I am enjoying one of my extended sim breaks. But that won’t stop me from expressing my opinion. Does anything? Flight cost me NOTHING. So I totally forgive MS for that. In fact there is nothing to forgive. Personally, I have come to hate the sandbox nature of sims. And this is why Falcon is such a standout. It’s a game first and a sim second. FSX was also a game. Sure, the scenarios were scripted but they were loads of fun. They gave the player a reason to go fly. I would expect the same from this iteration.
This also means that MS, one of the planet’s largest companies, market-tested the world and the world still dreams of flight. That just warms my heart!
Real talk here: how probable is it we can get a SimCopter successor out of this? Since Take On Helicopters kinda dropped the ball.
Remember, if you can’t convert into a wolf/dog/thing and run across the landscape, it doesn’t count.
TakeOn didn’t drop the ball for me. I totally loved it! The story was believable and the flying was decent. AND I was allowed to walk around and find bird’s nests in my MD500-like helicopter. If FS2019 promises anything close to that, I’m in.
You can sign up for preview builds and the newsletter here:
https://fsi.microsoftstudios.com/insider-program-sign-up/
Note: The builds will probably be via the Xbox Insider Hub thingy in Win10, so mentally steel yourself for that.
i’m late to the party here, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it being on Xbox and being toned down because of it. Win 10 is suppose to be “1 platform” be it Xbox, PC etc. All their games, especially their own ones have gone that route. It’s one thing I won’t actually complain about M$ for trying to do.
Just for a comparison for the VR folks, look at look comes out for PSVR, technically the “worst” VR, spec wise. It just means they generally have to optimize the crap out of the stuff. I can always tell if something came out on PSVR first cause in general it is better polished and optimized (because it has to be to work) than a lot of stuff that is Oculus/Vive to start.
Might as well borrow the media images, just in case they remember they cancelled this before and just deny all knowledge of it next week. 
Aircraft seem to be:
- DA-62
- TBM 930
- A320 (with a FMS? Good lordy…)
- Icon A5
- Piper?
- Beechcraft Bonanza
- Cessna 182?
- Cub
- Cessna Caravan
- Flamingos and Giraffes fully simulated with ILS approaches.
You’d think this market is more saturated than an underwater sponge, but should be fun. I wonder what they learned from MS Flight?
That a new business model is a terrible idea and that everyone wants an updated FSX with the reliability of what MS produced, without Gamespy and with the open support for expansions and third party content of all kinds…well at least that’s what we hope they learned.
Not disagreeing with you, just know that at places like Microsoft if you walk into a VP’s office with presentation that says ‘fsx again but now using !!! AZURE AZURE AZURE !!!’ you’ll at least get past the first slide. Without the cloud element then your nose would get caught in the slamming door.
I’m just trying to figure out what possible angle they would get back into this market, and that’s the best theory I have.
I guess it’s possible for a mixed platform too. Other platforms stream games and that doesn’t stop anyone from having it regularly.
I am quite excited for this, I miss some GA flying but going to say FSX steam just didn’t seem right.
Like my posted image above, I would be happy to get back in a twin engined prop like the Baron and fly with some of you through the Rockies. Just enjoying scenery, the drone of the props and making throttle, mixtures and prop adjustments was always quite nice.
I trust Microsoft to do this right - Flight was a misstep sure, but everyone makes those - and botching the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise’s well renowned history now would be like Ford deciding to cancel the Mustang.
But I couldn’t convert into a wolf/dog/thing and zip across the landscape! Also, everyone had an understandable spoken dialogue.
Yeah, I didn’t understand the the reference. But I am a bit dense that way. And you are normally pretty funny so I am sure it was a good one!
[edit] ahhh, read the link.
About 5 years ago, I’d have met this news with two emotional thought lines:
- Incredible excitement that launched me into spending every day looking for new morsels if information.
- Bone chilling dread that MS would blow this opportunity, and we’d be left with few, if any, viable alternatives.
In the year 2019, I feel the opposite: I’m not really that excited, as we currently have a solid stable of civil sims: P3D playing the roll of the successor to FSX, X-plane finally in a place where it’s gaining serious momentum behind it’s aftermarket, and Aerofly on the periphery with a solid flight model and visuals, with approachable systems modeling.
By extension, I’m not worried they’ll blow this opportunity. I now hope they do try something radical. Cloud streaming seems like the ticket. As I look at my well worn launch edition Xbox One (vintage 2013 baby!), it’s clear that MS will have to do SOMETHING to make FS at this scale work on aging hardware (remember, even with the Xbox One X on the market, the day-one XBO is still the baseline spec for any XBO game to run). Plus, heavy overhead computing costs have always been a major thorn in simmers sides. If they can find a way to offload that work to a server farm, all the better.
I’m going to write to them and ask if both 3 1/2" and 5 1/4" floppy disks are going to be an option.
It’ll use a to-be-announced iOmega Zip Drive attachment for the Xbox.
Well said @aggressorblue - it’s not like the days where if they don’t succeed it will kill sims. I too in a way hope they try something different.
Hmm, I wonder how much of this shot is just ‘mock up’ versus actual flight plans in a FMC etc. Putting the transponder code as 2019 and even have the managed dots in the upfront controller as well.
I’d be amazed if they didn’t bring in an existing P3D or FSX aircraft for this…
Multiplayer might be where it is at. I mean - of the Big Four (FSX, P3D, X-Plane, Aerofly) do any of them offer a fluid and fun multiplayer experience similar to DCS World? Three of the four have some sort of connectivity, but it isn’t the kind of experience where you could fly on someone’s wing into a valley and watch and enjoy them doing touch and gos at some ranch strip. If MS could make that happen - our virtual fly-ins would be really fun.
So when we getting the Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 1998 reboot?
