Full disclaimer: I didn‘t go through all the posts above and I will joyfully ignore any „PC vs XBox“ arguments.
First of all, I consider myself a „noob simmer coming from the 90ies“, with „appetite for more“. The most realistic flight sim I played back then was probably Falcon 3.0. And yes, it was totally the visuals of MSFS (particularly the cloud rendering that still excites me to this very day) that pulled me back in. So there you have it.
So here are simply my 0.02$:
I wish that more (all) 3rd-party aircraft - even or specifically the „study-level aircraft“ - would make full use of the tools provided by MSFS, notably the „interactive checklist“ that points you to the excact knob or wheel you have to turn
And yes, even if that would be a bare minimum (non-realistic) checklist to get the engines up and running from cold and dark
I know that this is probably extra work that takes time - but we do have this „show and tell“ technology in MSFS to help us newbies to get familiarised more quickly with the „whereabouts“ of each single switch
(and yet some 3rd-party developers do not even provide/know about the version history that is supposed to be shown in the Content Manager)
And I fully agree with the sentiment that A) an aircraft should make „full use“ (best in a „standardised way“ like „button A raises/lowers gears by default) of the Xbox controller and B) if that is not feasible (which is okay, too!) clearly say this in its description (joystick/keyboard/mouse required)
Happy flying!
Update: Oh, and for context: I am a casual simmer - on a Mac
I’d perhaps wait till the PMDG 737 on Xbox before making that kind of statement…
Have you tried the sim on Xbox?
Look, no one’s claiming that the sim is better on Xbox — or that the Xbox is ultimately equally capable of running it — however the difference is NOT night and day as some PC users would have us believe. I evaluated both versions recently and chose Xbox because I could get essentially the same sim for a lot less money and hassle. Cost wasn’t really a factor but the Xbox was certainly giving me more bang for my buck.
I use it on Xbox, and a mate uses it on PC. I’ve seen them both. Unless you have a high-spec system, the Xbox version actually outperforms a middle-of-the-road PC (a point conceded by my PC-simming friend). There are all sorts of little caveats to consider before boldly asserting that the PC is king of MSFS.
As I’ve said many times, the base sim on Xbox runs almost exactly like it does on a very high-end PC. The discernible differences become more apparent when you start adding very complex sceneries, with which the Xbox admittedly does struggle at times (insufficient memory, apparently). That said, high-end PC users are not exempt from CTDs and performance issues so the myths can be dispelled pretty quickly.
I respect your opinion but if you’ve no experience with the sim on the Xbox platform, I’m afraid that opinion doesn’t count for much.
The most realistic flight sim would be a niche product only usable by people with big wallets who can afford the hardware. At the moment things are getting more expensive and we can’t just pull out a RTX 4090 like we are buying some candy.
The more complex and hardware heavy a simulator becomes the less users you gonna have. That will hurt Microsoft’s bottom line.
If you want to have “the MOST realistic sim possible”, go buy yourself a multi-million dollar full-motion simulator running on a mega-petaflop supercomputer. Or, you can cheap-out and get a personal Dream Aero cockpit.
MSFS is the flight sim I truly wanted back in 2003, when FS2004 was released. Everything I dreamt of and wished for two decades ago is now a reality. And it will only get better.
When I first got MSFS just over two months ago, my mind was blown! The problem is, familiarity breeds contempt — after a few weeks I began to nit-pick and identify anomalies and omissions I never even considered upon initial purchase. I imagine we’re all guilty of this increase in expectation but I’m ultimately grateful that I essentially now have the sim I always wanted.
I’m not always in the mood to sit down for a prolonged period and perfectly simulate a real-world flight. Nor do I always have the time. So being able to take full advantage of the game’s more beginner-friendly elements actually serves as an enjoyable distraction — almost like a game within a game, within a game.
We get so much more than just a sufficiently accurate simulator. We get these little side missions that turn us from simmers to virtual tourists. I’m sorry, I don’t believe anyone who says they’ve never derived a little pleasure from taking the drone out and exploring — whether it be a new scenery, famous landmark or familiar city/area.
I bought the Orbx Dubai city pack a couple of weeks ago, and spent some quality time trying to recreate the recent real-life feat of landing a Zlin bush-plane on the Burj Al Arab’s helipad (and I’m proud to say I succeeded!).
I mean, you are proving my point. You’re not going to see those multi million dollar simulators running on an Xbox are you? Nope, you need a computer to do that.
Well the limitations are in the name itself…XBOX.
Boxes have walls and limits so you are confined to such as…
No VR compatibility
Fewer complex aircraft/scenery addon compatibility as some devs just aren’t interested in publishing an XBOX version, just don’t have the experience to port or just don’t own an XBOX in general.
