An open letter to Jorg Neumann regarding SU5 and release quality

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Dear Mr. Neumann,

I’ve been a Microsoft Flight Simulator customer for years, and I’m writing because SU5 has me concerned about something more important than any single bug.

Some background on where I’m coming from. I work in software, and in a previous role I spent years as a knowledge manager supporting the U.S. Department of Defense. In that world, you learn quickly that the inability to roll back a deployment isn’t an option; it raises the bar for what you’re allowed to do, because the cost of being wrong can cost lives and material. I understand that this is just a game, but what is truly disturbing is the business practice. SU5 shipped anyway, with stability issues that volunteer beta testers had flagged before release [reference: April 23rd, 2026 MSFS Weekly Briefing - Microsoft Flight Simulator ].

That combination is what I want to put in front of you.

I spent close to two weeks after SU5 troubleshooting what I assumed was failing hardware. It wasn’t. But the application crashes I’m still seeing match a Frame Generation issue your team has already identified and patched in the SU5.1 beta, meaning the bug was known internally, and customers like me spent significant personal time chasing a problem you could have characterized in the release notes. I’m not asking for compensation for that time. I’m telling you that it happened, because I don’t think the scale of it is fully visible to you from inside.

I’d ask you to think hard about three things:

The beta-to-release decision on SU5 deserves a real internal retrospective. If volunteer testers raised stability concerns and the build shipped anyway, the next beta cycle starts with that institutional memory whether you address it or not.

The “primarily affects console” framing of SU5.1 is doing PC users a disservice. The Frame Generation CTD alone affects a large segment of your highest-spending PC customers. Calling it out by name in patch notes would cost you nothing and rebuild trust.

There’s a quiet population of technically capable customers — developers, engineers, sysadmins — who would give you much higher-signal feedback than typical forum traffic if you built a channel for it. We notice patterns. We have language for them. Most of us don’t say anything because the existing channels feel like shouting into a void.

I enjoy this product as I am also a private pilot and want this product to succeed. I’m writing because I think the team is capable of better than what SU5 demonstrated, and because staying quiet when I notice these patterns feels like part of how they continue.

Thank you for your time.

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PC and Xbox user here. I can’t remember my last CTD or any other game-breaking issue. So the sim itself is fine.

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If only we could think your very good letter would reach his ear - or eyes.

I sincerely hope it does, otherwise this is as you identified, shouting into a void!

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You’re wasting yours; regressions, major bugs being reported and not fixed during beta alongside general poor beta practices have plagued this development program since SU1 for 2020.

Simply put, they don’t listen.

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Nice letter, indeed.

Let me pls not agree with your sentence because we really don’t know the fluctuation within the dev groups. Very sry but from years with this big projects, I expect very big fluctuation or not so high knowledge of aviation problematic that must be injected to this simulator, to name it fantastic. This is my personal opinion. Every time I remember very long time panic to understand what push button CLICK action on TBM with STD Press is for :slight_smile:

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What you don’t cover is the commercial aspect. Microsoft have to think of their reputation in decisions about releasing new or updated software. Once they have announced it there is, shall we say, considerable pressure to release, not only from the MSFS Community but also their own PR departments. This, to me, heavily influences their decision on whether to delay or just release and hope there is not too much flack until the team resolve the issues. It’s sort of a “rock and a hard place” situation. In the end they must do what they think best and, in reality, my guess is that they’ll take the latter option - it’s what they’ve done in most of the past releases and it doesn’t really seem to have caused them any commercial harm or distress.

In the end we just have to suck it up - which is the reason I never willingly (sometimes we have no choice) go for a new release until it’s been out in the field for at least a couple of weeks. And NEVER Betas!

Until players stop rushing to get the very latest, I can’t see the situation changing.

I don’t think you’re wasting your time and am pretty sure MSFS management will take your comments on board. But don’t expect any public response.

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Nice and good opinion with true look to this project future…

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“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for?” Browning.

I’m not getting all poetical about MSFS2024 but those words I think illustrate the sheer breadth of the undoubted vision the developers have for the sim. They are true, perhaps great even, visionaries.

However it is clear that they do not have the discipline or the attention to detail - the project management skills - that are needed to follow through and present us with a finished product that is suitable for beta testing.

Many things they start remain partially completed, started but left unfinished as the team move onto something else new. We have a library of stock ‘planes, most of them only part-functioning and with bugs thst keep them in the hangar for most people. They are left discarded like old toys in a playroom whilst the team move on excitedly to the next famous flyer or expert collection aircraft that’s on their list.

The consequences of this approach are that more than a year after its launch, MSFS 2024 is taking one step forward and one step back as it lurches through the big, risky SU updates which most of us have come to dread rather than look forward to.

Perhaps the team won’t read the letter or take in its content - they certainly have a track record of not listening to -or seemingly caring very much about - beta feedback they are diligently given.

It’s a real shame - for embracing a disciplined approach to development that prioritises quality ahead of quantity, would be a quick win. Results would start to become evident rather quickly and it would help to translate the teams’ ambitious visions into reality, Just now they are just fantasies sitting within a largely incomplete, buggy, and somewhat messed up flight simulator, rather than the showcase it really ought to be.

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uuuuuf

very sry to all, abs my thoughts, AGREE and have same feelings, also after all life as dev practically.

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In my opinion, as I have stated over and over again, the only real solution is to embrace modding. Like you mentioned, the community out there is full of talented people who could work magic in a matter of hours. Just think about the possibilities: visual overhauls, physics updates, quality-of-life features. They could turn this simulator into something near perfection. Everyone would win—both developers and players. It is honestly a pity to see so much potential going to waste. Of course, I understand that people who do this for a living need to make money, and rightly so. However, I feel they are prioritizing that aspect a bit too much here. Plus, opening a game to mods doesn’t mean company profits will drop. The world is full of people ready to purchase premium addons, especially when they are exquisitely made. Personally, as someone who loves career mode, I really hope this game will one day become the masterpiece we are all dreaming of.

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If you think SU5 was bad I remember SU2 crippling my ability to run FS2024 at all between May 2025 and September 2025 (when SU4 beta came out) as performance on my older PC was so bad, I literally couldn’t use the sim for 4 months. They have history now and it’s sadly how they operate with SU’s across FS2020 and FS2024. They seem to have an internal window to release these things regardless of issues affecting users or platforms (barring showstoppers which don’t seem to include performance issues).

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I remember that too. SU3 rendered me flighless to the point I bought a new cpu and gpu and nvme. Sent my pc back to the builders who told me nothing was wrong with the pc. £££££'s later :money_mouth_face: :face_with_symbols_on_mouth:

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It was bad. Frustrating too. I had a working (from a performance perspective) sim on FS2024 release and after SU1 too, but then that was taken from me with SU2. That was 4 months of using FS2024 I lost. I spent that time using another sim. Most people with better hardware didn’t notice the performance issues introduced in SU2 though and wondered what lower spec’d PC owners were going on about. I now have a new PC, but I’m still keeping an eye on reported performance issues of other users.

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i don’t think they have ill intentions but they do suffer badly from feature creep which is very common this day an age, and, even though they are vehement in that they listen, it is evident that they have a tendency to disregard criticism as “the same nay-sayers as always” and tend to favor those opinions that will always tell them that everything’s fine, no matter the state of the product

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I lost counts of great performance reports from people flying a C172 with a 4090.

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…in a desert

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… at night, with no moon,

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… and clear skies…

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…and a white livery

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at 1080p with 3x FG on.