Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) - We're really sorry about Microsoft Flight

So this is going to be part of a “Microsoft Insider” thingie. How do I make sure I’m part of that, cause I desperately want to help test this puppy!

Make a whole disk image of your Windows since switching between normal and Insider track installs of Windows is not for the faint of heart.

I could maybe just have one of my spare hard drives do that? Be an alternate boot drive?

I haven’t done this myself since Windows 8

Looking absolutely gobsmacking. Footage starts at 3:27.

Engadget had a rather content-free preview up today as well. I assume some other sites will be publishing stuff imminently. I so hope they implement VR hand tracking.

If you can get past his 'stache, this guy grabbed some video and screenshots from a preview event of FS2020. Everything looks amazing and it will undoubtedly be the first modern sim that doesn’t beckon the user to buy hundreds of dollars of 3rd party scenery apps to make it look good.

https://imgur.com/iLytoyj

https://imgur.com/rJloDhH

Article up at Ars Technica.

Bad news for VR users:

Asobo reps also made clear that VR is not currently in the cards for this version of MSFS , in spite of pretty much every member of the attending press asking that exact question. “Maybe one day, Flight Simulator will,” Asobo CCO and co-founder David Dedeine told Ars. “It’s not a commitment at all,” he added with a laugh. “But we’re already thinking about VR… We’ve worked on HoloLens, so we’re familiar with [VR]'s types of problematics.”

image

That really does look amazing. Have they announced how they’re going to charge for it? Seems like something that might have a monthly sub cost…

No word on pricing yet.

Hmmm. All this talk of cloud and Azure makes me wonder if there will be a base price if you want to play offline, but an added monthly sub if you want the benefits of live scenery.

Not to suggest that Microsoft is being evil - in fact I think these days they’ve been really good about sacrificing short-term profit vs. capturing hearts and minds for the long term, so maybe they’ll just go the normal premium game pricing and charge for expansions.

Wow, bummer that there will not be vr support. Good thing I still have the trackir.

There will definitely be VR. There’s no way they’re going to do the ultimate flight sim and not add VR. I think what’s holding them back is the decision of whether they’re going to lock out all other VR options by going HoloLens only to make that a vehicle for pushing their platform vs. making it more open for other VR options. And they may wait to see what sales are like. If sales are massive, then they have a base for HoloLens. If sales are lower, then they go open VR so more people will buy the game period.

But Hololens isn’t VR, it’s AR. Like Google Glass. Not sure how Flight Simulator would work with AR.

Not only that, but Hololens is a $2000 industry-only device. It would make zero sense to spend time trying to make that work, however that would look in practice.

I think this is just about priorities. The VR market is small and not getting bigger.

Are we sure they’re not working on an end-user mass market version?

Even if they are, how would a flight simulation work on a augmented reality headset?

No clue LOL.

We’re not sure of anything, but I would not bet on it.

Depends on what you mean by “small”. More than 4 million PSVR sets have been sold. Oculus will probably have sold a couple of million Quests by year-end. I’d also be willing to bet that the market for VR hardware and software is indeed growing.