Whilst our aircraft (PA28s, Hawk T1, 146 etc) use extensive custom-coding and very little of the default MSFS systems, for both PC and Xbox we are limited to using WASM gauges when developing for MSFS, and those run ‘inside’ rather than ‘outside’ of the sim, with constraints on what we can do (particularly with regards to accessing files/features outside of MSFS).
Those constraints, put in place by MS/Asobo for the security and cross-platform reasons discussed above, has been one of the biggest hurdles for developers of complex aircraft like ours, PMDG, Aerosoft etc, requiring changes to the way that we achieve those complex systems. The extent to which changes are required obviously varying significantly depending on the type of aircraft and systems that it has.
Fortunately for us they have been possible to overcome, hence our aircraft actually having greater systems depth/complexity in MSFS than FSX/P3D/XP11, but developers of modern airliners will face greater challenges with things like FMCs, weather and terrain radars, terrain databases, external FDEs etc, all of which relied on the freedom to do pretty much whatever we liked in our code in FSX/P3D/XP11. It’s one of the reasons that we decided to work up from the PA28s to the Hawk T1 and now 146, building our knowledge and giving time for the SDK to be improved as we progress to more complex aircraft.
Those issues are what developers like PMDG are having to spend considerable time on, in collaboration with MS/Asobo who of course want to see these great aircraft in MSFS but need to balance that with the need for security and cross-platform compatibility. The SDK has continued to improve as demonstrated by some of the excellent aircraft already available for the sim and that will continue, although compromises might have to be made at times.
As far as our aircraft are concerned, we are currently not aware of anything that will prevent us from getting those released on Xbox, although work on the PA28s has identified issues present only on Xbox that contradict the original SDK guidance and expectation that aircraft developed as per SDK guidelines will work identically on both PC and Xbox. The MS/Asobo team are working hard to resolve those issues though, and we hope to see our aircraft available on Xbox soon.
Hope that clears things up from a developer point-of-view.
Martyn - Just Flight