I Interviewed Jorg Neumann on Microsoft Flight Simulator for Xbox, future plans, AI traffic, shared cockpit, replays, & much more 🤗

[Nirgal2776]

@moxiejeff

and to me, it sounds like they’re not sure exactly what the plan will be in regards to the “hardcore sim vs game” route

I have understand that also. But it strange they have to choose. With some users’ settings, it should be possible to make the product good on both aspect and let the user choose what he wants.

[Abriael]

@moxiejeff

Agreed on that - I want this to be the best sim it can be… and I believe a lot of us feel the same. Hoping they will continue on making this more “study level” (I hate that term, but you get my point) vs just a casual thing.

I would read the answer from Matt from Working Title on that, since he has an insider perspective that I lack.

The sim is perfectly capable of supporting core simulation, but that needs products from third-parties, which simply take time to make.

No commercial sim in existence provides a “study-level” experience out of the box without the support of (numerous) third-party addons. It’s just the nature of the beast.

[Bishop398]

@moxiejeff

and to me, it sounds like they’re not sure exactly what the plan will be in regards to the “hardcore sim vs game” route.

That’s not what Jorg is referring to here, although I totally do see how it could be read that way, for sure.

Right now, he has a spreadsheet of literally hundreds of big aviation firms and smaller facilities that are super interested in having MSFS be the platform for their next simulators. But, the question that he’s referring to is more, from a support perspective, is now the right time to dive into the realm of moving from a product where yes, there is a bunch of user support, but not on a direct basis (entertainment product) to having companies under commercial support licenses, which means they have a phone number or an email and they’re in direct contact.

The question of whether or not to go left or right, as he says, is whether it’s the right time, yet, to enable commercial support, both from a resources and from a SDK perspective. And to me, the SDK question is a more close to being solved than the resources question, but it’s all something the team is considering, because it could also be a enormous boon to the product and project if the timing is in fact right.

There’s no intent to move away from accuracy and quality systems simulation, even while we look for better ways to capture folks interest for whom that isn’t necessarily the top focus. We have an entire strike team dedicated towards the core simmer goals and we keep driving it forward. A lot of what we at WT do will be focused towards that, but there are other initiatives as well. So I wouldn’t worry about the simmer crowd being left behind: there’s simply no intention to move away from that.

-Matt | Working Title

[moxiejeff]

That’s awesome and per usual, thanks for taking the time to explain. We appreciate you Matt!

[Zeeflyboy]

As always, thanks for your perspective.

I’ve always found it curious that some assume the platform simply can’t both cater for “hardcore” and casual… to me it seems evident already that it will be more than capable of doing so, both through much higher fidelity third party aircraft and indeed already built-in assistance options on the opposite extreme. I think probably the main thing still missing after the Xbox accessibility work for the casual side is simply giving more to do beyond just the joy of flight such as missions, career etc to hold interest longer term.

Of course it isn’t necessarily quite there yet in some aspects on both fronts, there are definitely parts of the core sim aspect that could do with improvement, but I absolutely believe it can/will be getting there within a reasonable time frame. For any failings (real or imagined!) it’s already the most enjoyable flight sim experience I’ve had in many years and the future to me looks extremely promising, in no small part down to the enthusiasm of those such as Jorg.

Look forward to seeing more of WT’s work appearing in sim too!

[Abriael]

@Bishop398

There’s no intent to move away from accuracy and quality systems simulation, even while we look for better ways to capture folks interest for whom that isn’t necessarily the top focus. We have an entire strike team dedicated towards the core simmer goals and we keep driving it forward. A lot of what we at WT do will be focused towards that, but there are other initiatives as well. So I wouldn’t worry about the simmer crowd being left behind: there’s simply no intention to move away from that.

If they had any even remote intent to move away from core simulation, they wouldn’t have hired Matt and Working Title.

[KKbelos]

Thanks Matt
I know you can’t probably comment on this, but I hope that one of the areas being looked at is ATC. It’s not so bad actually, but if it gets some polishing and some additional features, it could really make a big difference in terms of immersion

[FlashedUnicorn1]

I think Jorg has been pivotal for the whole project. His master stroke of bringing Working Title on board as contractors was a stroke of genius. Wherever he’s taking the project I’m really enjoying the ride and I had zero interest in sims before MSFS. The fact that he is a bibliophile is great

[Nirgal2776]

Thx you Matt for clarifications. It needs to as Jorg’s words could be interprete in different ways.