1 hour ago, scotchegg said:

He wasn't using any emotional language like 'blame' or 'victim'. You've introduced that language into this discussion.

Although I agree Abrams is a far-from-neutral observer, I don't think it's at all controversial to believe that it was Jorg's deadline for the whole project and final decision on release timing. And if Asobo were to have been pushed to release in a state they weren't happy with, they would hardly be the first developer to have been put in that position by their publisher. And I see no signs of them, or Abrams crying 'poor victim' about it to be honest. But if that's what you see....

Not looking to argue and maybe it's a language thing but when someone starts talking about "the cards they were dealt" it typically( at least to me) means they had to overcome a significant challenge or they were placed at a significant disadvantage and somehow overcame... 

To me it sounds very much like a victim mentality and projecting all the blame to Jorg and MSFS which he did indeed do opposed to a more balanced assessment and I don't see "the cards they were dealt" but it seems to me big picture having the breadth, reach, visibility and bankroll that comes with MS is like being dealt a royal flush. 

So from my perspective when I look at "The cards that they were dealt" that means MS's global data center Reach, MS's global server resources, MS providing global digital imagery via Bing, MS marketing visibility, it looks like Asobo have a pretty good hand of cards, then it's on Asobo to deliver.   Could you imagine where this project would be with Asobo having to provide all those resources too...  Not a bad hand of cards they are holding when you think about it (from my perspective of course)  Anything I say unless I quote someone is nothing more than my interpretation of their words. 

 

Edited October 12, 2025Oct 12 by psolk

What difference does it make? Honestly, the relationship between Microsoft and Asobo is a business one, and none of us have any idea how that works - stuff like the actual contract between Ms and Asobo, who has responsibility for what, who decides deadlines - these are things we literally will never know unless Jorg or Seb or someone talks about it. Given that these guys are seasoned career professionals, not drama lovers, I assume that they decide things behind closed doors and then go make things happen.

You know, like every company works. 

As a customer, all I care about is getting a great product. I couldn't care less whether it's big bad MS or poor Asobo, or vice versa. All I know is

1. MS is the biggest tech company in the world, been around for 40+ years, and MSFS is one of their flagship products (this is not hyperbole. I worked at MS, and inside the company there is a very definite recognition of Flight Sim's place in their history. Another notable product that the company remembers (besides the obvious Office, Windows, AD blah) which might surprise you - Encarta! MS cares about Flight Sim, as much as any company can care about anything. And now it's making them money. So they will care ever more. 

2. Asobo Studios have been around for 20+ years, have published multiple AAA games on multiple platforms (Plague Tale, The Crew.. others as well). They aren't two guys in a garage. They are competent and successful and have demonstrated that they do a great job with MSFS, despite what the random people on a random forum think. 

So can we please stop thinking of these two corporations as people? They are not. Decisions like release dates are made to increase revenue and shareholder value. They may make a mistake with release dates or whatever, companies screw up all the time (Synology, anyone?), but the decision was made with cold hard numbers, not "feelings".

8 hours ago, psolk said:

Well he literally shifts ALL of the blame to Jorg and partially to MS including calling it 2024 which apparently was Jorg's decision personally and then makes out Asobo were somehow dealt a bum rap...

I seriously doubt the conversation went like this:

Jorg: Can you have it ready for a Q42024 release

Asobo: Heck no, absolutely not, not a chance, not even close

Jorg:  Perfect, and we shall call it 2024!  

 

Blame is "usually" at least somewhat on the developer as well as the publisher in these situations.  At some point I'm certain Asobo knew what they agreed to and I'm SURE Asobo wanted revenue as well as MS.  In terms of MS, it is really MS gaming, the larger MS probably sees MSFS as a blip on the radar in their overall revenue stream... 

As for Jorg calling it 2024 thinking anything happens at a company the size of MS on one person's word or decision is pretty unrealistic.

 

Look, you have blocked me before (or at least you claimed you did), and things are getting heated again with you.  You asked me a simple question, I gave you my honest answer in good faith.  Maybe you can lower the temperature down before this discussion gets out of hand?  Or maybe I should stop answering your questions, because I did not foresee you raising the temperature like this when you asked me that question.

In a nutshell, to a certain extent, I do believe in President Truman's famous sign and saying, "The buck stops here."  I want to clarify "to a certain extent though," because it doesn't mean I believe this saying in all cases, because in some cases, a dependency may setup the leader to fail, but I don't think this applies to the case of MSFS 2024 because there was an option to delay the release.  Yes, Asobo would have given their schedule estimates to Jorg/Microsoft, and they may share some of the blame for that.  We also don't know how much scope creep got in during the project, which would have negated any schedule estimates given by Asobo to Jorg/Microsoft.  But as somebody else already said, Microsoft could have pulled a Rockstar, and released MSFS 2024 when they were ready (even if it required a rename of the title, etc), just as it appears Rockstar is releasing GTA 6 when they feel it is ready.

