What will be the next best realistic flight sim be?

[Jimrh1993]

@KatanaDV20

@CplPhokett

I’m convinced the Platform will eventually move beyond being just “flight”. As you said (and I do too), it’s a PLATFORM. I’ve been moving away from calling it flight simulator.

Exactly how I see it. I felt this way since the very first time I flew in MSFS.

To me this is a World/Weather Simulator that just happens to have a flight game plugged into it.

In the future as computing power and internet speeds go hyper I see this platform starting to become a Multi Sim in addition to being used in professional circles by meteorologists, geologists etc. They could use it to visualize complex storms for example.

@MeridianOwl4306

You Said: To me this is a World/Weather Simulator that just happens to have a flight game plugged into it.
Nope, this will stay as a “Flight Simulator Game”…with all the added features like the earth, weather, buildings, fauna…etc…

Allow me to respectfully disagree.

Note the following important caveats:

• I do not work for Asobo/MS, nor do I pretend to be an employee of them.
• I didn’t get the invite for the last product planning meeting, so this is my own personal opinion based on my knowledge of the software industry, and they way things are moving in the sim.
• I do have considerable experience in the software industry - especially in software QA - so I have a fairly good idea of how things work in well managed projects.

Based on what I see:

• Microsoft didn’t have to put even half the work into this sim to have an absolutely awesome product.
• Microsoft is doing a LOT of work in AI and modelling.
• Fully understanding that the flight sim community, (including all the different sims out there), is - at best - a niche market that, by itself, doesn’t and cannot support such a huge outlay of resources and money.

Likewise, a product of this complexity is very likely a “proof-of-concept” for a much broader simulation/AI product market.

Why do I call it a “proof-of-concept”?  In order to do any kind of reasonably decent research on something as complex as this - you need a target project to give it context - that is a complicated problem to solve that will exercise the technologies you wish to develop, and isn’t a “toy” project.

Microsoft knows that it has a virtually guaranteed market for any kind of flight sim they would develop, so they can leverage that to solve a “real world problem” that has enough of a market that it will, at least, result in SOME near term return on investment to help move the project along.  Investing this level of resources and development for a “game” with a niche market makes no sense to me.

There is enough going on in this project, (IMHO), that to limit it to a mere flight simulator would be foolish to the extreme, and I am assuming that Microsoft knows where to sign a reality check.

I really believe that, if Microsoft has half the brains God gave a squirrel, they’re looking beyond the flight sim to perhaps bigger things in the future.

What say ye?