Re: “Xbox Q&A makes no sense”
I’m sorry to disagree but to me, there are other ways to look at this.
On one hand, Windows and Xbox are converging entirely in the Microsoft Gaming strategy. However most 3rd party devs are used to PC dev, not Xbox dev, and this is why there might be some specific questions regarding this new ecosystem which we’d want to ask.
But on the other hand, because dev tools and technologies are entirely converging and are making no distinction between PC and Xbox from a game and technology perspective, I believe there shouldn’t much questions coming from 3rd party devs otherwise this would defeat the very principle of convergence.
But you could look at all this in an entirely different way than before: the game main target audience is the Xbox, with a simulator built around a market place for monetization. Building on a long lasting franchise name and with strong messages it is for simmers are meant to make the most likely early adopters of such genre, the simmers, embracing the new version and contributing to sustaining its growth until hitting the core audience on Xbox.
This is fine a business model to me, although I’m also wondering what it will take to sustaining this model over a 10 years span, which means capturing both the gamer’s money and the gamer’s attention time span in the long run, fighting against Halo, Battlefield, Fortnite, Minecraft, and any other new title coming up in the next decade.
It might require some more than touring the planet and engaging in bush trip missions. Because IMHO, if it wasn’t because of the passion in aviation and/or trying to recreate flying as close to reality as possible at a fraction of the real price, either because the driver to do so is make-pretend being a Captain, or practical training and/or proficiency needs, there is nothing more boring than civil flight simulation, after a while, if this is just a game and not a hobby.
This is where I also believe the convergence of technology for building an Xbox/PC game is sound in itself in the greater scope of Microsoft Gaming technology, but it might be not sufficient or otherwise too much constraining in the greater scope of supporting simmers needs in the long run, simply because the tight control and scoping of these gaming technologies (needed for a play-safer ecosystem) are naturally opposing to the openness of the PC ecosystem and the way simmers are using it.
This above is probably the main question I’d have regarding Xbox for the SDK Q&A.
PS:
For more information on this convergence in practice:
Microsoft Game Dev
You might want to also register here for April 20th:
Microsoft Game Dev
In the multiplayer session:
Case Study: How Flight Sim Built a Cloud-native Living World Thanks to Azure
To create the most realistic next-gen Flight Simulator we had to design a virtual world at Earth-Scale. It means to create the most realistic Earth digital Twin ever seen from the air, with its geography, its sky, air model and weather, and its real-time activities. But also, to distribute this data to players all around the globe and gather them in a one unified world connected by our game services. This presentation is about how these challenges have been achieved using Azure scaleable solutions for computation, distribution, and services as a backbone.