7 hours ago, ErichB said:

Immersion.   You don't find the same level in any other sim

I agree.

I like to occasionally fly over Stockholm. It's a beautiful city from above. 

MSFS comes very close to visually replicate that sensation. Beyond comprehension at times.

Rw pilot, Simmer since 2000, used all sims throughout the years. But keeps coming back to MSFS. VFR flying is outstanding. Nothing comes close.

The world in a can, and with reasonably accurate scenery in most areas. You can navigate by following roads and identify buildings like my house and local pub, although it lacks authenticity because it's made out of stone instead of brick, and doesn't have anyone outside vomiting 10 pints of Carling over the pavement.

I remember the UK in FSX looked like North Africa and the autogen was unrecognisable. To make the land recognisable, you had to buy expensive photorealistic scenery which murdered performance.

 

when I get in MSFS after using XP12 beta, I am like "omg this is beautiful" or XP will never ever look this incredible eventhough I hope it will someday, so far the smoothness the hi frame rates of MSFS while at ultra (over 100fpm in spots even in PMDG) etc... the sky, the ground, the feel, everything is fabulous, MAKING MANUAL WEATHER is beautiful you can really make spectacular sky scapes! Try manual weather sometimes guys... it's fun and spectacular to see... live weather isn't all that spectacular to look at uet... mostly, but not always,

 

Peter James / Flying Magazine

2 hours ago, ErichB said:

Do you remember the days when Orbx charged £40 for their Southern England  'Real Earth' series or whatever it was called.  More than MSFS itself

Ha ha, yes, indeed 

Ok... I`ll go a bit philosophical but bear with me

Here`s mine

I`ve been avoiding MSFS because of the somewhat game/cartoonish bloated interface turned me off

But then I can`t denied the beauty of the sim and the commendable success of the franchise

Because it`s not just me, it's aimed at but a broad and diverse end user, called (the world)

So, the splash screen doesn`t say my name on it. it welcomes me anyway

It doesn`t matter if you are 13 years old or 83 seasoned Pilot you can share the same passion under ONE roof

Bugs quirks and thwarts 

It`s just like the rest of us

 

For me, of course the particularly unique parts of MSFS are its rendition/simulation of the world and weather right out of the box, and effectively presenting a digital twin earth for us to fly in using modern tech stacks like AI and the cloud. That was the most groundbreaking aspect when MSFS first came on to the scene.

And then especially since mid 2022 and the arrival of high fidelity 3rd party payware, and their subsequent refinements of (a stellar example being the Fenix V2, but also examples aplenty from PMDG, iniBuilds, JustFlight, Milviz, A2A, Black Sqaure, FSReborn, etc etc) made the sim finally whole and viable for me.

Add to all this the other unique aspect of MSFS which surprised us from late 2022 onwards which was the orders-of-magnitude increase in fidelity of *default* avionics, systems, and flight models of various *default* aircraft like the 787, Citation Longitude, SR22, CJ4, etc. Not to mention the contracting of 3rd party devs like iniBuilds to add something like the A310 to the default fleet.

MS/Asobo's philosophy of providing unconventional amount of fidelity in the core sim is certainly another unique aspect of it, along with how they collaborate and interact with the 3rd party dev community as well as the user base. The new guard of devs like Asobo and Fenix have been a much welcome addition to the genre IMO, as have how most established devs have embraced this new way of operating.

All of this then totals to me a flight simulator experience which I always like to call my "have my cake and eat it too" simulator where all aspects of the sim can be high quality/fidelity and immersive at the same time (be it visual, flight/aerodynamics, systems, avionics etc etc... be it with the right 3rd party aircraft add-ons or certain default ones). There doesn't have to be a compromise in one area or another.... and THAT is what I ultimately find unique about MSFS, compared to all my previous flight simulator experiences over the years (and I've used 'em all per my sig). Looking forward to MSFS 2024 to raise the bar yet again.
 

Edited May 31, 20242 yr by lwt1971

5 hours ago, JETPETER2 said:

when I get in MSFS after using XP12 beta, I am like "omg this is beautiful" or XP will never ever look this incredible eventhough I hope it will someday, so far the smoothness the hi frame rates of MSFS while at ultra (over 100fpm in spots even in PMDG) etc... the sky, the ground, the feel, everything is fabulous, MAKING MANUAL WEATHER is beautiful you can really make spectacular sky scapes! Try manual weather sometimes guys... it's fun and spectacular to see... live weather isn't all that spectacular to look at uet... mostly, but not always,

 

Peter James / Flying Magazine

Coming from you Peter, this MEANS A LOT TO ME !

Go to Out Skerries, Scotland and fly around for a bit then wonder how on earth you didn't pay an extra $30 for that.

1 hour ago, Krakin said:

Go to Out Skerries, Scotland and fly around for a bit then wonder how on earth you didn't pay an extra $30 for that.

