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JULY 16TH, 2020 DEVELOPMENT UPDATE POSTED BY: MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR TEAM Screenshot by OperatorLand468 THE JOURNEY CONTINUES It’s been just over a year since we announced the next iteration of Microsoft Flight Simulator and embarked on a journey with the community to bring this product to market. While we are now just over a month away from launch, our journey with you has just begun. We will continue working closely with the community. We will continue listening and reacting to your feedback and suggestions. We will continue updating our website, documents (e.g. Development Roadmap/Feedback Snapshot/SDK Updates), and working collaboratively with the community to build this product/platform/franchise. We are truly better together. Thank you for your ongoing feedback, for your suggestions, for continuing on this journey with us. – MSFS TEAM CLOSED BETA TIMELINE As a Special Thanks to all of you in the Alpha Community for your feedback and dedication to help make Microsoft Flight Simulator awesome, we are giving you early access to the Closed Beta build today. A reminder that the NDA is still in place for the Closed Beta. Enjoy! Closed Beta is still tracking to release on 07.30. CLOSED BETA INVITATIONS On July 23rd, we will begin sending out invitations for Closed Beta participation. As a reminder, if you are already an Alpha tester, you will automatically receive access to the Closed Beta. SDK UPDATE – MARKETPLACE PARTNER PROGRAM IS HERE! We are excited to announce our new Microsoft Flight Simulator Marketplace Partner Program! For the first time, Microsoft Flight Simulator will include a built-in Marketplace which enables approved partners to sell their content directly to simmers. The 3rd party creator community has been incredibly vibrant, delighting simmers with their creativity for many years. We recognize that creations by 3rd parties are a vital ingredient to broaden and deepen the Flight Simulation experience so we are excited to announce our Marketplace Partner Program which enables approved partners to sell content within our built-in Marketplace. We are looking for partners with all types of content that will enhance the simulation experience. We can’t wait to see what you come up with! What is the Microsoft Flight Simulator Marketplace Partner Program? The new Marketplace Partner Program provides a streamlined path for you to partner with Microsoft and sell your content directly from the simulator itself. There is no cost to sign up for the program, but you need to apply and be approved in order to get started. Once you’ve been approved and you’ve published content in the Marketplace, you’ll be able to see how your content is performing, how much revenue you are earning and automatically receive payments based on your payment profile. Why should I join? We firmly believe that the new built-in Marketplace provides a great opportunity for you to reach more customers than you may be able to reach today. Our goals and aspirations with Microsoft Flight Simulator are to further expand on the success of FSX, which has sold millions of copies, and that even more people will experience the simulator through Xbox Game Pass for PC. The Marketplace allows simmers to purchase content without ever leaving the simulator, resulting in significantly reduced friction to complete a purchase. The Marketplace will operate under an Agency model, which means that you, as the content creator, will set the price for every piece of content you submit. Becoming a partner doesn’t alter your ability to sell your content on your own websites and storefronts. Just like with FSX, you can continue to sell your content outside of our Marketplace. Becoming a Microsoft Flight Simulator Marketplace Partner essentially unlocks another channel for you. How does it work? If you are interested in participating in our in-sim Marketplace, you are welcome to apply. Our Marketplace team will review your application and let you know whether it is approved. We will try to approve as many partners as possible, but we expect our capacity to be limited, at least initially. Once you are accepted into the program, you will then need to accept the Marketplace Provider Agreement and submit tax and banking information to ensure you get paid for sales of your content. You will work directly with our Marketplace Ingestion Team, who will partner closely with you throughout the content publishing process as we continue to improve our ingestion pipeline. How do I sign up? Be one of the first partners to sell content in the Marketplace by applying today! You can submit an application