Local PCs going away…blah blah blah🥱
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Pretty sure MS are the last folks I’d entrust with an online subscription for PC’s (in terms of QoS, availability, etc…)
Call me cynical 
I don’t use the cloud for anything (intentionally, I get some apps use it on their own, such as MSFS). Disk space is cheap these days I’ll keep it local on the SAN (Netapp).
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Like ASus, Gigabyte, IBM, Dell, HP, MSI … will give up their core businesses to Microsoft?
I agree with you… ! !
I’ll keep “My Stuff” locally and create, well tested, backups every week.
I use a nice little “Hot Swap” drive bay to pop in and pop out my spinning backup hard drive.
Works like a charm and takes about 23 minutes to create a full drive backup and only a couple of minutes to create subsequent differential backups.
I used to back up my stuff to a local NAS in my house. Then I thought, oh, I need to test my back ups to make sure they are good in case I needed them. Then I thought, well I can’t keep these back ups in my house in case of a disaster (tornado, fire, etc). Since I didn’t have a viable off site storage option I started to use the cloud and have never looked back.
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On the day that you really need that backup and find the cloud is “Down” and “Unavailable”, you can just wait and wait…and eventually, the Cloud will let you back in.
Or you could put your backup drive into your fireproof safe amongst all those other super important paper documents that you cannot risk loosing and get to it whenever you want.
…
In reality, you are good to go…either way works… The most important is to actually have a tested and reliable backup solution. I use Macrium Reflect for my Win 10 and 11 computers.
I agree. Much of this is not needed.
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I have a few Windows 365 and Cloud Dev Boxes I’m using at work. They are great for private network access, imaging, accessibility, security/compliance, high availability, etc.
But considering the cost/longevity of a high end PC, I don’t know if it will be replacing a home gaming systems anytime soon. Most of us already have important data in the likes of OneDrive as well.
But it’s possible at some point. Give me quad RTX 4090ti graphics performance for consumption pricing and I’d be tempted.
I say this as someone who’s been building and upgrading my PC on my own for about a decade at this point.
I feel like MSFS is one of those games that will benefit greatly from cloud gaming services that already exist such as GeForce Now and what have you. Sure, you don’t wanna play Call of Duty on a cloud gaming device, but the gaming sphere has expanded far beyond competitive multiplayer games that there is now a significant userbase and demand for more relaxed games that do not demand minimum latency in gameplay. I agree that MSFS is one of those games especially if you’re not that big of a simmer and do not want to invest in a beefy PC just to fly. I’m actually thinking about getting my SO the game to play on a cloud gaming device and see how she’ll like it.
More accessibility on what is already the most accessible flight simulator on the market could only be a positive.
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I use Shadow Power for MSFS and in my specific case this is a very ok solution. I think this could be the future.
BTW… If you want to try Shadow PC, use code:
10445ED
5 euro/dollar less for the first month for you, 1 euro/month less for me.
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Thanks for that Info… Much Appreciated.
For myself, my PC has been a major part of my life since the first IBM PC and DOS on an amber (orange - black & white) screen & floppy disks.
Couldn’t get along without it.
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I agree… I swapped my TRS-80 Mod III CRT for an amber one but discovered that it was slow decay and changed it once again for a Green CRT fast decay. Loved creating Cobol programs on that machine with the help of a MS DOS Cobol compiler… Then the TRS80 Mod IV came along and I upgraded it to a whopping 128K memory and 2 double sided floppy disk drives… I was in heaven… Then came a sublogic flight sim and now… BEHOLD MSFS 2020… Things just keep getting better and better… Love it !
…
But the future may hold something completely different than what we are expecting or are used to.
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I’m a Mac OS user with a Shadow Cloud PC. Really only need a PC to play MSFS and for nothing else. Can’t really justify the cost of a decent PC just for occasional flying, when I can get away with a pretty decent setup in the cloud.
Dipped my toes in first with XBox Live game pass and ran a couple of months that’s way, but the streaming quality was abysmal. So upped my budget to $60 a month and now run it on a cloud PC. Same cost as an XBOX series X when spread over the year and MUCH better performance.
Sure there are downsides. Performance is that of a mid tier PC (you share an NVidia A3500 GPU) and Mac OS has a bug that causes streaming jitter over Wifi, but I can live with it. If I go Ethernet, performance is pretty good and the jitter is gone.
I’m sure there will come a time when the concept of having a metal box that looks like a generator with its cooling fans, OTT RGB and humongous graphics cards will be a museum exhibit that distant future generations will look at with curiosity.
But not in our time. Sure we will see the beginnings of it. But we will not see local PCs go away! I dont like the thought of that happening but distant future unborn generations will know of no other way.
Face up to facts, MS with their purchase of Activision and other houses are blatently trying to monopolise the gaming industry … and they certainly are not doing that just so Nvidia can sell more $2000 gpu’s to a relatively small percentage of gamers. The future of high end PC’s will still be there for games developers etc. but expensive and their ouput will be emulated only for next gen consoles and/or cloud, anything else would just be niche and unlikely to make any money.
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This again…
Bottom line is that latency is just too bad to offer anywhere near an equivalent experience, and consumer internet speeds aren’t going to improve the way they’d need to anytime soon.
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Online gaming is already happening and unlike PC it is gaining popularity
I just purchased a new gaming monitor for my son and it had options for cloud PC connectivity (Windows 365) and keyboard support. No PC even needed.
I have an Azure Dev Box I’d like to connect and see how it goes.
The monitor had the ability to connect to the internet via ? Wireless or Hard Wire ? or Both ??
Very Interesting Concept … What Brand & Model Monitor ?