with all the may ham going through Xbox/Microsoft over the weekend and Phil Spencer pulling his hair out. I’m wondering what’s the future for flight simulator.
Join the crowd.
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???. explain.
Many of us here are wondering what the the future holds.
Sorry if I didn’t address your original question. But really, all we can do is wonder, right?
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Well, there’s an XBox event next week. I can’t imagine a cross-platform announcement will be made there, but stranger things have happened.
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As a Staff Reminder - please adhere to the Code of Conduct, particularly this:
One World, One Community - No matter how you play – regardless of platform, experience level, or reason – we are one community of aviation lovers.
Let’s not turn this into another polarized argument about PC versus XBox. Posts specific to this reminder were already removed. Let’s keep it neat and civil. Thanks.
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I highly doubt that MSFS2024 will arrive to PlayStation 5 probably due to the same reasons many other games from XGS don’t go to PlayStation.
I can’t imagine how much work that would be for Xbox Game Studios and the dev team to make the sim feasible for PlayStation. It feels like a lot of unnecessary work. I mean, it is possible but I don’t see it happening 
Cheers! 
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May ham!
No I highly, highly, doubt PS5, PS6, or even PS7 will ever see Microsoft Flight sim.
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Makes little business sense to bring MSFS to Playstation.
Exclusive titles are a proven way to sell consoles (e.g. PS and Gran Turismo) and with a PS version they would lose a sale to every PS customer who doesn’t want two consoles at home.
In addition an XBox is much cheaper than a high end PC, so many simmers have a cheaper way in AND Microsoft profits from selling both game and console while they wouldn’t profit from the customer buying a new PC or notebook.
And of couse it’s called MICROSOFT Flight Simulators and not SONY Flight Simulator. That’s basically a matter of pride NOT letting the hardest competitor have your flagship piece of software.
So bottom line is:
ain’t ever gonna happen even if hell were to freeze over.
This makes sense if it is Microsoft’s goal to sell consoles. But from the latest rumors and Microsoft’s non-denial of those rumors, it seems like Microsoft wants to pivot from being a direct competitor in the console space to being a third party software developer, hence all of the studios they’ve bought in recent years.
From the perspective of a software company, you want your software to be on as many platforms as possible. That’s why you can use Microsoft Office on Macs and iPads. If Microsoft is indeed pivoting to allow their “platform exclusives” on PS5 (it is all but confirmed for Indiana Jones and Hi-Fi Rush and even the “system seller” Starfield), there’s no reason why over time their own historical exclusive franchises like Forza and Halo and even MSFS can’t be on multiple platforms. It’s like gaining millions of potential sales overnight (PlayStation has always sold much better than XBOX with the possible exception of PS3).
XBOX consoles are not a huge source of profit for Microsoft. They are/were a way to get people into GamePass and to buy games like Halo and Forza. If Microsoft can let Sony do the less profitable part and sell millions more copies of their software, I’m sure that’s what they’d rather do. PS5 also doesn’t compete with PC’s in the way that XBOX doesn’t really compete with PC’s. If someone wants to use a PC instead of XBOX to play MSFS, they would also choose a PC over a PS5. Lots of people start playing MSFS on XBOX and decide to build a PC once they really get into it. If the same thing happens on PS5 (theoretically) you’ve got an even bigger base of players to start with who might end up buying Windows PC’s.
We’ll definitely find out more next week.
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We will indeed.
Interesting points. Thanks.
While I think the Microsoft Office angle has a different spin to it. Microsoft Office is the industry standard in the business world, and Microsoft doesn’t sell hardware because of it. Basically the Office solution available for Apple never really was competition for MS Office and in the beginning it was Apple who didn’t want MS on their computers not the other way around.
If MS really is concentrating on the software market then that’s a whole different ballgame. That in turn however would also mean that the XBox is most likely dead. As you said: the PS has always been more popular, so why buy an XBox if you can get the same games for the PS as well?
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Yes, if you visit any XBOX forums right now such as the subreddits about XBOX, everyone is losing their minds. The logical conclusion is that the hardware platform as we know it is dead.
But Microsoft has made no secret that it wants its games on every screen, they’ve said as much openly at their events. They want to be Netflix for games. They’ve put a lot of resources into xcloud and there have been rumors of xcloud integration into smart TV’s and things like that. Making $20 a month from each player without having to manufacture anything or ship anything physical is a pretty attractive proposition. Maybe they finally convinced PlayStation to put GamePass on PS5, the way EA Play is on both platforms. Maybe a condition of that was no more XBOX exclusives. Who knows. But we do know PS5 is getting a midcycle refresh with more power whereas XBOX is not.
All of this is wild speculation of course, but it fits the facts as we have them. And it’s fun to speculate wildly because if things happen to work out the way you guessed you can always point back to it and claim some sort of prescience haha.
Interesting times we live in.
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Note to moderators : as this is a discussion on currently unsubstantiated rumours / leaks, please lock if deemed inappropriate.