for the Marketplace Partner Program here. We look forward to hearing from you and working together to delight Microsoft Flight Simulator fans with your content! SDK Development Update We are making very good progress on the SDK and most of our focus in the past few weeks has been on bug fixing and quality-of-life improvements based on requests and feedback from the third party developer community. We improved the documentation in several areas: Living world Airport services Jetways Ground vehicles in airports SimVars We added new samples: A new sample demonstrates the edition of custom jetways. We added the full source for the DA62 aircraft as a more complex example that third party developers can inspect and learn from. Beyond that, our sound team released video tutorials on the edition of aircraft sounds, and we are in the process of authoring new video tutorials for other areas. It is now also possible to edit custom painted lines in airports. Finally, we are improving SimConnect support and are developing an automated testing framework to help guarantee SimConnect keeps working with subsequent updates to the sim. DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP We have released a preview version of the Development Roadmap update in the Insider Area. Head inside to check out the preview! MORE AMAZING SCREENSHOTS FROM ALPHA TESTERS Screenshot by JohnnyT5000 Screenshot by old radar Screenshot by FalsetaxYT Screenshot by Richstagx Screenshot by ebbsy2 Screenshot by DirtyRolando200 Screenshot by JohnnyT5000 Screenshot by Flinty94 Screenshot by ColorfulZeus767 Screenshot by Johnny15000 Screenshot by Neebs43 Screenshot by speedwoblz Screenshot by ethugp3pp3r Screenshot by Batlle777 NEXT UPDATE – 07.23rd Sincerely, Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

AUGUST 6TH, 2020 DEVELOPMENT UPDATE POSTED BY: MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR TEAM Screenshot by Snapmatics9160 “This place is about to get very busy soon.” Avsim User 12 days and counting! This message brought to you in part by: Tree Height Truthers – working hard to make sure you can see the forest through the trees. – MSFS TEAM PARTNERSHIP SERIES UPDATE – INTRODUCING BLACKSHARK.ai! SDK UPDATE We officially started the Microsoft Flight Simulator Marketplace Partnership Program on July 18th and several hundred companies have already applied. We could not be more excited about all the cool creations coming to the platform in the months and years ahead. On the SDK side, based on feedback from the 3rd party community, we are targeting most of our efforts on the areas that matter to them. Sometimes, functionality is already available but is not yet clearly exposed or documented. Recent examples of that are the custom jetways and the functionality of our light system. We will demonstrate both in an updated scenery sample and apso will provide more thorough documentation. We also keep improving support for WebAssembly, with improved stability, asynchronous loading and more flexibility. The Developer Mode saw several important bug fixes and new utility tools make the developer’s life easier. We improved overall stability and improved taxiway sign editing as well as projected meshes support. Last but not least, in order to fully support Flight Simulator as a platform, we are actively looking at reinforcing the SDK team in the next few months as we want to ensure that the 3rd party community gets everything they need from our toolset. FEEDBACK SNAPSHOT PREVIEW NOW AVAILABLE We have released a preview version of our upcoming Feedback Snapshot in the Insider Area DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP The team is working on an updated version of the Development Roadmap that will update all planned deliverables post launch (i.e. August – November). We expect to have a preview version of this available post launch, targeting end of August. MORE AMAZING SCREENSHOTS FROM ALPHA TESTERS Video by speedwoblz Screenshot by TimeCrayfish5 Screenshot by McLovin Sam Screenshot by DaMii236 Screenshot by imaner76#7612 Screenshot by ExpressTomato52 Screenshot by SlidHydra647449 Screenshot by ITKIT#4860 Screenshot by DrkLink66 Screenshot by GaboBaa Screenshot by KieferTurner939 Screenshot by omarliew Screenshot by OperatorLand468 Screenshot by Lash123456 Screenshot by BruKn0ws Screenshot by Staib Sr Screenshot by z32ands30 Screenshot by dustells Screenshot by Jay Ryan Cda Screenshot by OperatorLand468 Screenshot by Jannomag Screenshot by finksther Screenshot by ProcessTie74434 NEXT UPDATE – 08.13 Sincerely, Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

