They had an opportunity to deliver spectacular visuals and increased realism, and they took it, which is the opposite of resting on their laurels.
Their vision rested on three conditions, all of which had to be simultaneously met. The customer’s computer has to be good enough. The customer’s internet connection has to be good enough, and the server capacity must be sufficient to never miss a beat even during peak hours.
To get back to the summary of the OP, they underestimated how well their vision could meet all three conditions. People with XBoxes or GPUs short of the 4000 series are having big problems, a good percentage of their customer base doesn’t have enough internet capacity to run the game, and it’s going to take a lot more server capacity than they originally estimated. If the servers are insufficient, they wind up dialing back the visuals, and it defeats the whole purpose of what they are trying to do. If our ISP takes a look at our bandwidth consumption and throttles us, it defeats the whole purpose of what they are trying to do. If they dial back the visuals so that dated computers and consoles can handle them, it defeats the whole purpose of what they’re trying to do.
It’s a mess. If they compromise on the vision, we were better off with 2020. I think they have to commit to 100% of the time never letting the server side be the problem. That takes a lot of resources, but of course Microsoft can afford it. And that doesn’t solve the problems of our own computers and connections.
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It feels like the final release date was set to meet the holiday season and became immovable.
Remember the rollout of the 787 - which was a marketing person’s dream as it was done on 8th July 2007 or if you use the MM/DD/YYYY format - you guessed it - 7.8.7 
The aircraft rolled out was slightly less than airworthy and luckily the first flight wasn’t on that day but over 2 years later in the end.
Sadly, with FS2024 the ‘first flight’ was a bit too close to ‘roll out’ perhaps 
i see a lot of comments along the lines of “it was the same when 2020 launched, there were issues, they got sorted”
i don’t know, i wasn’t there, i joined in 2022… so, i ask to those that were there
were folks refunding their purchases as they did with this launch?
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i dont remember exactly tbh, but back then, the simworld was different. What MSFS offered at the start was completely new, unmatched and mindblowing for most of the experienced flightsimmers. Never ever have we seen this much visual fidelity in a flightsimulator, which even performed pretty well back then.
It was then with time, where the honeymoon-phase went over, and peoples started to see the issues that still exist, like flightmodel stuff etc.
Now, FS24 isnt THAT of a big change, it doesnt look that much better than MSFS and in some cases (terrain textures) even worse. And at the same time is much more demanding, even on higher end systems, mostly caused by VRAM limitations.
Thats the difference i would say.
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I purchased the game after buying a computer six months after release. There were major bugs at the six month mark. I should have remembered that when I decided to preorder.
I’m not a very good pilot, so I need working autopilots to make the game playable for me. Otherwise, it takes all of my attention to keep the plane in the air and get from Point A to Point B. Then I can’t look out the window at the pretty scenery, which is really why I’m here. Right now, I’ll do a flight lesson here and there, and every few days I’ll take a short flight and find out whether the autopilot can be depended on to hit the way points in the flight plan. So far, the answer is no.
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I’ve seen a software development project manager adding new features beyond the promised release date.
A combination of over ambitious personailities, a limited grip of the scale of complexity, plus a sales base who were told when it would be ready…all ends up as a perfect storm.
Its better to develop mission critical stuff first (say the DX12 rendering, solutions for consoles with limited memory and upgraded planes/scenery), then develop as much of the desirable features as time allows. That generally gives a smooth landing.
The key requirement that was not thought through, was the name “2024”. That forced the mid-November release and we know the rest.
There are some great features - I get higher framerates and smooth visuals on my Gtx1080ti and quad core cpu compared to 2020. Better performance on the same hardware is the achievement I was hoping for, and worthy of praise.
The controls settings are a bit clunky, with rough edges, but the vital automatic per-plane setup is there.
Seb mentioned force-download in a video but its not there yet - the patch for the week of Dec promises the ability to enable/disable packages.
That maybe to manage the huge problems with incompatible data assets.
I seen 2024 and 2020 airport data clash, others have seen planes clash…all in weird ways.
I also wonder if the A320 Neo V2 is fully ported.
So I’m focusing on the New Year, and learning as much as possible until then.
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Code for downloading is in the source files, except it’s disabled. It all seems to lead to the market place being closed. That was my main issue I wanted a answer on (refund or not) and now that they re-scheduled we still know nothing.
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2020 is still a mess. Horrible scenery, AI, ATC, Console UI, fixed VOF and the list goes on and on. The only thing that makes me play 2020 is PMDG and FENIX. And looking at 2024…boy…that is software to keep far away from
…Reading the leatest news feed from MS in which the claim that users are super happy with 2024…boy oh boy…gives me the chills. Feels psycopatic.
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One big problem holding back Asobo is the 7,900 add-ons for 2020, which all need to be tested with 2024. They have tested about 4,000 give or take.
IMHO it was sensible to shut down the 2024 market place until there is stability in the add-ons. The promise that all add-ons will work with 2024 may come back to haunt Asobo/MS.
One effective solution would be to publish a list of incompatible add-ons. Then the vendors can sort out the problems, users can quiz them directly etc.
Tbh, I dont and shouldn’t care about their problems. It’s not what I paid for or getting paid for to care about it.
It would have been very easy (and morally a better option) for them to make it (paid) early acces or a beta, they didn’t pick either and pretended it was all fine and dandy.
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This is harsh, but ultimately totally fair.
Tough love, baby, tough love.