In any case, my sentiments are based on what Jorg admitted to in one of the Twitch Q&As.  Jorg more or less said in that Twitch Q&A that he regretted how MSFS 2024 was released, and that they should have spent more time testing and fixing the bugs (sorry, I don't remember which Twitch Q&A it was). More or less, Jorg had a very self conciliatory tone, and was reflecting on how they could have done things better.  And I also want to be clear to everyone reading this, that I think Jorg has been a huge overall blessing for flight simulation, and I personally think he should continue to lead the MSFS franchise, despite the poor release of MSFS 2024.

But as JonathanC has mentioned already, "what difference does it make?" If you believe Asobo should continue developing MSFS 2024, then I don't think there is much point in relitigating the issue and trying to assign the blame, because we have done that in various other threads throughout the entire year. I personally believe Asobo should continue developing MSFS 2024, as they developed the best civilian flight sim, 4 years after the release of MSFS 2020, and based on SU4, I really like the direction that MSFS 2024 is going.

But if you believe that Asobo should be fired, then I guess we can agree to disagree, and I have already given my thoughts on that in my response to MarcG. 

In any case, can you lower the temperature?  You asked me a question, I tried to answer your question in good faith, but seeing all your responses after you asked me that question, I already regret answering it.

Edited October 12, 2025Oct 12 by abrams_tank

15 hours ago, JonathanC said:

Given that these guys are seasoned career professionals, not drama lovers, I assume that they decide things behind closed doors and then go make things happen.

You know, like every company works. 

Exactly...  No "Individual" is making be all end all decisions and thus assigning blame to a single individual is unfair.  These are all team efforts with input from both sides in a mutually beneficial relationship, no one was dealt any unfair hands here...  MS gets to bring arguably the best flight simulator to market again on Asobo's shoulders and Asobo gets access to all of the MS resources I listed above that without MSFS wouldn't be possible.  So they found a mutually beneficial business relationship.

Quote

You know, like every company works.  

I would have agreed with you on point 1 until they killed the entire program 😞  Yes, growing up I think at one point it was indeed one of their top money makers and for what, 25 years it was their best Non-Office, Non O/S titles.  Now,  Nothing "means" anything to a company in my opinion.  We are drifting here but I have seen the brutality of this industry first hand for almost 30 years now (holy cr*p how is that possible.)   More and more the past few years I've come to believe NOTHING is personal anymore.  To your own point,  

Quote

but the decision was made with cold hard numbers, not "feelings".

And that is still the case...  MSFS can still be killed off as easily as any other title sadly 😞 

Let's hope with the expansion to PS5, the XBox revenue also contributing to future development and the direction 2024 is going that the skies are bright for MSFS24!

Agree on point 2 although I do still think there are certain areas that are lacking which is to be expected BTW!!  I work for one of the other largest tech companies in the world and guess what, there are definitely areas we are lacking!!  

That doesn't mean anyone needs to be fired or they haven't given us two incredible sims as I said, it's just a non-emotional assessment (my own btw which is worth as much as the paper it's typed on here in the forums...)   

I don't know why some people think a bit of criticism is the same as calling for Asobo to be fired...

Ha, I can only imagine if I was fired every time I was criticized with my coworkers LOL  

 

Edited October 12, 2025Oct 12 by psolk

This thread needs to be locked. 

2 hours ago, JonathanC said:

This thread needs to be locked. 

Nah, I think the people who want to slag Asobo come what may, need to be ignored.

I just read this thread and people are sharing their experience with the performance in MSFS (some are on SU4 I think) and XP 12:

I really think Asobo pulled a rabbit out of their hat with SU4. It’s pretty impressive with what they did for performance.

I think it's a very complicated application, even state of the art and we have to expect a few gremlins aling the way.  Often MS and ASOBO manage to cock it up and often, they can make the improvements we all long for, but I guess that I would prefer them to push the boundaries to make the sim better and have to accept that sometimes, things do not work as expected.  A big problem is that we all have very different systems and set ups and along with our different PCs, the sim also has to work with XBox and PS5.

We should all be really happy with the way Flight Simulator has developed over the last 40 years and can probably only imagine what we may have in 10 or 20 years from now, so we have to try to be more supportive even at times when things may be going wrong if we want development to progress.

On 10/11/2025 at 1:17 AM, martinboehme said:

The improvements in the SU4 beta are impressive enough without resorting to hyperbole.

Just my opinion. I saw no hyperbole in the poster’s use of the word optimal.  No one else has achieved what MS has with MSFS 2024; multi core support and high FPS and LOD.  YMMV but I challenge you to name another flight simulator at this stage and maturity of asynchronous processing.  I don’t believe it exists, not yet at least. TMMV. TANSTAAFL. Blue skies,

-B

If there is one thing that sets MFS apart from XP today, it is how well it takes advantage of today's hardware. I have always defended MFS2024's performance. 

 

Laminar is aware that it needs to make better use of today's hardware, something it has been working on for a long time, but it still has a way to go. 

 

Otherwise, I have no complaints about Laminar. I still think their roadmap is the most interesting for what I personally believe a flight simulator should be, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop enjoying other products such as MFS, DCS, Falcom BMS, etc.

On 10/11/2025 at 12:50 AM, MarcG said:

Yes but I don't proactively start flame wars between sims to prove a point, my reasons for being critical of Asobo are factual and my opinions, on the flip side I am also very complimentary of some of their work.

Just curious. If not Asobo, who do you have in mind instead? And why?