JULY 23RD, 2020 DEVELOPMENT UPDATE POSTED BY: MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR TEAM Screenshot by Machete3181 “I love how “launch” is just one point amongst many others in their roadmap.” User/Avsim Launch is only the beginning! We are building something very special, together. – MSFS TEAM CLOSED BETA COMING 07.30 The team has started preparing Closed Beta for release next week. We will be posting full build notes with the build release. CLOSED BETA INVITATIONS We are sending new invites starting today. People that receive their invites between now and 07.30, will be given access to the Closed Beta Preview build. PARTNERSHIP SERIES UPDATE Today we’re release a little teaser for an upcoming Partnership Series announcement. FEEDBACK SNAPSHOT PREVIEW NOW AVAILABLE We have posted the most recent version of the Feedback Snapshot for preview in the Insider Area! MORE AMAZING SCREENSHOTS FROM ALPHA TESTERS https://msfs-cdn.azureedge.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/TMB-Exhaust.mp4?_=1 Video by Machete3181 Screenshot by simtom112 Screenshot by silve3rsurf3r Screenshot by squawkingVFR Screenshot by Flinty94 Screenshot by OperatorLand468 Screenshot by Norbo76 Screenshot by Raynen Screenshot by Drysa Screenshot by Batlle777 Screenshot by Flinty94 Screenshot by Matt987123 NEXT UPDATE – 07.30 Sincerely, Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

June 4th, 2020 Development Update POSTED BY: MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR TEAM Screenshot by AgreeingBag5526 We are going to keep the update brief this week. – MSFS TEAM Here is an update on the current postponed deliverables: PARTNERSHIP SERIES UPDATE – We are down to our last postponed deliverable (Partnership Series). The team is working hard to deliver the next installment in the Partnership Series on 06.11, and remain excited to share with the community more about the amazing partners contributing to the next iteration of MSFS. ALPHA 4 COMING SOON! Alpha 4 is currently in the final testing stages. We will be prepping the build for release starting next week and currently tracking to release on 06.11 (fingers crossed) barring any unforeseen issues. June 11th – Alpha 4 release June 11th – Alpha 4 build notes release ALPHA INVITATIONS Next round of invites being sent today! DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP The June preview of the Development Roadmap (0601) is here! If you are interested in checking out the preview version, please head into the Insider Area. MORE AMAZING SCREENSHOTS FROM ALPHA TESTERS Screenshot by Nightxpress6423 Screenshot by FBD763 Screenshot by Kpeterscr Screenshot by FooFighter1990 Screenshot by Nightxpress6423 Screenshot by Whitelight506 Screenshot by Trainplane3 Screenshot by Metallicastr2k Screenshot by Superdelphinus Screenshot by CrestedFox36298 Screenshot by Kpeterscr Screenshot by Kpeterscr Screenshot by SN0WY33 Screenshot by Anark1a2004tj Screenshot by Anark1a2004tj NEXT UPDATE – 06.11 Sincerely, Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

July 2nd, 2020 Development Update POSTED BY: MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR TEAM Screenshot by CaseBug92496684 It can be hard to see the forest through the trees. For now… – MSFS TEAM ALPHA 5 IS COMING JULY 9th! The team is finalizing preparations for releasing Alpha 5 on July 9th. Full build notes will be posted with the release. CLOSED BETA COMING SOON! We are still on track to release the Closed Beta in late July. Once Alpha 5 has been released, the team will begin preparing Closed Beta for release. Targeting 07.09 to provide an official release date for Closed Beta. ALPHA INVITATIONS New invitations have been sent! PARTNERSHIP SERIES UPDATE – INTRODUCING FlightAware! What is FlightAware? We’re an aviation intelligence company that provides real-time and predictive flight insights to all the biggest players in aviation. We synthesize data from thousands of sources across the globe and our team of amazing engineers layer on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to give the most accurate predictions on where a flight is and where it’s going. Our data is used everywhere from Google flight statuses, airport notification boards, airline systems managing gate flows, individual pilots sharing their private flights, to the millions of travelers and their friends and families checking out our web and mobile apps to get info on their flight. Now, our data stream called Firehose is going to power the real-time, global traffic in Microsoft Flight Simulator so that while you’re using the sim, you can see planes near you in real life. HyperFeed® is FlightAware’s machine learning and rules engine that uses thousands of proprietary models and algorithms to