Nice article from Polygon on Microsoft's longer term plans with the digital twin earth they have created:

https://www.polygon.com/gaming/456808/microsoft-flight-simulator-digital-twin-preview

From that article:

Quote

The digital twin thing, to me, is sort of an enabler in a way. You can do a lot of things [with a digital twin]. You could do infinite things, if you really wanted to. But you have to build it [first], and I think you have to have a purpose [to get it built]. Flight Sim gives you that. Flight Sim has the purpose.

... ... Now, we just obviously have this new collaboration with Activision. They call me all the time. It’s like, ‘Hey, we want to do this with the city.’ ‘Hey, can you help us with this kind of countryside?’ ‘How would you go about this?’

 

I mentioned this before, but what comes to mind immediately if they can get the ground scenery to look better is a train simulator and truck simulator.  The ground scenery is starting to look pretty good in MSFS 2024. What needs further improvement is the ground scenery in cities because the photogrammetry does not look that great from the ground and up close.  But if they can get the ground scenery to look good in the cities and outside the cities (and right now in MSFS 2024, it's looking not too bad outside cities), then the sky is the limit. I can see video game companies suddenly lining up to use the digital twin earth created by Microsoft - refer to the quote about Activision above.  Then there will be non gaming companies that would be interested in using the digital twin earth as as tourism companies, search and rescue organizations, etc.

100% agree. I believe that Jorg sold Microsoft on the digital twin world, and how it could be used in many ways. His use of flight simulator as a vehicle, with its storied history was a perfect vehicle to tout what could be possible. Very likely 2020 was a proof of concept, and after watching all of the videos of him talking of the alliances forged for 24, it appears that he really has Ms backing to bring his vision to fruition. 

Cloud world, although a negative for some, will allow the server side creation and streaming of this vision, and I am sure we will ultimately see integrations of other sim types, and world exploration that will not only rival, but surpass the level of detail from others. 

And for flight simmers? We should consider us fortunate that we are the ones who will be at the forefront of this project. I know I am. 

Grant 

 

I think this was the strategy from the beginning. I always thought the whole push toward a digital twin was not solely aimed at Flight Sim. If we look at how the sim evolved with the additon of avatars, free walk mode, airport interiors, driveable vehicles etc. it will be a matter of time until the „world“ of MSFS can/will be repurposed (or shared) for other types of activities. Seems to me a lot like Microsoft’s answer to the Metaverse…

Basically, word for word replay of forum posts just before FS2020 was released in August 2020.

Not much has changed, as a twin Microsoft world was proposed then!

15 minutes ago, Wobbie said:

Basically, word for word replay of forum posts just before FS2020 was released in August 2020.

Not much has changed, as a twin Microsoft world was proposed then!

I remember them having talked about this for years, but I have to say - it hasn't seemed close to reality until recently.

We haven't really played around with it yet but I could easily see a reboot of Train Sim etc. too. 

Having train sim in the works would be amazing! Drive trains from all over the world. Would keep companies like Dovetail from creating DLC hell for every little route.

2 hours ago, Lotharen said:

Having train sim in the works would be amazing! Drive trains from all over the world. Would keep companies like Dovetail from creating DLC hell for every little route.

But that’s what keeps these ecosystems alive 🙂

There would be a DLC market similarly to how well no doubt still have city addons in FS2024. There will always be opportunities to go into more depth and quality of depiction I think.

7 hours ago, OneOfMany said:

100% agree. I believe that Jorg sold Microsoft on the digital twin world, and how it could be used in many ways. His use of flight simulator as a vehicle, with its storied history was a perfect vehicle to tout what could be possible. Very likely 2020 was a proof of concept, and after watching all of the videos of him talking of the alliances forged for 24, it appears that he really has Ms backing to bring his vision to fruition. 

Cloud world, although a negative for some, will allow the server side creation and streaming of this vision, and I am sure we will ultimately see integrations of other sim types, and world exploration that will not only rival, but surpass the level of detail from others. 

And for flight simmers? We should consider us fortunate that we are the ones who will be at the forefront of this project. I know I am. 

