Xbox Simmers: We are Tired of Being Second-Class Pilots

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22

Accusing me of using AI only proves you’ve run out of actual technical arguments.

As for the history of this franchise, you’re missing a vital detail: Flight Simulator ‘existed for decades,’ but Microsoft killed and abandoned the series in 2009. It only came back to life in 2020 because the Xbox and Game Pass ecosystems provided the commercial scale to justify the billion-dollar investment we see today. Without the console market, MSFS would still be a dead project in a Microsoft basement.

Calling the Series X ‘entry-level hardware’ while it runs complex study-level aircraft with stability that many $1,000 PCs struggle to match is just elitism disconnected from reality. And about ‘who pays for Azure’? We already pay for Game Pass and give Microsoft a 30% cut of every single Marketplace purchase. The money is there; what’s missing is the technical will to integrate the tools they already sell to the rest of the world.

You’re free to disagree, but market facts and the recent history of this franchise say otherwise. If you choose to ignore the weight of the console community, that’s on you—but we’ll keep demanding the evolution this simulator deserves.

23

As I expected, this discussion once again proves to be pointless. It’s the same old cycle: we, the Xbox users, point out genuine technical flaws and are met with either elitism or total denial of reality.

At the end of the day, we are the ones who lose. We pay top dollar for high-fidelity aircraft and invest heavily in the Marketplace to maintain some sense of realism, only to be held back by limitations that Microsoft could easily solve if they treated the console with the seriousness it deserves.

If some prefer to settle for less or pretend the sim’s ecosystem doesn’t rely on our financial support, that’s on them. I’m stepping away from this thread, but the facts remain: we want real parity, not just marketing promises.

24

You missed the part where I point out that the studio I work for has Console Testers. And I also work the Technical Support queues we have to resolve issues including console.

Those studios you named undoubtedly have similar setups. Many choices are made during development, including but not limited to - what optimization can we make for console users? Those same optimizations cut across a wide swath of PC users who don’t have top of line specs.

In short, there is no abrogation of development considerations when it comes to console.

I get your complaints. But I think you’re not evaluating the entirety of how the ecosystem works. Much of it does work - regardless of the platform you’re on. There are absolutely gaps, but those cut across the same base in the same manner.

One thing fundamental to your complaints is the overall performance of the sim. That honestly has to be evaluated against the specific conditions under which an individual player uses or configures their setup. The old adage is true - too many add-ons will over time degrade your performance. Many complaints are born of big corner cases - running both high end WASM aircraft over handcrafted massive poly count scenery. True of XBox, true of PC. PS5? We’ll see but likely true as well once they have access to a larger swath of Marketplace.

25

I appreciate the technical perspective, but we are talking past each other. My point was never about FPS drops or ‘overloading’ the sim with too many add-ons—that is a universal struggle, as you said.

My point is about the infrastructure gap. It’s about Microsoft owning Azure AI and refusing to implement a modern voice ATC for its own console. It’s about the lack of basic graphics sliders and the closed-door policy on USB peripherals that aren’t locked behind a licensing fee.

As I expected, this discussion once again proves to be pointless. It’s the same old cycle: we, the Xbox users, point out genuine technical and platform-level flaws, and we are met with explanations about ‘optimization’ and ‘limitations.’ At the end of the day, we are the ones who lose. We pay top dollar for high-fidelity aircraft and invest heavily in the Marketplace to maintain some sense of realism, only to be held back by artificial barriers that Microsoft could solve if they treated the console as a first-class simulator.

I’m stepping away from this thread, but the facts remain: we want real parity and the technology we were promised, not just excuses.

26

Also - voice interactive ATC. You’re conflating a third party application against base feature set when MSFS2024 was released. There was never a plan to have such a feature.

And the burden isn’t on Microsoft to make such a feature available to all user bases. Would they like to? Undoubtedly.

But the Third Party part of my the ecosystem has always had a niche segment. Not every PC user wants such a thing for example. It’s not a missing feature that prohibits having a viable working simulator environment.

In fact, I’ll posit that it would be a lot simpler for MS optimize the Locpak file that provides the majority of stock ATC prompts and scripting. The small variety of FAA, EASA etc. specific mods point to that change being easily made. I myself use one. If so, that could cut across all the bases if implemented. But that’s again, a systemic gap that isn’t platform specific.

27

I can empathise with some of your points — having been an Xbox (Series X) simmer for 12 months, 2023-2024 — however I think you’re pointing the finger a little unfairly. The Xbox (certainly the SX) handles the sim admirably, all things considered, but the reason it’s limited is simpy due to the inherent constraints of a closed-system console. As others have pointed out, the sim is actually no different on PC — the lifesaver being that third-party mods that run outside the simulator are a possibility.

