Hi Mates,

FS2024 was released late 2024 and I think it is one of the best, if not the best iteration of FS.

It's beautiful and stable and there has never been so many addons in all areas (aircrafts, sceneries, utilities,...).

I've invested* in a new hardware late 2024 and it runs FS2024 very well so I hope FS2024 will last very long!

How long do you think FS2024 will last?

Please vote in the poll.

* Needless to say to the amount of investment in addons becomes significant too!

Right at this minute I think MS/Asobo have gone down a rabbit hole they don't know how to get out of, MSFS2024 was supposed to be better in so many ways but it's ended up worse than 2020 in a lot of areas. The LOD system still isn't working as well as it should be, the textures are awful and they've never fixed the 512x512 "issue" if it was that and not just another downgrade on purpose, they're still struggling with Xbox and now PS5 memory management & issues. Career mode is still riddled with bugs and ill thought out game design, their lack of Live Weather development and attention on those very old bugs is shameful, the constant need to downgrade the visuals for PC users is painfully obvious without explanation, the UI is still dreadful, performance is up & down every update, default aircraft still have bugs that should've been fixed long ago, major features & wish list items still unattended for years and the bugs list grows forever more as they love a regression every update without fixing what they broke. I was hoping they'd learn from past mistakes with 2020 but they've carried on with appalling Quality Control and Beta Practices so it's just a constant rinse & repeat scenario where each update is "what have they broken this time?" instead of looking forward to what's new - a stark contrast to other Simulator developers where they could learn a thing or two

After the absolute fiasco of 2024s release and getting it to a decent place eventually with SU4 they've since not done much in terms of taking it forward as they're in a cycle of constant bug fixing, SU5 arguably went backwards in some areas and player numbers (according to Steam) are on a gradual decline (summer months in the northern hemisphere no doubt playing a part of that, but numbers started to decline since a peak January).

So where do they go from here? I would not be surprised if they bin it all off for another round of "New 2028 Release to keep the Shareholders happy", as right now MSFS2024 is still largely a mess that needs a complete reset or at least another 3/4 Sim Updates to rectify. Personally I want them to fix it all so I do not want to see another Full Release which messes up the mod teams again and sees what will no doubt be another messy title, but what they decide is anyones guess as no one saw 2024 coming in the first place.

Now on the flip side it's still got potential to be something truly breathtaking as a whole product should they stick to fixing it up and that's why I linger on relentlessly hoping one day they turn a corner, it does give me great satisfaction on many flights and I'm thoroughly enjoying it a lot more than the above suggests (!). But every now and then I see things that just make me wonder whether Jorg and his team actually play the same product, seconds after an update comes out I notice a major bug....how has that been missed? Why have an internal testing team (if they do indeed have one) if they're not going to listen to their bug reports?

It's brilliant and overall I love it, but 6 years on it's still frustrating as hell when it shouldn't be.

Edited 11 hours ago11 hr by MarcG

MSFS 2024 is sort of the equivalent of FS 2000 (2024 much better now than on release). I can only hope MSFS 2028, if it happens, is the equivalent of FS 2004. But I do hope all addons would work more seamlessly on the next version. Also, the entire weather system needs to be reworked...ie new clouds, atmospheric lighting, thunderstorms etc. I feel that would be the big 'selling point' for a new version. I don't forsee much improvement with that happening in MSFS 2024. They have the ground figured out, lets get the sky right!

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by Flic1

12 minutes ago, MarcG said:

• MSFS2024 was supposed to be better in so many ways but it's ended up worse than 2020 in a lot of areas.

• the UI is still dreadful, performance is up & down

• SU5 arguably went backwards

• I would not be surprised if they bin it all off

• MSFS2024 is still largely a mess that needs a complete reset

• No one saw 2024 coming in the first place.
  
  
  It's brilliant and overall I love it, but 6 years on it's still frustrating as hell when it shouldn't be.

Excuse me for bullet-pointing your comments - I haven't changed any content though.

I wonder how many users would agree - wholemeal - with your comments and assessment? I mean there are always things we'd like to be better. But to me, it seems you are 'missing the trees for the woods' to focus so heavily on the negatives that you perceive. This is perhaps underlined by your surprising conclusion that "it's brilliant and overall you love it".

My overall perception and assessment of MSFS2024 is very different to yours (although surprisingly, our conclusions are the same - I think it's brilliant and I love it too.)

I see it as the best iteration of a flight sim we've ever seen, and I add no caveat to that. My jaw drops when I fly in a photogrammetry area and look down from my staggeringly high-fidelity cockpit at scenery that looks exactly as it does when I fly over this location in real life.

I flew from Leeds to Liverpool today - I believe the entire corridor is PG. It was breathtaking and as I fly this leg IRL quite often, it was insane how all the cues that I see IRL were there in the sim too. The times I see blurry scenery are rare and sporadic. Perhaps that's why I'm not as critical as you were. This would suggest that blurry scenery may be related to other factors and not the core sim. I'm not denying that some parameters have been reduced to appease console users though, and that frustrates me too. But I accept it because I know that MSFS2024 likely wouldn't exist if there were no console market.

Ultimately, if nothing whatsoever changed or were improved with MSFS2024 from this point, I'd be more than happy on balance, and would still regard it as a truly outstanding, game-changing flight sim iteration.

Edited 11 hours ago11 hr by JYW

4 minutes ago, JYW said:

Excuse me for bullet-pointing your comments - I haven't changed any content though.

I wonder how many users would agree - wholemeal - with your comments and assessment? I mean there are always things we'd like to be better. But to me, it seems you are 'missing the trees for the woods' to focus so heavily on the negatives that you perceive. This is perhaps underlined by your surprising conclusion that "it's brilliant and overall you love it".