compile, evaluate and aggregate over 10,000 aircraft position messages per second to generate a single source of truth (SSOT) for aviation data. Where do you get your data? We’re a data company. Our data merges sources such as commercial schedules, air navigation service info of over 45 countries, VHF and satellite datalink, worldwide weather, and ADS-B data both from earth and in outer space. At the core of our data is our own ADS-B network – right now 28,000 receivers (and counting) – managed by a network of aviation enthusiasts across the globe that capture what’s happening in the skies above them and transmit the data directly to us. Planes are required to give off this information, we cast the net that captures it, then we synthesize the information on our site and in our products. The fun part about these receivers is that you can make them yourself. Get a Raspberry-Pi, pop our software on it, hook it up to the Internet and start sharing. Costs run less than $100 for the basic setup. Here are the instructions. For folks who live in areas where we need more coverage and can pass an application process, we’ll literally send you a pre-made one in a box – for free. You’ll become part of a network of ADS-B hobbyists across the globe and start seeing the skies in a totally different way. We call the pre-assembled ADS-B receivers FlightFeeders Why airplanes? FlightAware promotes aviation geekiness in all its forms. From the ADS-B network we just mentioned, to routine trainings for our employees, we want to be able to show you just how cool flying and flights really are. Our CEO, Daniel Baker started the company in 2005 to try and share the position of his Cessna 172 with his friends and family. Since then, our feeds have become the central data source for the aviation industry. He still flies, and so do about 20% of the folks that work at FlightAware. Fun note, our Technical Project manager, James Parkman recently got his pilot license and his plane in under 6 months – a company record. Over the years, FlightAware has begun a Flying program that subsidizes pilot training for its employees – we’ve even got our own training airplane! We believe that flying opens up the world around you, it makes distances shorter, the world more accessible, and satisfies one of the core aspirations of mankind. Microsoft Flight Simulator is close to our hearts because it opens up the world of aviation to a broad audience. Screenshot from Microsoft Flight Simulator “Microsoft Flight Simulation’s team is fully dedicated to bring to simmers the most accurate replica of the world ever seen from a plane perspective. Thanks to Flight Aware data, we are thrilled to be able to populate this world with the actual aviation traffic all around the world, whether it be on ground or in the air. Out of the box, Flight Aware data will allow simmers to fly sharing their air space with the current air traffic but also to check arrivals and departure from airports, select any flight to see its fly plan and even have the possibility to, virtually off course, take controls.” – Jorg Neumann Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Screenshot from Microsoft Flight Simulator Screenshot from Microsoft Flight Simulator For those folks who are just starting out, we say “Play hard, have fun, and once you’re hooked, wear your aviation nerd badges with pride (like us).” UPDATED FEEDBACK SNAPSHOT NOW AVAILABLE! Head into the Insider Area to check out the preview for v#05.01 of the Feedback Snapshot. OFFICIAL DISCORD NOW OPEN Head over to our Official Discord to chat with fellow flight sim community members! Check out our latest community spotlight here. MORE AMAZING SCREENSHOTS FROM ALPHA TESTERS https://msgpwebsites.azureedge.net/fsi/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/SanFran-Fog-Bank-Timelapse.mp4?_=1 Video by Speedwoblz https://msgpwebsites.azureedge.net/fsi/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/St-Pete-Lightning-1.mp4?_=2 Video by Speedwoblz https://msgpwebsites.azureedge.net/fsi/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Corsica-Multiplayer-with-Mykrode-and-Oddsobriquet-1.mp4?_=3 Video by Jelknab96 Screenshot by CrazyDoug17 Screenshot by TrueDima#1569 Screenshot by INoooch Screenshot by TurnedCrab36127 Screenshot by Snapmatics9160 Screenshot by Snapmatics9160 Screenshot by CrossedSpoon124 Screenshot by CaseBug92496684 Screenshot by ColorfulZeus767 Screenshot by ColorfulZeus767 Screenshot by CaseBug92496684 Screenshot by ColorfulZeus767 Screenshot by ColorfulZeus767 Screenshot by CaseBug92496684 Screenshot by CaseBug92496684 Screenshot by BioGrimAngel NEXT UPDATE – 07.09 Sincerely, Microsoft Flight Simulator Team