawaiian GA sim, it was actually pretty good)   I think that the realization that they could leverage the mapping potential for other things is what sold MS on releasing a sim again.  The interesting part is that they did sort of subcontract FSX out to Dovetail and FSW while they were secretly working on this.

[Dominique_K 10,133]

Hi Nev

The new sim is the convergence of many technologies. It has been partially constructed on the processing of a huge quantity of data - the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Big Data which include sat image but much more - by an Artificial Intelligence running on a network of 20K computers  (or virtual machines).

Bing is the Microsoft portfolio of imagery and related services. Not more. It is a commercial venture. It does not own satellites or aerial photography aircraft or a fleet of ground vehicles. I mean, without Bing, the sim could have been still possible. Some say (of course, I don't believe them)  even better. 

Asobo has been working with MS on other projects like Hololens for years (eg Machu Pichu tours). They knew each other well.  

The modelling of Earth was not pre-existing and the sim just "pasted" on it. As far as we know, I would say that the the new sim was rather an "excuse" to start to model Earth with bigger things in mind. Huge markets behind. Even if FS20 was not a success (it will, but suppose...), I'd say the investment was worth it for Asobo and MS. Just a hunch.

The bugs : this is a huge undertaking. I suppose that the team was a little optimistic to be able to deliver in the contractual time frame (2020) something which was unprecedented. This is a well known temptation in any large project, in any domain, to aim too high considering the time frame.  

[LHookins 3,102]

3 hours ago, ThrottleUp said:

Its almost like MS created this amazing virtual Earth first and then having realized its potential they stuck a flight sim onto it.

They stated as much in one of their early videos.  They had a virtual reality tourist destination (Machu Pichu) and wondered if they could turn it into a whole world flight sim.  

You can try the result and see for yourself if they succeeded.  

I mean, in what other game or simulator anywhere can you expect to find your own house... in the default scenery!? 

"Give me a big enough database and a way to display it and I can give you the entire world." -- modern update of Archimedes' famous quote.

Hook

[kaosfere 3,115]

Honestly, I think it has less to do with Bing and more to do with Azure.     It's having a massive cloud computing infrastructure along with the accompanying networking capability that has made what MS has done with the scenery possible.  In a way, I feel almost like MSFS is an advertisement for Azure, especially with the way they've advertised the presence of Azure in its making and delivery.    Geo imagery could be had elsewhere, but the costs of supporting the server-side of the simulator would be unbearable at any retail price for a company that didn't already have the resources that MS has with Azure.

[frieone 37]

 The only problem with seeing you own house is it is not there lol.

 I did a flight after i installed it and come to find out the scenery data is at lest 4 years old for the for the city of Houston Tx.

I took of from kwdh turned to fly over my little league park and I fond scenery with a building that is not there and a car I owned, I have not owned since 2018 in the scenery. Mite want to cross check some of the views that you see with google.

Other than that it is not a bad sim  just needs a lot of work and time will tell if they are up to it.

Regards Ted

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

The ortho is extremely compressed and the bandwidth usage is very low, wouldn't break the bank of other companies, but many wouldn't be able to do it for free on an ongoing basis, they'd need to sell it for about $5 month per person, then they'd be fine other than the licensing issues of some Ortho.

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by SceneryFX

[LHookins 3,102]

25 minutes ago, frieone said:

I took of from kwdh turned to fly over my little league park and I fond scenery with a building that is not there and a car I owned, I have not owned since 2018 in the scenery.

Oh, the irony, the irony! 😄 

"I flew over my little league park."  Have you ever been able to do this before in any game or sim? 😄 Two years ago if someone had told you that park would be in the next flight simulator in the default scenery, would you have believed them?

Hook

Edited August 22, 2020 by LHookins

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

Well of course, considering I've played around with some 6cm imagery as much as 5 years ago, where I could make out golfers on a golf course and almost tell their hair color, I am pretty sure I would believe them that I could see a car.

 

[shawty1984 106]

43 minutes ago, kaosfere said:

Honestly, I think it has less to do with Bing and more to do with Azure.     It's having a massive cloud computing infrastructure along with the accompanying networking capability that has made what MS has done with the scenery possible.  In a way, I feel almost like MSFS is an advertisement for Azure, especially with the way they've advertised the presence of Azure in its making and delivery.    Geo imagery could be had elsewhere, but the costs of supporting the server-side of the simulator would be unbearable at any retail price for a company that didn't already have the resources that MS has with Azure.

This, 100% this. I think what people need to understand is flight simulation is a niche market. If you look at the bigger picture of this being an advert for the technology behind it, it makes much more sense. 

[frieone 37]

16 minutes ago, LHookins said:

Oh, the irony, the irony! 😄 

"I flew over my little league park."  Have you ever been able to do this before in any game or sim? 😄 Two years ago if someone had told you that park would be in the next flight simulator in the default scenery, would you have believed them?

Hook

Yes I have the same scenery I made with fs tiles. the exact same view in fsx and pr3d lol. And that was 4 years a go when I was making my own scenery

Regards Ted

 

[G-RFRY 1,708]

Yes for the Game Pass Catalogue that is the new focus for MS and more will be coming.  

[ShawnG 1,823]

41 minutes ago, frieone said:

Yes I have the same scenery I made with fs tiles. the exact same view in fsx and pr3d lol. And that was 4 years a go when I was making my own scenery

Regards Ted

 

Cool, let’s see some comparison screenshots with the new thing that also does the rest of the planet.