That would make sense. THen why not just build it as a Flight Adventure game for X-Box and PC with missions and such like rather than calling it a Simulator ? It seems to me the large proportion of the bottom line $$ is not coming from actual ‘simmers’ so why even market it to them. It would saved a lot of noise and misconceptions.
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All home computer flight simulators qualify as “games.” The fact that some aren’t confident enough about their hobbies that they’re not willing to admit that they’re gaming doesn’t change that fact.
Also, Microsoft Flight Simulator is definitely a flight simulator. There is absolutely no parameter according to which it isn’t, but it’s still funny that some try to pull the “game vs simulator” fallacy and “gamer vs simmer” fallacy to try and gate the hobby and diss the sim.
Imagine thinking that getting more content at no additional cost and widening the potential userbase (and opening this hobby that has been stagnating and dwindling for over a decade to a ton more people) is a negative thing, and makes this less of a “simulator.”
We can only be thankful that Microsoft Flight Simulator has attracted new blood (and will continue to do so) to the hobby, because considering the attitude of many, a rejuvenating of the flight simulation userbase was definitely needed.
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Working Title, Fly by wire and all third party devs including community will ensure it stays a Sim. Let Asobo make and render a realistic looking world. Pretty graphics, effects and animations including first person mode, events, driving, boating and trains. Until I see aircraft smash em ups and such it will always be a Sim.
Greazer.
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its always the same every time an update appears the same usual comments appear it gets VERY boring if you dont like the sim then dont use it and use one that you previously use. We have 3 amazing flight simulators in the community that cater for all.
MSFS is still new it took P3D/FSX/XP11 Years to become the level they are at as well MSFS will be the same. Things can be better yes but what we have just now is acceptable and will only get better in time.
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I would agree to a point, but you have got your timeline wrong. It stagnated in the 2008 to 2015 period. There was nothing new. Microsoft Flight made all the promises but failed to deliver. Then Lockheed Martin got the rights to the MS code and started developing it again. By version 3 this had become quite an improvement on the original code, then Orbx started to get serious about the exterior world and a whole suite a new products arrived on the scene, some like the UK scenery for XP are more realistic than MSFS with placement and building type. Then in 2015 Flyinside started working their VR products and breathing a whole new life in to FSX and helping P3D. Then Laminar brought out XP11 in 2016 which had finally some level of reasonable scenery to go with the already outstanding flight model.
So I agree maybe MSFS will bring some people to the hobby. But depending on how serious they are in actually learning more about aviation they will soon hit a hard stop in MSFS if it keeps going more in to the Adventure game genre. I’m not saying thats a bad thing at all, it totally can be fun. But no as a RW pilot who uses a Simulator to practice actual specific maneuvers and keep practiced in navigation methods I don’t use often it fails miserably. I’m not some simmer who wants to simulate they are an Airbus Captain, I’m using it as a tool, not a game. So yes there are different users.
As for the new blood, yes that’s brilliant, some will stick around, some will get bored and move on to the next game and some might be inspired to go out and take RW lessons and then they will find all the same flaws I find. But we still have XP and P3D and when we want to fly through magical cartoon clouds while in a C172 that handles more like an EA-300 in the air we have MSFS 
Everyones happy.
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Exactly well said.
MSFS is the biggest and fast selling flight simulator to date beating all the others in numbers by far and will continue to grow and grow and get better and better. People seem to think this all happens overnight.
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What you mention has done nothing to counter the stagnation of the hobby. As a matter of fact, a lot of it did the opposite, pushing the flight simulation hobby more and more into a dwindling and shrinking niche. Thankfully, MSFS has come and turned that objectively negative trend around.
Incidentally, I heard the “I use flight simulators to train, I use flight simulation to learn” thing a lot in the past 30+ years in this hobby, as it somehow set it apart from gaming.
Games of all genres have been used as training and learning tools for decades. Computer flight simulators aren’t in any way special in that, and it doesn’t make them less games.
The “game vs simulator” trope is nothing more than an artificial fallacy created to support a false point.
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I’d like to point out something that has been consistent since day one of this “flight simulator”
And that is the first screen you see when starting it up…
Nuff said… it’s been there all along
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They stated they’ll work on the VR at end of year
and your point is what ??
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What good is a roadmap, if you never pull out of the driveway?
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It means they are going to improve it by the end of the year as they stated before
I no longer believe their road maps, like many others …
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It says “Game Studios”
Not “Sim Studios”
Just like Farming Simulator 19 isn’t a true “Farming Simulator”… with every single facet of farming included… the same goes for MSFS… It’s gonna take 3rd party development to get it anywhere close to Simulation standards the true simmers want.
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In terms of aviation simulation, it is currently rubbish…which is why it only has 2 stsrs out of 5 on the Microsoft store
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Oh I love a game vs. sim thread! Makes me pine for the old days when Microsoft Flight Simulator was a sim for simmers.
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As a person directly connected with third developments, I definitely declare that it will not be soon, because there are no normal tools for realizing a realistic simulation. The principle is to use what is, and do not climb where you are not supposed to.
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This is how I see it. This thing, MSFS 2020, is a game that simulates flying airplanes around the world. It is NOT a technical simulation of real world systems or aircraft, nor do I ever think it was meant to be, regardless of how much money you spend on yokes, boxes, motions chairs, etc.
All this stuff about ‘A sim for simmers’ was just to get our attention and build hype. It appeals to our inner Chuck Yeager 
. If you want real world simulation, then I am afraid you have to look at buying time on a simulator from a flight school, not buying a $120.00 game from Microsoft.
I am just as critical on MS/Asobo as anyone and feel that they should quit breaking stuff, fix what is broken before releasing more broken stuff, but thinking this will ever be a real world simulator is setting yourself up for disappointment.
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Can’t see this lasting another 12 months if it keeps up like this at least all the hard core flight simmers will be thinking twice about hanging around
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agree 100%. I read these forums for entertainment, and occasionally find some fixes and hints and tips. I have had my bad days with this sim/game, and I have vented. But would I go backwards… hell no… lets just let this evolve. Patience is a virtue forgotten in this “I want it now” world we live in. A proper flight simulator is in the 10s of $1000 up to 100s of $1000. A 2K rig, a few hundred bucks of peripherals and $90 peice of software is not a Simulator. 
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