The world has changed a lot since then. In 98 you probably went to a video store to rent a VHS tape, play it in a machine at home and then walk back to the shop the next day and give it back. You probably bought physical CD’s and DVD’s in a store.
We’ve moved on from that now. The games that make the most money are often free to play titles like Fortnite. They don’t want to sell you a game, they want you playing the game and buying the optional in game purchases.
MSFS works the same way now, it didnt’ back in the 90’s and early 2000s.
Good point about Bing and Azure. MSFS certainly helps showcase and make use of these technologies too, so they are mutually benefitting from each other.
The main reason I think it will definitely be a free update is the two alternate scenarios seem like a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Let’s say they run both sims concurrently. They have to host two servers, and support two versions of the same game on two platforms. How does that make them money? They also stoke up anger amongst those who don’t want to pay again and so stay behind on an inferior, older version.
The other option, to avoid having to still support MSFS 2020 as well as ploughing ahead with an all new title would be to say you have to upgrade as the servers are being stopped.
If they did that there would be an outcry! There’s no way that is happening.
By logical deduction, the only logical option is they are making it free to all existing users so that they can focus on one platform.
The advertising isn’t for existing users, its to attract new users in 2024. They want the servers busy and the tills in the ingame market place constantly ringing. They do that by driving people through the shop doors, and a MSFS 2024 brand new game generates far more excitemnt than Sim Update 16 the biggest yet!
Anyway, I find it interesting to speculate, so thanks for joining me in the discussion!
I disagree with you here Superspud! Consider what happens if they do charge existing customers? They then have to pay out to maintain MSFS 2020 and it servers, updates and supports, plus they antagonise all those who don’t upgrade, OR they close the 2020 servers and if you don’t pay you don’t play.
Neither scenario makes any sense. They will just do what Microsoft already does with Windows and offer existing customers a free upgrade to the new base version. I had to put up with a year of Microsoft begging me to update to Windows 11 every time I rebooted my Windows 10 PC. Got annoying having to press Skip every time.
My guess is that all we will pay for is the Career add on which will be optional.
Why do they need to charge existing customers though? They haven’t charged for 13 world updates, an Anniversary edition and 12 Sim Updates. They don’t charge because the updates are like shows on a Netflix subscription, designed to keep the userbase retention.
They sell Gamepass subscriptions for $14.99 a month. They have a thriving in app marketplace. They want to get as many customers to pay the sub and buy things in the marketplace.
They don’t want to drive customers away. For the amount of attention MSFS 2024 will generate next year, it’s essentially advertising for the game.
They are using it generate masses of traffic and new customer sales. They don’t need to create any emnity with existing customers, thus they will try to build the userbase not try and get more cash out of the existing userbase.
Potentially. I guess they could then offer discounted opportunities to upgrade to 2024, like a Black Friday deal or something. I still don’t think it would be worth the additional work for Asobo to maintain two flightsims though, nor the anger it would provoke from those who would refuse to pay again on principle, saying that Microsoft promised a 10 year lifespan for MSFS 2020.
I can’t wait the official announcement to see they do, it’s intruiging speculating on it.
Yes that’s probably a fair and accurate description of me. You misread my post though. I’ve never run any of my computers on windows (I choose to only use Linux), but I use windows daily at work and have done for decades. So I’m all too familiar with windows as a user. I haven’t done any development on windows since about win 95 as all my development work is also on Linux.
I fully hear what you’re saying about the subscription model, I’m on gamepass myself, and xbox so have spent lots of money on the marketplace. For a while there I think most of us thought this was going to be enough to support the franchise.
I’m pretty sure that the situation just changed, from the marketing and the way they are talking in these interviews it seems clear they’ve spotted a way to make them more money, and that’s all a company ever cares about. It seems clear this is going to be a new full purchase, quite possibly without even an upgrade price.
How will they make it work? Well it’s the same game, with updated weather and other parts of the engine, as stated in the interview from the first post in this thread. They’ve done enough work to feel they can charge for it but obviously haven’t rewritten everything.