Just over two years ago, I decided I wanted more: proper AI traffic, proper ATC, the Fenix A320, etc., etc. I’m afraid this is the way you have to go if you want the complete experience. It is what it is, and unless development were to be totally divided (which I’m sure would leave us all worse off), no amount of moaning is going to chage anything.

If you can, as you say, afford to build a good PC, I’d recommend doing just that. You can’t have the convenience of Xbox without sacrifices. I was in the same position as you. I knew nothing about PCs and found the idea of fiddling with a myriad of settings very daunting. But at the same time, I wanted that enhanced experienced. Instead of complaining, I bit the bullet… and you know what? It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. Sure, there can be frustration in getting your gaming settings right but once it’s done, it is basically plug ‘n’ play. There are no updates while you’re on finals, nor any other similarly annoying distractions.

All that said, I agree that a company like MS should be able to deliver a better ATC/AI traffic experience. But it ain’t happening, and so we need to weigh up other options. These forums are full of guys like me who made the jump from console to PC — and not one regrets that decision, as far as I’m aware.

By all means, quit the sim. That’s your choice. But I kind of think your refusal to go the PC route might be cutting off your nose to spite your face — especially since you’ve basically stated you have the means.

28

And there is the core of the problem: you just admitted you use a mod to fix the broken ATC on your PC. You have a workaround; we on Xbox don’t.

Saying ‘there was never a plan’ for voice AI is exactly why we feel like second-class pilots. Microsoft literally leads the world in Azure AI and owns the platform. Suggesting that we should just be happy with ‘optimized scripts’ from 20 years ago while we fly $70 study-level jets is the definition of settling for mediocrity.

If you think a ‘viable simulator’ in 2026 doesn’t need modern interactivity, that’s your view. But for those of us paying a premium to maintain realism on a closed ecosystem, being told to wait for ‘script optimizations’ while the rest of the tech world moves to AI is just proof that when it comes to Xbox, the industry is indeed going deaf.

I’m done with this thread. The facts are on the table for anyone who actually wants to see the platform evolve.

29

I appreciate the empathy, and I’m glad the jump to PC worked out for you. But your response perfectly illustrates my point: the only solution offered to a console user who wants a modern experience is ‘abandon the platform.’

That is exactly the ‘second-class pilot’ treatment I’m talking about. We shouldn’t have to ‘bite the bullet’ and build a PC just to have a basic voice-interactive ATC or functional weather sliders in 2026—especially when Microsoft owns the cloud and AI technology to make it happen natively.

If every serious simmer simply leaves for PC, the Xbox Marketplace stays stagnant, and the console remains a ‘toy’ simulator. I chose the Xbox for its potential, and I believe that paying for study-level aircraft should earn us a study-level environment, not a suggestion to buy different hardware.

As I said, this discussion has hit a wall. Some are happy to move on, others are happy to settle for less, but I’ll stay here pointing out that Microsoft is leaving its most accessible platform behind.

31

You certainly have a point, but my point is that complaining falls on deaf ears. The sim is the same on console and PC, so they’ve fulfilled their basic promise. I knew before I bought my Xbox that there were limitations — for me, the Xbox was a far cheaper way to dip my toe in — ultimately, why would a £400 machine offer the same experience as one costing 5x that? The console versions of MSFS are great if you want to do basic flying (and by basic, I don’t mean casual, since Xbox still allows the virtual pilot access to the same comprehensive systems and third-party scenery) but the reality from day one is that you need to go PC if you want the complete package. I never went into the Xbox ecosystem believing that I would be getting the PC experience.

32

The irony is that we aren’t asking for a miracle; we are asking for coherence. Microsoft literally owns the Azure AI infrastructure that powers voice recognition and synthesis globally. To suggest that a microphone-based ATC interaction is ‘impossible’ on Xbox in 2026 is an insult to our intelligence.

It feels like we are begging for crumbs, which is both ridiculous and tragic considering we are the ones paying a premium for ‘study-level’ aircraft on this platform. If you sell us a professional-grade plane, you should provide a professional-grade environment to fly it in.

The technology is there. The hardware is there. The only thing missing is the corporate will to stop treating the Xbox as a ‘lite’ experience and start treating it like the powerful simulation platform it was marketed to be.

I’m done pleading for the obvious.

33

amfrenandes5440, who is this ‘we’ you keep mentioning? I am at FSWeekend and surrounded by hundreds of simmers, including many Xbox/Cloud/PS5 users, and after SU4 they all seem to be happy campers. They for sure are not part of your ‘we’.