Yeah, the constant stream of high quality freebies is unprecedented, unique, and as we used to say in 80s school grounds in the UK, ‘ace’, or even ‘skill’.

On 5/30/2024 at 3:37 AM, Krakin said:

Unprecedented collaboration with third party devs leading to amazing features out of the box.

Gold Star answer.

 

On 5/30/2024 at 4:48 AM, abrams_tank said:

As some people have mentioned already, the one thing that separates MSFS from the competition at this point is definitely the 3rd party development scene.  By far, the majority of 3rd party developers are developing for MSFS now.  You even have some developers from DCS World dipping their toes in MSFS.  And the reason the 3rd party development scene for MSFS is so strong, is because of the market size and the money that 3rd party developers can make in MSFS.

The bulk of 3rd party devs have always been with FS/P3D.

The MS / Asobo masterstroke has been to make it so accessible, easy to use, with an integrated Marketplace, inexpensive for what you get, as well as to set clear guidelines for pricing addons and such. And yeah, to push it to Xbox, and to push Xbox to being nearly a real computer, at least as far as flight sim goes.

Quote

This means MSFS will get first class treatment from 3rd party developers that are developing for multiple flight simulators.  If there are such developers that are developing for multiple flight simulators, they will almost always choose MSFS first (there may be a few examples where MSFS is not the first priority, but today, those examples are probably very few in number).  This is a unique selling point of MSFS, and adds a lot of value to MSFS.

The devs doing multiple simulators are kinda all over the place, and there's not as much cross-pollination as it would seem. Dev'ing is so difficult that they tend to stick with one the vast majority of the time, or partner up with another dev from another platform to "port" their addon over.

Where PMDG and BlackBird (nee MilViz) infamously FLOPPED in X-Plane, JustFlight and Carenado succeeded in this with Thranda for X-Plane.

India Foxt Echo was on ESP, then expanded to X-Plane just when MSFS came out, switched to MSFS, and then expanded to DCS World. But they went to DCSW with a partner who was already there (they MB339 freeware team)

IFT subsequently hooked up with Heatblur to bring the nearly incredible DCS Tomcat to MSFS (which despite being one of the top one or two mil jets in MSFS, is sadly but a shadow of itself compared to its original DCSW incarnation).

Flying Iron Sims was on X-Plane for years, with their splendid Spitfire and sublime Lightning (the pretty one, not "fat amy" 😉 ) and Thunderbolt, then they jumped almost simultaneously to DCS World and MSFS. Their MSFS work seems to have largely been in partnership with elements of the Got Gravel team.

And sadly, the dev time for DCSW is soooooooo looooooong that their stunningly detailed A-7 Corsair is still only inching it's way to release...

iniBuilds has all but bailed on X-Plane, and it looks like Cowan Sim is heading in that direction, too.

All that to somewhat agree with you, but it's a lot more complicated than it seems. And while breadth of choice certainly adds value to MSFS, the quality of addons here is just as varied as with most other sims.

Edited June 2, 20242 yr by UrgentSiesta

On 5/30/2024 at 6:21 AM, Sky_Pilot071 said:

UNIQUE?  It runs on XBox.  I'll probably get the next version or when my PC goes South.

sp

I have always kept my previous gaming rig around as a backup if my main rig dies.

The true value of Xbox is that I can go down to BestBuy and pick up a Series X for less than the price of a good video card, and have a GREAT simulation experience while I rebuild my primary rig.

 

Related to the "critical mass" themes above, the freeware scene for MSFS is unprecedented, both in terms of breadth and depth. Combined with the pret a porter yet extremely high quality nature of the MSFS environment, I'm flying to a far greater number of destinations around the globe, it's cost is lower than ever, and my satisfaction at touring the globe is higher than ever.

For the first time, I feel like I need to hurry to get around and see everything before I run out of time. 🙂

I just enjoy a simulator that has such an incredible community drive behind it, so you get a lot of great releases and updates on continual basis of a very high quality. Especially immersion addons, that liven up the world, huge fan of those. Just last night I was sitting enjoying some music after a flight, whilst watching GAIST ships pass by and made me happy such an amazing addon exists, free of charge. 

 

Even though it indirectly affects us all I'd say the most important unique feature is simply Xbox Compatibility, the cash income from that has allowed MSFS to grow both through sheer user numbers and backroom staff spread across the Partners Program alongside Asobo themselves who have grown. 

Without the Xbox this Sim would probably look very different right now, there probably wouldn't be a Next Sim on the cards and the way the industry is backstabbing developers left, right & centre who knows where Asobo themselves could've ended up by now!

But with the success of the Xbox (ok it's not without it's issues but let's gloss over that for now!) it's allowed the Sim to grow which has, as above, indirectly affected our usage as there's more emphasis from third party developers to create content and from the games developers themselves to continue to push on and support the title into the future. 

Most of us here are no doubt PC users, but I'd say we'd all be thankful of Xbox support of this franchise.