Grant 

 

Yup. And this is the reason why Microsoft will stay with MSFS for years down the road.

IMO, I think MSFS is already pretty profitable for MSFS, especially with the marketplace.  This would explain why Microsoft had some 800 people working on MSFS 2024 (many of those 800 are probably contractors though, including the contract work to iniBuilds, Got Friends, etc). I don't think MIcrosoft would put out a budget for 800 people to work on MSFS 2024 unless they are already happy with the profit they are making in MSFS 2020.

So I think Microsoft is making some good money on MSFS 2020, relative for a video game though (of course, MSFS 2024 is probably nowhere the money that other Microsoft products bring in, such as Office 365, etc).

Having said that, even if MSFS 2020 were losing Microsoft money, which I don't think it is, I think Microsoft wants to keep investing into MSFS just for the digital twin world.  They can see the potential revenue the digital twin world could bring in, and it could bring in a lot of revenue, if they can make the digital twin world look really, really, good.

7 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

I think Microsoft wants to keep investing into MSFS just for the digital twin world.  They can see the potential revenue the digital twin world could bring in, and it could bring in a lot of revenue,

Just a passing thought, but this might also be seen as a big deal within MS in terms of any residual competitive thing with Apple? I don't really follow/care about such stuff any more but I do remember the fairly intense split personality competition/co-operation between them back in the day. Without, as I say, following this environment much nowadays it strikes me that Apple won the devices "war" (phones, tablets etc) with MS taking the OS environment. No idea which is most profitable, and none of that may be relevant anyway. Maybe MS is more concerned about Google these days.

Whatever the reason, I hope they keep at it. The whole digital twin thing is THE reason I sim. I care nothing for cockpits, but give me realistic trees and the famous pebbles and I'll wander/hover/cruise around for hours.

I'd like to see the gaming industry center around a platform like this, so games like Grand Theft Auto etc could use it for their own purposes

It would likely be possible to pick an area, like New York, and just crank everything up to maximum for a game that targeted a specific region

Movie makers might take an interest, to save going on location for some shots.

45 minutes ago, EGLD said:

I'd like to see the gaming industry center around a platform like this, so games like Grand Theft Auto etc could use it for their own purposes

It would likely be possible to pick an area, like New York, and just crank everything up to maximum for a game that targeted a specific region

This is something that Unreal Engine 5 could use (or a future Unreal Engine).  That is, a graphics engine (Unreal Engine) comes paired with a digital twin earth, and game companies can simply make a game off of that part of the world that they want to focus on.

A game like Grand Theft Auto? The game company simply needs to concentrate on making a game around the New York, San Francisco, or Miami area.

A game like Yakuza? The game company simply needs to concentrate on making a game around the Tokyo, Kabukicho area.

If Microsoft will never collaborate with Epic Games who owns Unreal Engine, Microsoft can sell probably the digital twin earth data for gaming companies that use Unreal Engine, to use.

For travel and photography enthusiasts this digital twin earth and how much 2024 is improving on 2020's already stellar rendition is going to continue to be a massive boon. I've used MSFS at times to "prospect" a certain world location, and change weather and sun position and vantage points to see how a photo might look before travelling there IRL 🙂 Just one non-flight-sim example of many, the applications are endless.

But ya would be amazing if MS would bring back the train simulator franchise using this digital twin earth one day. The ground-level visual fidelity increases in 2024 certainly goes some ways for that. They might also be thinking of merging their driving sim worlds with this one day (i.e. the Forza series, etc).
 

Edited November 18, 20241 yr by lwt1971

29 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

They might also be thinking of merging their driving sim worlds with this one day (i.e. the Forza series, etc).
 

I am sure I read in the past couple of days that they are already talking to Forza, so with a new version expected early next year, perhaps in the release after next!

36 minutes ago, Espana Pete said:

I am sure I read in the past couple of days that they are already talking to Forza, so with a new version expected early next year, perhaps in the release after next!

Oh cool. Do you have a source for that? If you have a source for that, I would love to read it. If not, that's cool. Thanks!