We sell our complex products for Xbox and Cloud, and they are functionally 100% identical to the PC versions. It is clear that Microsoft also tries to make the user interface as identical as possible. This might indeed cause some discomfort on consoles, but you make it seem like it is virtually impossible to use. That is just not the case. YOUR patience has run out, that’s all. That happens; you can’t make a product that makes everybody happy.

Mathijs

34

I donned an N75 in late 2021, shortly after MSFS released for Xbox, and drove a fair distance to buy a scarce Series S during the pandemic — the X was unobtainium.

I bought the PMDG DC-6 when it released and discovered, as did Microsoft/Asobo, that the Xbox wasn’t able to run WASM-based aircraft, as expected.

Essentially, the DC-6 was broken.

Rather than apologize and refund the money to Xbox users who had purchased it, Jorg orchestrated that Xbox Labs, in conjunction with the MSFS team, develop a solution that altered the Xbox walled garden. This was a huge step outside of how things are done with consoles.

This monumental undertaking was done twice. The first iteration was klugy and had a poor UX that Jorg didn’t feel was acceptable for us. I remember feeling disappointed by this news, as we had been waiting a long time for this “WASM fix” to come.

Ultimately, they developed what we have now — an essentially, seamless, nearly-invisible-to-the-user solution that allows those $70 aircraft to work on your Xbox.

This was a major feat. It required a rethink of Xbox Labs development cycle to create a solution specifically for the Xbox user base to fly WASM-based aircraft. This was done solely for Xbox users, the ones you’re accusing them of treating as second-class.

There is no way that MS sees the Xbox user base as second-class.

There is a massive amount of behind-the-scenes management, development schedules, corporate needs, budgets, etc. that must be navigated by Jörg and his team to develop new feature sets for Xbox that push the bounds of what has been done on it before.

ATC in MSFS 2024 is a massive disappointment to many of us who had been expecting, rightly or wrongly, a major step forward from what we had in 2020.

The story of 2024’s, apparent, rushed released is legion, and need not be recounted, but it is clear that significant parts of this sim were not ready for release — including ATC.

Looking at SU5, it’s clear the developers are still trying to bring baseline performance to where they would have hoped it could have been in November of 2024.

Does having frustratingly bad ATC detract from the Flight Simulator experience? Absolutely. However, I truly believe that Jörg and Co. want to improve it. What is difficult for end users to understand is just how much there is going on behind the scenes that we are not privy to that dictate how/when/if things can happen to move development/features forward.

There is ZERO way Jörg is satisfied with many aspects of the sim. How do I know this? Because I’ve listened to his words on dev streams, read his interviews and seen him speak at expos. He isn’t some corpo hack who spews PR-speak. He’s pretty candid about his feelings and I believe what he says about MSFS.

What this product has taught me is that it is a marathon, not a sprint. There are long periods of drought before we see something major rain down on us that feels like a significant step forward.

The improved ATC will come, when, who knows, but it will come, and it will come to Xbox.

35

The first point is the hardest point to make politely: xbox users are treated as second-class citizens because they chose to buy a second-class ticket by getting less powerful hardware at a lower cost.

Something has to give.

Just like a second-class air ticket gets you there on the same flight, but the seat and the legroom, the service and the catering are stripped back.

You are right about ATC being ■■■■, but it’s equally ■■■■ on the PC platform.

36

I realize this is trivial compared to most of the discussion here, but you’ve hit upon my pet peeve so I’m going to bring it up again in the vain hope that someone at Asobo finally takes notice.

Not only is ATC abysmal in 2024, it’s consideredably worse than 2020 for one incomprehensible to me reason. And that is the limitation of only 4 response choices being displayed at a time and the constant need to scroll up and down through them trying to find the one you want.

They took something that was already clunky in 2020 and actually managed make it worse. And any rationale for doing so totally escapes me. Seriously, I would love to know the reason behind this design decision.

I keep seeing that many of the devs are enthusiastic flight simmers too. So none of them have tried to select an airport from the ATC panel of nearest airports while flying over LA, Tokyo, or Mexico City with the myriad number of airports and heliports causing the list to constantly resort itself as you attempt to scroll up and down while seeing at most 4 choices at a time? All the while trying to maintain control of an aircraft. It’s maddening!

Forgive my rant, but this is my single biggest pain point with 2024 at this time, made all the worse because it’s such a step backwards from 2020. And because the 2020 code still exists, it should be a trivial matter to port it over. That 17 months later this still hasn’t happened can only lead me to deduce that this isn’t seen to be a problem, although I opened a bug report on it almost as soon as 2024 was released.

