Hello, I used X-Plane for a lot of years (great real simulator), than MSFS2020 arrived and the VFR was incredible, so I bought an Xbox to fly with it (I use only MACs). The simulator is great for a lot of things, but it doesn’t looks like yet mature. An example is the lack of replay mode; replay, I think, is fundamental to evaluate the fly and should be integrated as soon as possible. Being Xbox a closed sistem everything should work perfectly but I see a lot of problems (you have civilian pilot on F18, if I select to star with plane in the parking for cold and dark it starts instead on runway with plane ready to takeoff, ATC too has to be improved, …).
MS2024 looks gorgeous, but I’ve got the sensation it goes more on the direction of game and less on the real flight simulator. I’de like two more years dedicated to MS2020 to have it stable and complete, also if they continues to release updates about MS2020, I’m sure their main project is MS2024 and they will dedicate less and less time to MS2020.
I guess a couple things
For the simulator going in a more game direction, this has already been disproven. Yes, they are adding missions. But NOTHING you can do now will be removed from FS2024. You will still be able to exactly the types of things you do now. Missions and career is just an additional activity like bush trips and landing challenges. Thats it. Adding them does not take anything away, so it isn’t moving FS2024 into a game instead of a simulator.
As for the stability and completeness. Asobo used to release sim updates every 2 months. That was 6 times a year. But everyone got upset at the number of things that were breaking while fixing other things. The community asked them to slow down the updates, to have them focused (so only one area would get broken), and to have them beta tested. That means now we only have 1 to 3 sim updates a year. Sim Update 10 took 9 months in just beta. Two years will not make MSFS 2020 complete. That would only be about 4 focused updates, and to make it “complete” would require more than just 4 updates.
Doing all this stuff in 2024 while no one is using it means they can work on everything all at one time. They don’t have any worries about breaking the sim for users. They don’t have to be focused on just a small area. They get to strip out legacy code that causes issues. Everyone wants everything working right now, but when it comes to actually getting the updates, people want Asobo going cautiously to not break the sim. There just isn’t a strategic way to get the sim to be “complete” in a two year timeframe. Thats why it is better to let them focus on doing this all in a year where there are no concerns.
A very good and correct summary, @tgbushman !
That is exactly how it happened with the change of update pace.
Just to add an additional comment to @tgbushman 's excellent reply - the developers also mentioned that they have got as far as they can with the current limitations in the code base (edit) and the limitations it imposes, which is why the change to a new product.
Forum admins, please make the forum pop up @tgbushman and @CaptMatto 's posts anytime “MS2024” is typed in the forum…and only close the popup once the user has read the posts through! 
Hi,
Just to clarify your post it is the same engine in MSFS2024 just advanced/recoded in certain areas for the new product.
Thanks
Nothing against a new version coming out and even paying something for it but I do hope they offer an upgrade discount (like was used to happen with the office suites of old).
I’m a late arrival to FS2020 so don’t really want to pay full price again after maybe only 12 months of this one.
My primary reason for waiting was to let them iron out most of the bugs first but at this point I still consider 2020 a work in progress with players being used as testers. If we put this in Windows OS terms, it’s like a Developer Preview.
Will wait to see other reviews unless the discount is substantial for early adopters.
Depends on what you mean by engine?
They said that they’ve realised the client is getting too heavy so if they are going to make it more lightweight that would require an architecture change (think like when Mozilla created Firefox, well that was the original promise anyway).
Don’t think there is enough info at present to say if the graphics, data feed or other engines are redesigned.
I’m far more interested in new code that will (hopefully… 
) be much better optimized for multi-core / multi-threading CPU’s.
FS2020 code is obsolete, and there’s only so much lipstick on the shelf.
You have to wonder though what did they base FS2020 on, was it FSX code?
Multi Threading was a thing even 5 years ago, perhaps not used but entertainment industry though.
Has that many more advanced features been introduced that they couldn’t have seen this being a problem when building the “next generation” flight sim?