My overall perception and assessment of MSFS2024 is very different to yours (although surprisingly, our conclusions are the same - I think it's brilliant and I love it too.)

I see it as the best iteration of a flight sim we've ever seen, and I add no caveat to that. My jaw drops when I fly in a photogrammetry area and look down from my staggeringly high-fidelity cockpit at scenery that looks exactly as it does when I fly over this location in real life.

I flew from Leeds to Liverpool today - I believe the entire corridor is PG. It was breathtaking and as I fly this leg IRL quite often, it was insane how all the cues that I see IRL were there in the sim too. The times I see blurry scenery are rare and sporadic. Perhaps that's why I'm not as critical as you were. This would suggest that blurry scenery may be related to other factors and not the core sim. I'm not denying that some parameters have been reduced to appease console users though, and that frustrates me too. But I accept it because I know that MSFS2024 likely wouldn't exist if there were no console market.

Ultimately, if nothing whatsoever changed or were improved with MSFS2024 from this point, I'd be ore than happy on balance and would still regard it as a truly outstanding, game-changing flight sim iteration.

Well as ever those thoughts are my own, I do not speak for anyone else. I focus on the negatives because that's where I'd like to see things improve as I'm not here to kiss the backsides of the team and slap their backs every time they fix a bug, but as above it's been 6 years now (8+ if you include pre-2020 development) and there's areas that Asobo are simply not very good at and have never improved and that should be a concern to them if they want to take this franchise to the next level (there's many levels yet to obtain), what's worrying should be the amount of regressions we've gone through since 2020 to get where we are today - Clouds quality and texture quality are two key areas that are not as good and that is generally perceived as a fact not just my opinion.

As for Flight Sims I really only started with 2020 myself, I have nothing to really compare too in the past so only see things as they are now and right now I see a development management team & company still struggling with the very basics. Yes I fully agree it can look breathtaking at times, as said I thoroughly enjoy my time mostly, but that's no reason to sit back and accept what we have when it should be so much better - otherwise I'd still be flying F-19 Stealth Fighter and lording the graphics as TEH B3ST EVAH! 😄

"Now on the flip side it's still got potential to be something truly breathtaking..."

For me it's already breathtaking, but it does require many add-ons to make it an amazing sim.

There is much work to be done with career mode, default weather, AI traffic and ATC, but I chose v2024 over v2020 for the faster installation and faster loading times. But, there's something even more important, and that's, sim performance. I'm getting silky smooth performance locked @30 fps. It's also the most stable sim I ever embraced!

For those reasons alone, I'm grateful for v2024. If the next version can improve the weather, AI traffic, and ATC, then, for me, it will be worth the upgrade price.

Ill bet the next version of MSFS will only be on console.

1 hour ago, Simicro said:

How long do you think FS2024 will last?

Please vote in the poll.

I didn't vote cause it's not really a thought in my head. I'm enjoying myself now with the money I spent now.

I can't exactly expect this to last forever as if with anything in this world and eventually Microsoft is going to finish this cycle and release another product and eventually I'll move to that and have fun too.

None of these sims are perfect and they all have their set of problems, but with each release, I'm struggling to argue if it's something to go back to. Would I go back to P3D? and in turn would I go back to FSX, goodness no.

Lastly... none of the purchases I've made, except for hardware (even that will need to be upgraded at some point, would I consider an investment). I bought them to have fun in this hobby and that I am right now.

At the end of the day, FS2020, P3D and FSX still work and you can still have fun. However it's understandable that commercial entities are moving away from them.

I selected 2030, since I expect MSFS 2028 to be released in 2.5 years. I then have my usual ~ 2 years of keeping the existing version until the (again usual) train wreck release has been patched up to a standard that I consider to be good enough for my requirements.

If I am being absolutely honest, I would prefer not to see MSFS 2028 at all. Despite some in the community wanting "new tech" on a regular basis, I actually prefer stability (like I do in all theatres of life). I would be quite happy to see MSFS 2024 tweaked and upgraded until 2035. That would allow me to enjoy all of the lovely addons that I have purchased for both MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024 for nearly another decade. It would also give PMDG the time to develop and release an airliner that is not a 737/747/777!!

Edited 10 hours ago10 hr by Christopher Low

2028 would be the obvious choice - whether or not they can build something beautiful and magnificent enough in that timeframe to persuade users into buying it again remains to be seen.

I don't see any sign of a successor on the horizon yet and I think the only prospect of one at the moment would be tied to the release of a new Xbox console.

In those circumstances I would imagine the temptation to create new software to put in their new hardware would be irresistible...

It will last approximately as long as it takes a fully-laden swallow to make the oceanic crossing from New York to Paris.

And yes, a European swallow...

Comparisons of MSFS2024 to FS2000?? No way, not in a million years. FS2000 was bad from start to finish, was never improved. Whereas 2024 has gotten improved immensely.

With a next gen MSFS eventually coming, my concern is with potentially new scenery detail, planes, weather, & ATC will render much of the current hardware insufficient, requiring yet another pc upgrade. We're already experiencing out-of-VRAM issues and it will only get worse.

Hardware developers already have either slowed down consumer production or in case of memory / storage, practically given up on us.

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by SiliconSoldier

I hope its the last option in your vote list in order to get the best value out of what I have put into the sim so far, but to be honest it all depends when Microsoft pull the plug on their MSFS2024 servers. When that happens, streaming will not be possible and I guess the sim will be non-functional.

Again that date/year is influenced by whatever future sim platform may be launched and when and by whom!