Firstly there is no downside to having the xbox app installed - if installing apps or progs is a worry then I’d suggest the console route (FS is nicely optimised on Series X) - if you have game pass then it makes no sense not to have come across the app before.
Its likely not the app but Gaming Services that comes with it thats needed to help trigger updates
There are plenty of fixes posted in long threads here already - resetting the xbox app and the store app, logging out and back in, re-installing Gaming Services, using the newer Insider versions.
I had this prob with the previous hot fixes - did some work and this time the new updates isntalled straight off
It was not communicated in advance of the update because Asobo very likely I had no idea that the XBox app was going to be a requirement to download the update from the MS Store. Asobo, as the developer, has no control over the inner workings of the Store.
The need to first install the XBox app probably came as much a surprise to Asobo as it did to the end-users. They did update the installation instructions to include the XBox app once it became apparent that the update would not initialize without it.
To the OP, I had made this topic two weeks ago hoping to have some early direction (which included installation of the Xbox app) - unfortunately nothing came of it
Well of course it is. That has been known since before it even entered Alpha over a year and a half ago. The very first splash screen the appears when the sim launches says “XBox Game Studios”
But the fact that it now runs directly on XBox in no way precludes MSFS from being a “sim” either on the XB platform or on PC.
Nor did the Microsoft employees on this forum. The disconnect between all involved is pretty amazing, whether it’s the marketing team selling features that aren’t there, the devs who don’t know what’s going on in the community, the MS community employees who aren’t fully aware of what the dev team is doing… It’s like no one is steering the ship here.
Well I dunno, I must’ve been doing something wrong. This was the first time I’ve needed the Xbox app, as it was one of the first thing I uninstalled on getting Windows 10. Game bar, too.
I haven’t tried it yet, but there’s nothing to stop anyone installing it for an update, and uninstalling it again. It’s only a small download. (Unless you definitely need it now; like I said, I haven’t tried it.)
It is amazing but sadly ‘disconnect’ is becoming business as usual. FWIW it might be helpful to get some understanding of how updates are distributed to Steam, MS Store, Xbox, Game Pass.
IMHO the disconnect is inside MS Store. It isn’t the Asobo Store or the MSFS Store.
Aha! A conspiracy! Of course. It’s a grand master plan though with very long term and diabolical thinking. Something like this:
I know! Let’s find a way of really getting back at those nasty PC simmers that have been the bane of our lives for years - they’ve never given us a penny over the years for all our previous flight sims. What we’ll do is create a great flight sim - one that will blow everything else out of the water. To do it we’ll invest years and years in it and spent millions and millions of dollars developing it and putting the complicated infrastructure in place, signing deals with lots of third parties to provide weather, nav data, you name it. It will be the sim to end all sims!
But of course, those pesky simmers won’t see our plan at all, because we’ll tell them the sim is for them, when, in reality it’s for XBOX!!! [cue maniacal laughter]. Then, once the PC simmers are hooked, we’ll take all that good work we’ve done, and throw it all away and make the sim really bad so it will really appeal to those [insert bad word] xbox gamers who won’t know their IFR from their elbow. Can you imagine how upset the PC simmers will be!!! It’s a genious plan…
It may run on Xbox, but it is not identical, nor a substitute for the experience on a gaming PC, however. The specific choices of memory, graphics card, processor, peripherals vital for flight such as yoke, brake pedals, instruments, MCP, et. al comprise a set of hardware addons that are essential to a flight simmer on a gaming PC wishing to create as nearly a real world simulation as possible. Since you cannot augment your Xbox with anything other than your thumb-finger clicky thing, its limitations keep it as a clearly defined toyish package.