VR Flight World

Most of us are waiting anxiously for this sim to come out and are happy with any little detail we get. So far, it has been a complete tease with very little information to work with.

Well, they finally gave us more to dig our teeth into. They have released a little more detail that really gives us some serious hope. I am now a believer that this is going to be a great simulator. Let’s go into some of the new information.

A True “Simulator”

First and most importantly, Microsoft announced that this is going to be a true “Flight Simulator”. In their words, they said, “We are making Microsoft Flight Simulator. Emphasis on the word SIMULATOR”. Which is amazing news. No Microsoft “Flight”.

Designed for PC

They then go on to say that the Simulator will be designed for PC, while being optimised for multi-platform support, which will be XBox. This is also great news, as it was not really clear on the first introduction whether or not it was going to be designed completely for PC. Well, it looks like it will be.

3rd Party Development

Now for most of us, we love to have our aftermarket planes and scenery. It looks like they will be supporting some type of 3rd party content development and community content creation model.

So, still don’t know how they will implement this, and it sounds like they are not 100% sure either. However they have it in their mind and will be working on this as an option.

Listening to the Community

Probably one of the best pieces of news is that they plan to work and listen to the flight sim community. This is already being demonstrated with the above points, so I believe this is going to happen.

As there is a ton of momentum in the VR sector of flight simulation, I hope that this will filter into Microsoft’s plans. I am very confident that our community will push this as well. I have signed myself up to be part of the insider information and have expressed an interest to be a tester for them. We will see what they say.

Accessibility to All Pilots

In the last major point they made, they said that “accessibility” is important to them. They want to make this available to sim pilots of any ability. When I first heard this I started to get worried, until I remembered that they stated they will be making this a true simulator. They also go on to say that they want to make it compatible with yokes, pedals, mouse, keyboard, controllers, etc. They essentially want no pilot left behind.

Conclusion

So I think we can sleep good at night knowing that Microsoft has our interests at heart. The only thing I still worry about, is whether it is going to be a subscription model where they nickel and dime us to death, or will we be able to buy it outright.

I think either way I will still need to get this sim, but I will be happier if we can have an option to be free of ongoing payments.

It looks like we will find out much more on the development starting in August.

I will be following this and will be keeping you updated with my email list. If you want to find out more, please subscribe to the email list below.

Thanks again,
Dan