The last couple of days has seen an increasing flurry of speculation and rumours of Microsoft bringing at least some of their 1st party and upcoming titles to other console platforms, i.e. PlayStation 5 and Switch.
Rather than go over everything individually, I’ll link a Reddit thread that provides further reading:
This is all unsubstantiated at the moment, and has certainly taken on a life of it’s own with many people taking the rumours and running with them ( I suppose I am doing the same thing, really), but interestingly Microsoft’s Phil Spencer has put out a statement stating they will be officially saying more next week, so there clearly is some shift in thier approach to 1st party titles incoming:
https://twitter.com/xboxp3/status/1754598552548904973
My own feeling is that recent purchase acquisitions e.g. Starfield, releasing exclusively on Xbox / PC hasn’t driven console sales as they’d hoped, and Microsoft are now pivoting to releasing titles as widely as possible to maximise profits.
I wondered what peoples thoughts were on this?
IF, and it is indeed a big if, this is the case, potentially it could see FS2024 releasing on PlayStation 5 ( I’d think it’s too late in the day for 2020 at this stage) and possibly the heavily rumoured and more powerful PS5 Pro.
The Sony player base is far larger than Xbox, so would see a large influx of new players to the hobby, which has to be a good thing.
As someone who has been an Xbox user since its 2001 inception and on Xbox Network (FKA Xbox Live) since its 2002 inception, I really don’t want a PlayStation or to be forced to make the shift to one – and I say that as an ex-PS1 game developer. I have no real issue with the PlayStation (my last one was a PS2), but I just chose one camp years ago and have stuck by it.
As such, I’ve become very accustomed to the Xbox OS and the whole Xbox Live ecosystem. That’s 23 years of loyalty and mental investment and I’d be massively bummed to lose that.
Microsoft has got to recognize that there are many of us who feel this way, no? To throw that away would certainly seem foolish.
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In my mind, to continue fighting and losing against the PS platform in the low-margin console hardware sphere is foolish.
Xbox Cloud Gaming is the future in fast Internet connection locations (i.e. big cities) and letting Sony and Nintendo fight amongst themselves over the end of the console era should be the smart long-term move.
As long as MS/Xbox can make money from their own titles on PS or Nintendo, that’s all that matters in the short-term.
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Ok folks - really - let’s stop bashing each other’s channels too. Reddit vs Forums vs. etc. is subject to the Code of Conduct as well.
I think a lot of people feel this way, but shareholders want what shareholders want. From the best numbers we have, not only is XBOX selling less than PS, it’s actually losing ground as this generation was the slowest selling yet relative to PS.
Also, as we’ve seen from everyone on YouTube who has ever tried to build a PC at XBOX prices, Microsoft can’t be making money on these. Even getting like for like performance for the price is basically impossible, let alone factoring in R&D, marketing, support, etc.
I know this won’t happen, but I think it would be neat if they could somehow get PC’s to dual boot the XBOX OS. That way for people like me who just want to play and don’t want to fiddle with settings that much, we could just log into the XBOX part of our PC’s and play like we do now on XBOX. They really seem to have nailed the hardware and software this generation, I too will be sad to see it go (if it goes).
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I had started to mentioned this in my previous post, but ended up deleting it.
If this really can be made to work as well as the Series S/X that are in my house, I’d be fine with this concept. I suppose I need to see this thing in action working when three of us in this house are all playing a game together. It’s one thing passing three Xbox consoles’ worth of packet data for our network/chat, but to pass three players’ worth of Cloud data? That seems like a big ask – unless my total lack of knowledge about the Cloud tech is, uh, clouding my judgement about it.
Now that would be pretty awesome. However, I don’t want to buy/build two more PCs for the other two family members that I game with here.
Now that would be pretty awesome. However, I don’t want to buy/build two more PCs for the other two family members that I game with here.
Yeah me neither. I just got a series S last month for my youngest and now my kids happily play together (apart). I don’t foresee the consoles going away this generation, but if they eventually do it’ll be a sad day and I’ll feel the same way the Windows Phone people felt 10 years ago. Just when it was getting good! But if Wifi8 or 9 or whatever it is by then is good enough for them to play all their XBOX games on a USB stick or smart TV I guess that wouldn’t be so bad.
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I had both the original Xbox and 360 but, unlike you had been mainly PlayStation since PS3, owning PS4 and Pro last generation.
Indeed, I moved to Series X purely for MSFS - as soon as I read that it was returning and watched the initial trailer I knew I had to switch.
In doing so I left behind a lot of stuff that comes with such a long time in the ecosystem.
Ironically, if I was forced to change back I’d be in the same boat, having bought the Velocityone yoke (which I doubt would be compatible with any potential PS5 port) and spent roughly £1000 in add ons.
Actually - having just read what I’ve written, a move over to PC would probably be on the cards.
Will have to see what next week brings.
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