Avioneto

Yes, the product has been out five days, and we've been hearing about it for over one year, including a lot of teasers and a massive alpha testing program. As a flight simmer, I expected FS2020 to fill the missing gaps using already existing technology or plug-ins that are now external. No one was asking for the moon. Again, a photo-realistic 3D version of the Earth (not autogenerated fake buildings) is already available. It is free. Have you tried it, particularly on VR? Voice recognition and ATC are also available and programmed by a single person using Microsoft technology. Have you tried it? Those two are aspects that differentiate a simulator from a game. If you don't want to acknowledge those are clearly missed opportunities and want to engage in demagogy about not offering physical cockpits too, that's up to you. Even setting the obvious missing aspects aside, they have failed in the main marketing messages: 1. NO, you CANNOT depart from all airports on Earth, not even from major ones like Stuttgart. Full stop. 2. NO, you won't see a realistic "bird's eye" or "streetview" nice version of London like you can do on your cheap phone, but you will find sunken bridges and an autogenerated apartment of blocks instead of Buckingham palace. Not very pleasing for VFR. Those are just facts and I think it's pretty reasonable they lead to disappointment. If FS2020 is a better overall product than other simulators when they were released and can please a wider audience, or if it's good enough for most people, or that it will be improved is certainly true but probably another discussion. I think on my side I have said everything I needed to say and won't engage in demagogy. You would also probably spend your time better playing the wonderful FS2020 than trying to convince others on the Internet :) Enjoy it!

Thanks for the feedback. Certainly disappointment comes from unmet expectations. However I don't think mine were too high compared to the marketing campaign and hype created. Also, I am talking objectively: creating something revolutionary means filling existing the most important gaps that others couldn't. FS2020 moved one step forward in the right direction: scenery streaming. Aside from that I do not see any other breakthrough, but the sim is objectively offering the same or less than other major sims. Why does this factually correct sentence stir the waters so much? VR is there in XPlane. Pilot2ATC already exists and works perfectly fine, providing an awesome experience and was programmed by a single person. Google Maps 3D / Google Earth VR are there and are impressive if what you want to do is explore the skies, and they are free! However, FS2020 is using basically the same approach for ATC than FSX (and very possibly the same code). It also uses a map provider of poorer quality than the one most of us use every day on our phones, which also makes the "smart AI algorithms" miss major airports (even though these airports and the runways are available in detail in the "map view" of Bing Maps...). As I said I am happy they are relaunching a flight simulator for the mass market, but the missed opportunities are there. No one was asking for the moon but for things that already exist to be included in the flight sim that promised to "have it all".

I listed the biggest missed opportunities in a detailed entry here but to summarize: - Main airports. They promised "depart from any airport in the world". My base airport (5th biggest city in Spain, 2 runways with international flights and B747 operating) is neither listed nor modeled (no runways when flying above). I depart from it routinely on XPlane without any trouble. - Google Maps 3D / Google Earth quality scenery: I was expecting that from the promotional videos, but I found autogen++ instead, with made-up buildings, rivers not running on valleys, flooded streets and footpaths that look like highways. Terribly disappointed in many places I have tried. Honestly, I would have preferred good quality 2D orthophotos that what they delivered. - Voice ATC (meaning pilot can talk to ATC): missed opportunity desired by many. Pressing a button to do a readback or request something to ATC seems like a joke in 2020, where people have Google Assistant on the phone, Echo/Alexa at home, and Cortana on Windows. - VR: It will come, they say, but it's not here. Once you've played in VR, anything else looks like a toy game.

I agree with the OP. Microsoft improved their old Flight Simulator, but given the state of the art in technology and the huge marketing campaign and hype created, I am disappointed and see this as a missed opportunity. The advertised "AI" is just autogen++ and looks terrible in many places. Things are simply not realistic: I have seen an apartment block instead of the main cathedral of a city, rivers hanging from the middle of a hill, and footpaths that look like floating roads. i don't know about the rest, but I was expecting Google Maps 3D / Google Earth quality. Didn't happen. The "use any airport in the world" was not true either. My home airport at a 700K inhabitants city, with international flights, 2 runways and Boeing 747s routinely operating there is not modeled or even listed, so I cannot use it. My biggest disappointment is the lack of voice-operated ATC. Given the state of tech, with Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa and Cortana, and standard rule-based ATC phraseology, this is relatively easy to do (indeed a single programmer was able to produce the very decent Pilot2ATC plugin). Also, no 737, really? What to say about VR? Yes, it will come, but it's not there. So yes, a major improvement and updated version of Flight Simulator. Revolutionary game-changer? I don't think so. Not at least for the average experienced flight simmer. In case you are interested in more details, I left my complete impressions here. Best, Avioneto