Fewer flight control hardware product selections to choose from.
No huge freeware ecosystem like Flightsim.to, so you are confined to Marketplace.
Folks who build complex big $$$ vr/motion/sim rigs obviously have an issue with being “confined and boxed in”
I don’t understand why consoles can’t have graphical options like PC. Why can’t we set the graphics how we want it to be on consoles? That thing has always made me choose PC over XBOX. The options available is really important for me. I know there is only one set of hardware in those consoles. But many use same hardware on pc too but the settings we set are different depending on what we want to set.
I for sure see more complains of performance issues from pc users. Maybe thats why?
Whether devs want to release for Xbox as well as PC is another matter; however the testing process is essentially the same for both so unless they don’t particularly want to optimise for the console, there’s little reason not to attempt to increase their revenue/customer base. That said, 95% of what’s available for PC eventually arrives on Xbox. It might take a year, though… or even two, as in the case of DigitalDesigns’ SZG!
The lack of freeware is more of an issue, and I’m not convinced we’ll see it any time soon. Seems to be some pushback from the powers above Asobo on that one. But Microsoft need to look at the bigger picture and realise that freeware has the potential to drive payware — allow the release of a free, high-fidelity plane and simmers may choose to purchase a couple of MP sceneries that go hand-in-hand with that particular aircraft type. A lot of my recent scenery purchases have been tailored specifically to the ATR.
The limitations of Xbox are largely about economics, I imagine, rather than processing power. The point above about self-optimisation on console is another valid one — and another arbitrary hurdle that needlessly limits Xbox flyers. IniBuilds’ JFK is demonstrating rather nicely that choosing the PC platform doesn’t preclude performance issues.
The PMDG 737 will be coming to XBox, and will likely work just as well as it does in the PC version.
The Fenix A320 will never be on XBox - not because of its complexity, but because it requires an external program to interface with ProSim. External programs are not allowed on XBox for security reasons - even if the external program does nothing more complicated than adding 2 + 2.
PC-like freeware for Xbox would have multiple problems.
On PC a dev can release and update whenever they want. They also don’t need to optimize for console.
On Xbox the freeware would need to get funneled through the marketplace. Now imagine the amount of freeware plus the update frequency in an approval based system like the marketplace. You gonna wait months for an update to hit the market. I also don’t see freeware developers grinding to optimize for console. Why would they? They don’t get paid for it.
This is all wide of the point and really has nothing to do with how MSFS is, or is not, helping less capable players enjoy the sim.
With regards to “boxes”, I remember a university group that got several hundred or so Nintendo consoles many years ago, wired them up together on a network, added some custom code, and ended up creating the tenth most powerful supercomputer at the time.
Raspberry Pi’s run Tensor Flow, do facial recognition, run ROS, do environment mapping, and generally humiliate anyone who trys to “talk smack” about 'em.
They’ve gone into outer space, they do remote sea environment monitoring, and the list goes on and on.
People are doing things with the micro:bit that are absolutely astounding! Paired up with a decent chassis, a micro:bit makes a pretty competent robot.
I haven’t had the time to experiment with the micro:bit too much lately, but I can easily see someone making a robotic aircraft using one based on what I have done with it and the available hardware interfaces that presently exist for it.
Remember:
Just because it’s a “box” doesn’t mean it’s incompetent.
I’ve yet to see a Youtuber live stream on an Xbox. (Capt. Canada, XP72, BlackBox, Blue, etc.). Even though Xbox is cheaper, yet, non of these Youtubers use Xbox. Why is that??
It’s great that MSFS is available for Xbox users. I’m not denying that. But it’s also not fair that the sim cannot be pushed to it’s greatest potential for PC users who have the hardware to run it at so.
I can only imagine the headaches and obstacles that Asobo must be going through in order to maintain such an open world sim like this steadily compatible for both PC and Xbox.
My guess would be that Xbox doesn’t support the steaming software needed to live stream. If you set up a remove camera and streamed that way I suppose. If PMDG is getting their head pushed in due to Xbox approval/compatibility, I can only imagine the hoops Asobo has to go through.
Can I stream on YouTube from Xbox?
Xbox One doesn’t allow you to stream on YouTube directly. However, you can stream Xbox One to YouTube using your computer, Xbox Console Companion, and Screen Recorder 4. To live stream on YouTube using your Xbox One, click the button below to download Screen Recorder 4 for free and follow along.
So you need a computer anyways. So yeah if you need a PC to stream MSFS on Xbox to YouTube might as well just use MSFS on the PC anyways.
