stalz

I also got hit by the 'Please Insert the MSFS Game Disc' message yesterday, for the first time. MSFS worked fine the day before and I hadn't made any changes to the game or my system since, so it was definitely a frustrating surprise. I use the MS Store (Game Pass) version and the error resolved itself after about an hour, so I imagine it had something to do with lots of people rushing to make purchases on the marketplace before the big sale came to an end.

Microsoft sometimes offers discounts to customers who subscribe to Game Pass. So the 20% discount you're seeing only applies if you've subscribed to Game Pass.

I'd be surprised if Microsoft wasn't already working on all kinds of different projects using MSFS's base technology, including a new version of Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator. At the very least they should be exploring opportunities and looking for more partners.

I think a lot of third-party developers were caught off-guard when MSFS launched. Many of them were still working on projects for existing simulators and had to decide how to allocate their resources between those existing projects and new ones for MSFS. I imagine that some of the larger developers also have private customers we don't know about and are obligated to continue working on those projects as well, which also takes away from the resources they'd like to devote to MSFS. Another thing to consider is that some, if not many, aircraft are not 100% in-house productions. Developers sometimes hire third-parties to complete some of the work, such as modelling, texture work, sounds, systems programming and so on. Those individuals and businesses most likely have other customers and projects to work on, so they're not always immediately available. Some of them might even work on aircraft for more than one company. Look up 3D Reach and you'll see that they've developed aircraft models for Milviz, Carenado, Aerosoft and Just Flight. There's probably a limited amount of third-party talent out there who can work on high-quality aircraft for the amount of money developers can afford, so that limits how much work can actually get done. Trying to organize everyone's schedules will just add to the project's complexity and amount of time it takes to finish it. Many developers probably can't afford to take on more regular employees, who would also need to be trained and would take additional time to get up to speed. MSFS might represent a great financial opportunity, but developers are still constrained by the amount of resources they have.

I've been experiencing the same issue for the past four days. I was able to install the update successfully, but wanted to move the installation to a different drive. That worked for me before using the Store App but for some reason I couldn't move the installation a second time. So I uninstalled, intending to just reinstall at the new location. After that I couldn't reinstall MFS2020 on any of my drives. As you mentioned, it fails after downloading about 1 GB but I noticed it also seems to fail to install the Digital Ownership component as well. I've spent a few hours for each of the past three days trying different solutions, such as resetting the Microsoft Store, reinstalling the Xbox App, creating a new user account on my PC and trying to install under the new user but none of the common solutions seem to work. I also tried some of the more involved solutions using PowerShell that people suggest will fix problems with the Store App, but none of them have solved the issue. While searching for advice online I've noticed that there seems to have been a recent increase in the number of people reporting problems with the Store App over the past week, so I believe it's not a problem on my end but something's wrong with Microsoft's servers. Microsoft's Azure infrastructure suffered an outage at the beginning of the week, so I imagine this issue might somehow be related to that. Are you by any chance using the Xbox Game Pass for PC? I am, so I'm wondering if that's also part of the issue. The Microsoft Store otherwise seems to be working fine for me, as I can install other games using the Xbox Game Pass for PC but I should point out those were games I've never installed in the past. I don't really want to try uninstalling and reinstalling anything else using the Store App until the problem's been solved. At this point I think I've tried all I can on my end, so I'm just waiting to see if Microsoft can fix the issue from their end.