Worse development in MSFS2024 compared to MSFS2020 days

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I think something is going on at Asobo. I don’t know if they’ve had budget cuts, PS5 time-consuming or what’s happened.

All that’s left of those MSFS2024 presentation videos are the videos themselves. There’s no longer any information about wish lists in blog, and if it’s being considered, they’re working on it… There’s no feedback.

In the developer forum, one of the most voted idea/request has been there for a long time, it has been completely ignored, and it’s as simple as making existing variables readable through SimVars as is already done with other variables. The only vague response has been that it’s not a priority.

If nothing is a priority, if air traffic has the same problems as in MSFS2020, or worse, because in 2024 they don’t even stop when they occupy the same taxi lane, they just drive through you, if there are things that have been requested since MSFS2020 such as improvements in weather and shared cockpit.

What is a priority, Asobo? Have you really had your budget cut so much that you can only fix critical bugs and insert 3D buildings and photogrammetry?

What I’m getting at is that I think there’s a slowdown in development compared to how it was in MSFS 2020 (not because of their frequency, but because they are significant). There isn’t as much feedback, and the distance between the community and Asobo seems to be growing. Maybe it’s just my perception, but that’s what I’ve been noticing lately.

I hope they manage to fix the bugs soon and can get started on the core mechanics, which I think is what really attracts everyone: better AI, better weather, better career mode, activities, features pending since MSFS 2020, etc.

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Why were bush trips totally removed?
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They just got a new boss, so who knows. Wait and see.

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I think it’s more likely that they were forced to release 2024 before it was ready and they’re still overwhelmed with fixing all the bugs. Hopefully a lesson was learned.

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Interesting comment by Asha Sharma, new CEO. “ We will not chase short term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop”.

Errm, Jorg, AI needs sorting and minimising according to the new CEO. :wink: :grinning_face:

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FS2024 already came from a branch full of bugs and things half-finished in 2020. It’s no coincidence that many bugs that existed in 2020 and were fixed appeared in 2024, possibly because it was an earlier branch. Add to that the publisher’s rushed release putting pressure on the studio, and that’s what happened.

Asobo will spend years trying to stabilize the simulator’s performance and will leave everything you mentioned as a low priority.

I no longer have faith in a shared cockpit or a new weather engine. Asobo is doomed in this endless hunt for performance and downgrades. And the cycle will repeat itself: FS2028 will be a branch with bugs and things half-finished in 2024. And in live streams you’ll always hear “we’re checking this, we have other priorities at the moment,” and it will be like that until 2032, 2036…

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Executives like her have one job, to maximize profits for shareholders. Shareholders want one thing, maximum return on their investment now, not later. Just like everyone else, she’ll do whatever she needs to do to make that happen. Slashing budgets, cutting staff, completely changing a studio’s roadmap. Whatever it takes. Just like the last guy, who was supposedly as much of a ‘Gamer’ as someone can be.

Let’s not forget, Sharma is coming from Microsoft’s AI division, which exists solely to develop technology that is intended to replace jobs on a global scale. People are already losing their jobs to AI, thanks to her and those above her.

My point is, if there was ever a time to take what someone says with a 5lb bag of salt, it’s now. Personally, I’ll just write that off as a complete lie. She can say whatever she wants, the way she leads the Xbox division will speak for her very clearly.

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What I really miss is the Development Roadmap. Currently there’s basically no information what’s even being worked on. It used to be included in the weekly Development Blog. But now I can’t find it anywhere anymore.
Wish they just put in in a sticky post in the Announcement section so everyone can check out if anything has changed.

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Hi folks,

Just to avoid any misinterpretation here having read some of the above comments: the recent appointment of Asha Sharma as the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming has not affected Asobo Studios, whose CEO remains to be Sebastian Wloch.

We understand that there is great anticipation amongst the community regarding future plans for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, and work continues behind the scenes to fix bugs and progress the title for all platforms. With Sim Update 4 releasing in December 2025 and bringing 10’s of thousands of bug fixes, and now Sim Update 5 in open beta on most platforms, we’re excited to see what 2026 has in store for our community!

We’re also aware that users are wishing to see updates to the Development Roadmap and Feedback Snapshot, which usually accompany Developer Livestreams. While I can’t provide an ETA for an update on these at this moment in time, we are aware of this feedback as I’ve mentioned, and will provide one as soon as we are able to do so.

Thanks for your honest feedback
The MSFS Team

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Why were bush trips totally removed?
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There’s a lot of value here still. You’ve got the digital twin that can be served up anywhere. You’ve got a proper SDK for developing study level simulation. You’ve got a much improved VR engine. I wouldn’t be turning out the lights yet.

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The weekly blog was split up. Rightly so, because it turned into a fluffy ad for shovelware developers. The problem is, there hasn’t been a dev update since this change. Why is that?

Is development just that slow, that there isn’t enough news to justify a weekly post? If so, why is that still the case over a year after release? If it’s a matter of not having enough internal resources to composed a weekly post, why is Asobo still in all-hands-on-deck crunch mode after all this time? Surely it can’t be that time consuming to write.