/rant

37

Wow! Ding! Round 6 over! This can easily become nasty but hopefully won’t.

I am a PC user. I started with the first flghtsim and have loved every new version (currently staying with 2020 though). As an avid simmer, I have, like many, upgraded my system several times to keep up with the ever-increasing demands of such a sophisticated sim.

I owned an Xbox for a while- not for flightsims but for sport sims. I’m a big hockey fan. Some time ago EA Sports stopped supporting PC for their NHL series. I had no choice- buy a console or not play NHL. I bought a console.

The fact is, no matter what argument you give and no matter how we wish it wasn’t so, there is a big defference in the abilities and flexability between PC and consoles. I have to agree with Ghostly Frend’s comments. He really nailed it right away.

MSFS was released first, and developed first, for PC. There WAS a compromise is graphic resolution when it was modified to also work on the graphical limitatations of consoles. You may talk about not having to deal with graphic card drivers, Windows updates, etc. but most PC users have no issues with that stuff. We’re used to it. I upgraded my AMD GPU and it worked amazingly right out of the box. The “plus” is that we can, if finances allow, upgrade our systems to incredible abilities. After being the reason that MS kept evolving the MSFS series since version 1, we PC users might have the actual gripe- why should we have to sacrifice the highest graphics and performance levels to accomodate those who use a system (console) that can’t be similarly upgraded? Especially after we already spent the money?

In any event, as a compassionate person, I feel your pain. I believe you are a serious simmer, and as knowledgable (or more so) as me in flying, planning, etc. and should have access to the same addons. But you don’t. If it was me, I would stop complaining and get the hardware that allows me to get the most out of the software, just like when I wanted to play hockey. I bought a console. I wasn’t going to wait for EA Sports to feel my pain.

38

The Mod is simply a reflection of what can be implemented at a very low level with little cascade effect on the sim. I specifically chose to speak about that because I’ve followed ATC as a feature development since the beginning.

Again, you’re deflecting - it’s an easy change that could be done on the sim globally to the benefit of all. The fact that I have access to a Mod that you do not is secondary to the fact that MS has chosen NOT to implement this low level change at all.

Not to mention, that Mod can and does break with every sim update. While it may be a point of “equity” with you, it should be obvious to everyone else it’s a bandaid when we really need a good stitch to close the gap.

39

I was going to write something similar to what you and @GhostlyFrend wrote, but I won’t repeat the same thing. You hit the nail on the head.

40

As someone who came back to MSFS after +15 years away by way of Xbox in 2021, then built a PC for the release of MSFS 2024 and now sim on both, I believe it can be summed up as simply as this:

Pay less, get less. Pay more, get more.

We all paid the same for the sim, and if we’re only looking at stuff out of the box, I think we all get a relatively equitable experience. However, those that paid significantly more for their hardware than the cost of a console are going to have access to more - that’s just the way the world works.

41

Mathijs, I have immense respect for your work and what PMDG has achieved on Xbox—it’s a miracle of coding. But with all due respect, being surrounded by ‘happy campers’ at a festival doesn’t erase the technical debt of the platform’s infrastructure.

The ‘we’ I refer to are the thousands of console users who buy your high-end products and expect the environment (ATC, weather interaction, peripherals) to match the quality of your aircraft. If the planes are 100% identical but the radio environment is 20 years behind, the experience is not identical.

It’s not just ‘my patience’—it’s about the standard of simulation Microsoft promised. If pointing out that a trillion-dollar AI company should provide a modern voice ATC for its own console makes me the ‘unhappy one,’ I’ll take that title. I’d rather demand progress than settle for ‘good enough.’

Enjoy FSWeekend. I’ll keep flying your 737, but I’ll also keep reminding Microsoft that we deserve the tools to fly it properly.

42

That ‘Pay less, get less’ logic works for resolution and frame rates, but it shouldn’t apply to the core intelligence of a simulator.

We aren’t talking about graphics; we are talking about systems. If I buy a $70 study-level aircraft on Xbox, I’ve paid the exact same ‘premium’ for that software as a PC user. Suggesting that the environment (ATC, AI, and interaction) should remain stuck in 2006 just because the box under my TV cost less is a poor excuse for a trillion-dollar tech company that owns the best Cloud and AI infrastructure in the world.

The ‘way the world works’ is that when you sell a professional-grade product on a platform, you should provide a professional-grade environment to run it. Anything less is just artificial limitation.

I’ve made my case, and the developers and veterans here have made theirs. It’s clear we see the future of this platform differently. I’m stepping away now—safe flights to everyone, no matter how much you spent on your rig.