If they do probably it wi help. I hear people saying switch off AI or Live Traffic as they are CPU killers. If each of those can be assigned to different threads/cores along with weather, plugins etc then sure it may help.
Things I’ve heard about multi threading though (note not professional developer) say that the inter-thread communication can be its own bottleneck.
Yes, the base was largely FSX code. MSFS 2020 really started out as an experiment to see if the digital world could be created based off bing map data and using Azure. Once they had a working prototype, and buildings for Seatle, Jorg wanted to see what the flying experience would be like. Asobo put in a rudimentary flight mechanic so Microsoft could test the prototype of flying around Seattle. Jorg then commissioned MSFS to be written, and Asobo’s chief concern was that they didn’t know (at the time) about flight mechanics. So Jorg provided them the FSX code.
Everyone now at Asobo has at least the basics of flight theory. They sent all of them for training, and many people in Asobo now have pilot certifications. You see Seb loves to geek out about flight dynamics, and they have also hired Andrey.
People can complain about the decision to base much of MSFS 2020 off the FSX code, but the truth is, without it, we wouldn’t be here today. We have a much brighter future ahead of us, but for many, this current sim exceeds their expectations of what a flight sim can be. It’s also brought 12 million people into flight simming. 12 million. I understand the glass half full part of the community will deride the decision to use FSX code originally, but it got us to the point where its a successful franchise again, and we have the ability to move onwards to a better implementation.
Hi,
The graphics engine is the same as widely reported the horrid horizon line bug is present in the marketing video, the rest will be advanced and built upon from the base of MSFS2020 including the physics, this is pretty obvious. You don’t simply write complete new engines in a year and declare a new release, look how long it took them to release 2020 and now with 2024 - all advanced with recoding aspects, nothing underlying is “new” except for minor areas. Even the Working Title AAU code will be ported over and advanced to take advantage of any new features.
Thanks
Yes, my x-plane app on my iPhone has replay. And in a lot of ways feels like a more realistic flight model. Absurd we don’t have replay.
If you’re on PC have you looked at FlightControlReplay?
Got it recently so still learning but very impressed so far. Effectively it’s my own Blackbox recorder, does far more than a built-in replay function ever will.
Another thing for the improvements list, why can’t you just disable something in the content manager than having to uninstall it?
EDIT: someone added this to the wishlist 2 years ago…why do things take so long?
Enable and disable Community and Marketplace content without uninstalling - Microsoft Flight Simulator / Wishlist - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums
An example, been testing the France 1935 addon from Redwing (first impressions are good by the way) but it replaces a lot of the stock aircraft with ones from the 1930’s.
Currently to get back the previous state, I have to remove the entire addon. As it’s only available from the Marketplace it’s actually a worse feature than things in the community folder because at least with that I can use Addon linker to enable/disable as required.
I’m waiting for a situation when I’m getting ready for a group flight and I’ve forgotten to reinstall. Something like a 5GB download for France 1935 I think, that’ll make me late on my Internet speed.
Please correct me if downloads are cached or not?
All avoidable if an enable/disable feature existed…simples. Just needs an extra flag in the content manager database so any marketplace addons are not loaded when the sim starts up if disabled.
IIRC, Addon Linker has a feature to also symlink OneStore items.
Hi friend, on Xbox here.
I have seen the 3rd party PC replay, looks good. But shouldn’t be needed…no reason why it shouldn’t be core sim.
This have also explicitly stated that missions are all current real world aviation missions.
Frankly, I wish they’d stop working on 2020 altogether and crank 2024 up to 150-200% development. Just the whole mutli-threaded, weather and traffic improvements alone, will be huge wins and let’s not forget the cloud efficiencies and reduced downloads etc. Jurg and crew know what MSFS is, and they’re not going to mess with it. Post like this are shortsighted. I vote for 2024 full send, can’t come quick enough.
Really? Playing x-plane on an iPhone feels more realistic than MSFS? …I’m out.