So what they do is provide ongoing updates to the core for free to keep 2020 compatible with whatever changes they are making server side to support 2024, and then build 2024 on top of these for changes and charge for all of the extras.
The advertising clearly stated “same skies” so they are going to make this work with the existing servers and probably even shared multiplayer. This way they don’t duplicate maintenance. If they manage to factor out the client code effectively they can end up maintaining one and a half codebases instead of two. They do this for a couple of years until most people have upgraded which they will (new weather engine at least, and nothing that we’ve currently got is being dropped) and eventually discontinue support for 2020 and offer a cheap upgrade to mop up the people not yet on board.
As a software developer this is all very achievable and makes heaps of sense. It just gets confusing when you let the marketing people at it.
I do not believe they will attempt to predict where to put a tornado. The sim doesn’t forecast the weather in Live mode, it merely simulates based on the data streamed from meteoblue. There will most definitely be a preset and tools/parameters to alter said tornado simulation.
It’ll be placed where the forecast thinks it will probably go, but of course that will probably be wrong. But it won’t matter to most of us, and will cause outrage amongst the few that expect perfect weather reproduction.
I’m 99% certain they will run on the same servers, only the install UI will be different with missing features for 2020
Most of those that actually shy away from 2024 are likely to be modders that don’t even use the MP and thus create little income for MS
The MP won’t be closing for 2020 customers however not all addons will be available without extra support from their devs. And some not even then.
There should be considerably better performance from the new engine that both will employ.
I think rebranding this way will be far more sucessful than had they just released a DLC addon.
Yes, it seems to be a good marketing decision. Let’s hope the sim sales will continue to be strong. I remember a few years ago when it was a niche, almost dead market. Amazing improvement now.
Nice interview and so on. But for me the important topics are still unclear.
Does moving to new title mean that all existing bugs are going to be inherited by it or are already solved upon release? This is what I understand as completing the current product at least. The horizon bug is still there in trailer so it seems we are inheriting that one at least.
Nice to read that weather and graphics are reworked but what does it really mean? We have also seen a reworked weather engine in MSFS and that was basically just adding gusts. The graphics also look basically quite similar to what we already have. Is new title a DX12 one or still beta?
The money is not a real issue as base game is not a huge investment for customer but history says that all upgrades to previous titles were not free. However they were really complete or close to completion when that happened. What’s the situation now? As of today they have not made a clear statement about that anyway.
What’s the lifecycle of this new game? This is the relevant part indeed to decide if you are investing on addons or the same situation will be repeated again. So is this a long term path or are we just collecting addons that may be potentially discontinued in the next 3 years when new title is released again?
To be fair, they haven’t even said MSFS2024 will exist alongside 2020. In other words;
We know that MSFS2024 is set for release in 2024 (likely late 2024).
We do know that MSFS2020 will get updates out to the current road map, which ends in December 2023, as per image.
Beyond that we don’t know any plans.
We don’t know if Asobo or Microsoft want to support to cloud/server powered sims at the same time.
My own (selfish) concern is that 2024 will require more powerful hardware. It happened with 2020, and I fear it will happen again. It happens all the time. More powerful hardware results in more power-hungry software, which leads to more powerful hardware, which leads to newer power-hungry software. Rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.
^ correct. They have committed to the current development roadmap for 2020 (which ends this year, 2023, before 2024 comes out), and nothing more than keeping the servers online for 2020 (“continue to support”) for an unspecified amount of time.
Expect no new development on 2020, or bug fixes except for maybe crasher-regression fixes, after the current roadmap ends.
At some point it’ll become inconvenient to keep running a back-compatible version of the online services and they’ll kill that, but it (probably) won’t be for a few years.
You misread my post though. I’ve never run any of my computers on windows (I choose to only use Linux), but I use windows daily at work and have done for decades. So I’m all too familiar with windows as a user. I haven’t done any development on windows since about win 95 as all my development work is also on Linux.
