In your post you mention marketplace items will work but you fail to mention if 3rd party marketplace items like simmarket will work thats where i spent all of my money
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There’s absolutely no reason why they wouldn’t.
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From the FS2024 FAQ:
“Current aircraft and airports that are in Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020), as well as virtually all Marketplace add-ons, will be supported in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.”
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Don’t forget:
With very few exceptions, virtually all add-ons that work in Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) today will function in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Add-ons that were purchased from the in-simulator Marketplace will not need to be re-purchased in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
Namely the part where (probably for legal reasons as they likely can’t actually assure us of such things yet), they only make this assurance for addons purchased through their own In Game Store.
They make no explicit mention of addons purchased externally and the vagueness of the part you quoted is not enough to draw such a conclusion IMO.
They need to come out and explicitly confirm or deny if externally purchased addons will be fully compatible as MANY addons do not exist at all on their own store.
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That’s a pretty clear statement that MSFS2024 will be as compatible to 2020 as it can be, but that they can’t 100% guarantee that everything will work. However it stands to reason that 3rd party devs will have an incentive to keep their stuff working in 2024. Selling a special 2024 version of an aircraft would be considered a cash grab by the community, especially considering MS more or less promises that it will still work in the Marketplace.
Of course MS will have no direct control over what is sold externally. But let’s be reasonable: if one dev should try to set different standards for the Marketplace and other sales platforms (or his own shop) the sh*tstorm here in the forum would be … well … significant …
That means (IMHO) that the Marketplace items are transferable to MSFS2024 - i.e. that everything you bought in the Marketplace for 2020 will be available without extra cost in 2024. That’s a fear you will not have with addons bought outside the Marketplace since you have control over what you bought and can save it without any encryption or DRM to your hard drive for safekeeping.
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Right right, so we pretty much agree bud, I just think there was a bit of misunderstanding. All I’m saying is that between those 2 questions and answers where they refer to the “Marketplace”, it created vagueness as to what exactly they mean by “Marketplace”. In the part I quoted, they clearly are referring specifically to their own in-game marketplace. Which, for me at least, hints towards the previous mention of the word “Marketplace” meaning the same thing.
It’s just vague and not explicit enough is all. They may well mean that ALL addons regardless of place of purchase will for the most part remain compatible. And indeed that is common sense for most people obviously. I’m just a skeptical person at heart. So I need an explicit confirmation about external purchases before I believe it.
Marketplace in capital letters suggests a name and thus the MS Marketplace. There hasn’t ever been any other platform (simmarket, Aerosoft, flightsim.to, ORBX etc) called “marketplace” as far as I know. And talking about all sources for MSFS would be something like the “market” and not the “marketplace”
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Yes but Asobo/Microsoft can account for this by making sure whatever compatibility layer they build in makes is so that I should be able to take an existing version of an addon for 2020 that I already have, stick it in 2024 and just have it work without additional porting over. If they do that, which they absolutely should, then devs would not even be able to cheat us for the same product with a new “2024” sticker on it.
Yep, my point exactly 
I buy mostly from external websites so, those addons, including those not present on their official marketplace at all, would have to have some form of compatibility. X-Plane has been doing this for ages.
Like with Sim Updates in the current MSFS there’s always a chance that MSFS2024 will break an aircraft or some other addon. However it’s the responsibility of that developer to keep it working - not Microsoft’s. Since they state so obviously that they expect almost all addons to fully work with MSFS2024 that suggests that they do not plan to make any changes to how that new sim will work with content. You will never get a guarantee, but - like with switching from Windows 10 to Windows 11 you will have the same basic technology underneath. The whole thing is too far gone to reinvent the wheel.
They would be stupid if they didn’t assure compatibility. They’d drive away hardcore simmers (who spend a lot of money on addons) back to XPlane.
This is only true in the context of the same game/sim/product. MSFS 2020 is a singular product. Thus changes to say, data structures of how a plane is represented in game can be justified on Asobo/Microsofts side because it’s still the same product and they kind of shift that responsibility onto third party devs to keep their addons up to date.
Once you cross to another product however, claiming compatibility, becomes the responsibility of Asobo/Microsoft again in that they should solidify and maintain an unchanging structure for 2020 addons at the end of its lifecycle which can then be placed at the core of the 2024 addons, thus ensuring backward compatibility.
And yea, agreed, and I’m sure they already know this anyways. It’s true, we are all speculating right now. But we wouldn’t have to be if they just confirmed this one big question explicitly enough.
I’m quite sure if MS more or less promises that, it will make sure that the devs make it compatible for MSFS2024 or get thrown off the Marketplace. And any single dev not playing ball will have a hard life considering the fallout in social media - especially if all the other devs kept up compatibility.
In the end this is not a legal issue. This is self-regulating acording to how the market reacts … or the Ferengi Rules of Aquisition … not sure 
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But what I’m saying is, between 2020 and 2024, it’s not the third party devs responsibility to ensure free compatibility. It’s Asobo/Microsofts.
See, if Asobo/Microsoft chooses to compeltely re-invent the way say a plane or scenery is reperesented in data, or change it to a great extent and therefore it would require third party devs to put in significant man hours to port their stuff. Well I don’t expect third party devs to invest significant money (via hours worked) to make these ports possible for free for a product (2024) that’s being called a NEW sim. And they shouldn’t have to is what I’m saying. Asobo/Microsoft just needs to enure the crossover is easy, thus not requiring any work or very little (we’re talking 1 work day or something). They need to not re-invent things for 2024. If they do, it’s on Asobo/Microsoft, not on third party devs.
You just know there are some 3rd party devs that will be charging money to get it for MS2024.
Of course some will try Not the reliable ones though. I can already see the CaptainSim C130: MSFS2024 Edition
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The 3rd party developers that use DRM in their product could easily block their addons to work on MSFS2024 and force the user to purchase 2024 version.
That’s the thing that I would not expect.
Since the past is prologue I think we all have some idea of what to expect.
For that reason I probably won’t be buying any more addons for 2020.
Best to minimize one’s risk - but that’s just me and because I am likely to buy the new sim as soon as it’s available. Anyone who isn’t inclined to do that would not be affected so in that case continuing to purchase addons is fine for them.
I am sure that Captain\Scam are having a field day today and are already preparing the excuses they’ll use to ask for extra fees to port to 2024.
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We at REX will continue to support 2020 as long as Microsoft allows us, and we plan to support 2024, but right now we don’t have enough information at hand to make any official statements.
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