Can you imagine the outrage from the flight simulation community if Microsoft pulled the plug on MSFS 2024? Current world events would pale into insignificance.

41 minutes ago, FPVSteve said:

Everything else, in fact every time you fly using the software, you're costing them money for hosting and distributing multiple Gbs of terrain data. That won't last forever.

OTOH, pure maintenance costs, sans any significant further development by MS/A, and keeping the Marketplace alive, what is the real cost of that?  To me it seems bizarre to abandon something so effective IF you can just essentially only maintain it.  And, PLEASE MS...offer a subscription basis if that's what it takes.  I would more than happily pay to play.

45 minutes ago, FPVSteve said:

They get that profit when they sell the software. Everything else, in fact every time you fly using the software, you're costing them money for hosting and distributing multiple Gbs of terrain data. That won't last forever.

Too pessimistic for my liking. IF the whole reason behind MSFS(2024) was to create a digital twin, who is saying that this digital twin can then not be used as sim basis? I mean, if the digital twin is finally based on MSFS2024 e.g., it would be easy to have a flight sim branch in it, no? Or what is the purpose of this digital twin?

My thoughts are more going into the direction that the next iteration of MSFS wont be a standalone product but as you said, part of a digital twin package. And for sure it will be an subscription based thing with a monthly/yearly fee. But in the same digital twin, you will have the Forza (Horizon) branch and whatever they have in their pipeline using a digital twin as a basis. 

Means: the chances are bigger that they convert the whole MSFS into a subscrition based thing than completely abandoning it. But that is just my thoughts and of course they contain quiet a lot of hopeful thinking 😉 

I can just imagine the Asobo devs looking at this thread and laughing they're butts off lol. Now we're back to "sTrEaMiNg cOsTs a LoT" from the early days of MSFS 2020 😂

31 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

Can you imagine the outrage from the flight simulation community if Microsoft pulled the plug on MSFS 2024? Current world events would pale into insignificance.

As I know you are joking I will stay silent.

1 hour ago, Noel said:

OTOH, pure maintenance costs, sans any significant further development by MS/A, and keeping the Marketplace alive, what is the real cost of that?  To me it seems bizarre to abandon something so effective IF you can just essentially only maintain it.  And, PLEASE MS...offer a subscription basis if that's what it takes.  I would more than happily pay to play.

The running costs are extremely high. 

2 hours ago, Krakin said:

I can just imagine the Asobo devs looking at this thread and laughing they're butts off lol. Now we're back to "sTrEaMiNg cOsTs a LoT" from the early days of MSFS 2020 😂

As we all know, the Asobo devs aren't the ones to worry about - it's the beancounters at Microsoft. Streaming multiple terabytes of data around the world daily will certainly add up over time, not to mention the hosting costs and electricity etc. Question is, where's the line before it becomes too much of an expense?

I don't think it'll be any time soon, but logic dictates it has to end sometime - unless it does go to a subscription model?

1 minute ago, FPVSteve said:

As we all know, the Asobo devs aren't the ones to worry about - it's the beancounters at Microsoft. Streaming multiple terabytes of data around the world daily will certainly add up over time, not to mention the hosting costs and electricity etc. Question is, where's the line before it becomes too much of an expense?

I don't think it'll be any time soon, but logic dictates it has to end sometime - unless it does go to a subscription model?

You gotta be kidding.  2021 wants its thread back.  ROFL!

37 minutes ago, Mace said:

Question is, where's the line before it becomes too much of an expense?

When the income side can't beat it significantly?  Take a guess about how many would pay a sub fee to use MSFS2024, let's say when all SU's are completed, whenever that will be.

Edited March 2Mar 2 by Noel

35 minutes ago, Mace said:

You gotta be kidding.  2021 wants its thread back.  ROFL!

I stand by everything I said - you may think it's a daft point of view but everything as it stands has a not-insignificant cost after the initial purchase so I can't see it lasting forever. My money is on a subscription model as time goes on 👍

1 hour ago, UrgentSiesta said:

The running costs are extremely high. 

Can you elaborate?  How about a range of monthly expenses to give a more quantified view.

30 minutes ago, Mace said:

You gotta be kidding.  2021 wants its thread back.  ROFL!

This is seeming a lot like 2021! Streaming costs are negligible, particularly for an entity like Microsoft. This is not the 90s anymore. The cost to stream a GB of data is a fraction of a cent. Amazon CloudFront pricing, which we currently use at work, is about 0.085 cents per GB. We are planning a major switch to Azure and anticipate the price to fall. So, no, streaming a couple of hundred GBs of data on MSFS is not even being noticed by Microsoft. Even multiplying that across a million users it is not likely even a rounding error for a department. Azure is one of the largest cloud platforms in the world with over 400 data centers in 70 regions; removing MSFS from their servers does not mean the server is going to be decommissioned. 

There is really no evidence of anything here, it is idle speculation based solely on changes in patterns of communication. 

4 minutes ago, Cognita said:

This is seeming a lot like 2021! Streaming costs are negligible, particularly for an entity like Microsoft. This is not the 90s anymore. The cost to stream a GB of data is a fraction of a cent. Amazon CloudFront pricing, which we currently use at work, is about 0.085 cents per GB. We are planning a major switch to Azure and anticipate the price to fall. So, no, streaming a couple of hundred GBs of data on MSFS is not even being noticed by Microsoft. Even multiplying that across a million users it is not likely even a rounding error for a department. Azure is one of the largest cloud platforms in the world with over 400 data centers in 70 regions; removing MSFS from their servers does not mean the server is going to be decommissioned. 

There is really no evidence of anything here, it is idle speculation based solely on changes in patterns of communication. 

OMG what a stark contrast to UrgentSiesta's take 🙃

3 hours ago, Noel said:

OTOH, pure maintenance costs, sans any significant further development by MS/A, and keeping the Marketplace alive, what is the real cost of that?  To me it seems bizarre to abandon something so effective IF you can just essentially only maintain it.  And, PLEASE MS...offer a subscription basis if that's what it takes.  I would more than happily pay to play.

Or just buy from the Marketplace as the first choice.   

I think taking this to whether MSFS will be sun-setted is a jump too far for me. They just launched a major new version 15 months ago. They just launched on PlayStation! There is just no credible evidence for this and so we end up in, "Well, but they could, they could, they really could just end it, they have done it before, they could do it again." 

This said, there are real changes in Microsoft gaming. Central to this sems to be a proposed move away from being console centric, and are looking to become increasingly platform agnostic. Nadella has spoken about X-box becoming less of a console brand tied to hardware and more of a universal gaming platform built on Windows, cloud and cross-platform publishing. This has dedicated x-box console gamers worried that  Microsoft may pull back from making consoles and may sunset existing consoles. As always there are also some credible roomers that they are tiring to increase the profit from their gaming division, one report I read proposed 30%, but this is less clear.

But my reading of this is it is all good for MSFS as it is already cross-platform and in many ways pushing the envelope of what can be done. The deal with PlayStation was not insignificant and while many here do not value this work it is really important if MSFS is going to last a long time.  It is a flagship technology showcase for Microsoft and a marketing case study for Microsoft's cloud and AI capabilities. And simulation titles are long-tail-sale titles, they sell well over many many years, making it less likely to cancel it after a single year.