As Chewwy said, they seem to see this sentiment being repeated, but make no attempts to provide any updates to the community. It’s been quite awhile, surely there has to be some progress that is worthy of reporting to the community, right?

I remain convinced that something changed at Asobo shortly before FS24 launched. The executive leads used to do regular streams, at least once a month, that always had substantive information on development progress for FS20. The dev blog always had new information as well, and they made it easy to track things with the feedback snapshots. All of that disappeared autumn 2024. Who else but Microsoft would tell a studio that they are too transparent when dealing with their community? I genuinely don’t think Seb, Martial, or Jorg would want that. I think that came from above their heads.

I’ve spent too much time and energy typing this post, and I spend way too much time ruminating the current state and future of my main hobby. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

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Hello @FndrStrat06,

For clarification, the weekly blogs, both before and after the release of MSFS 2024, have always been written by Microsoft staff, not Asobo employees. Also, in terms of team structure, Jorg works for Microsoft and is not an employee of Asobo Studio. Seb is Asobo’s CEO and Martial is the Executive Producer of MSFS at Asobo.

Additionally, the dev blogs did not always have new development information. We published a new blog post every week, but there were many weeks where there simply wasn’t any new development information to share with the community and the Production Team didn’t have a new Feedback Snapshot or Development Roadmap available. The feedback we received over and over was that players didn’t like it being titled a “Development Update Blog” if it didn’t contain new development news, so we changed the format of the blog and renamed it to the “Weekly Briefing” last November. We will publish separate Development Updates when the dev team has new information to share, an updated Feedback Snapshot, a new Dev Roadmap, etc.

Thanks,
MSFS Team

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I understand Jorg’s relationship to the studio. Using the word, “Always,” was an exaggeration. I remember well that not every post had development info. However, substantive info came much more frequently in years past. Thanks for clarifying nonetheless.

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Just because there isn’t anything to write about weekly doesn’t mean development is “slow”, that’s a bit extreme. Development is usually/commonly done in takts/sprints of 2 weeks, but if it’s a bigger feature or fix it could take multiple takts. I think it’s unrealistic to expect an update worth mentioning every week, plus doing so is also actual work that could be spent doing other stuff.

I’d like to hear more news too, but weekly seems a bit much. But I do also wonder why the devstreams seem to have slowed down so much. Hopefully we’ll get one soon.

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I don’t expect weekly dev blogs, but I do expect more than one every quarter or so like last year. I don’t think that’s unrealistic to ask for, especially since Asobo used to deliver just that.

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Sure, I’m with you. You did mention “weekly” though so it sounded like that’s what you were expecting.

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I’m more concerned about no stream / no official communication since October 2025. I understand that the community managers are not at liberty to give us more information about what is going on (or not) but dancing around this doesn’t really improve anything.

To be clear, nobody at MSFS owes me / us any more information, there is no contractual obligation for that. But one thing that was so positively different compared to other products/games / companies / teams was the “relationship”: frequent streams / information / real dev updates. Patience is hard when you are suddenly met with radio silence for months after having experienced how it used to be before. Or like the kids like to say it: being ghosted :laughing:

Well, I hope everyone is fine and we’ll have a stream soon … like in really soon, not in marketing soon™.

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I agree the Community had a special relationship with the developers, not the norm for Sims and games, and now there is a little uncertainty in the community after four months of radio silence.

My sense was that Jorg was always driving the community connection and Dev streams, he always puts on a very positive front and fully engaged for the 90 minutes, but Seb and Marcial at times we’re a little more circumspect.

I just hope Jorg does not have his hands tied, as I know our Sim is a passion project for him.

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I don’t board betas as I don’t fly that much and when I do, I prefer stable versions. However, I usually read the release notes of each new one, in order to see what I can expect from the update when released. My feeling here is that I was more excited with MSFS 2020’s SUs than with 2024’s. I couldn’t say why, but I cannot find that fix or new feature I had long waited for, and in absence of a Roadmap I can’t even have an estimation of when those will come.

For example I think of first party aircraft of 2020 (Local Legends and Famous Flyers), I don’t own a great bunch of them, but 2 years after they continue to be Unverified, and in some of the cases (Antonov 225, for example) absolutely unflyable. And the same happens with new peripharals (WinWing MCDU, for example), in MSFS2020 it seemed that new but quite spread devices were soon compatibility provided.

I suppose that the huge amount of bugs and problem is stopping these other developments. But is quite sad to watch this series of grey and hypeless updates of 2024

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It remains to be seen I suppose.

I really hate how AI is finding it’s way into everything. Instead of being used to “assist”, it’s being used to “replace”. And I’m no technophobe either, I just hate how it’s being used as a tool for maximising shareholder profits.

On the brightside, once everything is taken over by AI, all jobs replaced, we’ll all have more time for simming? :laughing:

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I’m waiting for “AI Free” to become a premium marketing concept.

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