We’ve got our first full feature developer stream from the Microsoft Flight Simulator team following the launch of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. There were apologies, a lot of questions and answers, the announcement that we’re getting the next four aircraft releases for free, and some talk about the next world update focused on Brazil, Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname. Let’s check it all out!

Apologies and errors

Jorg started us off with an apology to the community. The launch of MSFS 2024 didn’t go how anyone planned and we got a bit of an explanation on what happened. The problem wasn’t in the client or server layers but rather with the content distribution network (CDN) which, after a lengthy explanation, really boils down to it not being able to handle the huge amount of traffic. Clearly more than they had anticipated.

They showed us some charts with error rates spiking within the first hour of launch and then spiking again as they attempted to bring new capacity, unsuccessfully, into the mix. Fortunately it seems to now have zeroed out with a new CDN setup.

There are also updates on the way which we knew about but it was good to have reiterated.

We’ve had two already, another much bigger update is coming between the 10th-12th. Jorg also reports that while sim updates will be one a quarter, packages including aircraft, career and world updates can be done server side and done much more regularly.

Throughout the Q&A it was stressed that they know there are problems, they aren’t happy about it, and they want to solve them as quickly as possible.

Answering questions

Sebastian Wloch, CEO of Asobo Studio, answered some questions about the reason for going to a more server driven approach. He reports that the sim, all things included, is now about 1.2 terabytes in size. Completely impractical to share via any conventional internet download.

They did appear to offer some immediate and future solutions for those without strong internet connective. One of the suggestions made is to use the rolling cache, something that can be expanded in the settings. If you are going into a low bandwidth area but have access to faster internet, you should be able to cache quite a bit prior to play.

Something else encouraging is the report that they are working on enabling more abilities to download and have files stored locally so you can choose airports and aircraft that you’re always flying and keep them stored. It sounds like you can make MSFS 2024 behave more or less like 2020 does once those features are in.

Where is the marketplace right now? Well we have an update that one too. They’ve talked with their third party developers and decided to delay its roll out to early 2025 to give third parties more time to approve and prepare their 2024 updates and offerings.

In the bugs report we have reports that they are fixing the issues with overly bright airport and night lighting, fixing the Cessna 172 classic electrical system issue, exaggerated wind and turbulence in some career missions, a crash to desktop when adjusting Tobii eyetracker curves, and more.

Matt from Working Title was on the stream as well detailing some of the work that the team has done on the flight planner contained within the EFB. Did you know its also has a web based version that you can log into at any time for planning? Neat! Future plans include real world routing (similar to what SimBrief does).

Future plans

Jorg spent a bit of time talking about future update plans with World Update 19 covering Brazil, Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname is targeting a release in January or February. It’s a little bit pushed back from their prior goals but it sounds like they have their hands full dealing with the new sim. I think this is a smart move and hopefully it means that when this world update does arrive, we’ll be able to enjoy some quality sim content.

In addition to the World Update, Jorg offered up some conciliatory messaging surrounding the release.

The launch didn’t go as well as it should have done. That’s on us, frankly. All we can do is apologize and work hard.

Jorg Neumann, Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator

As part of that messaging, they are making the next four plane releases free. The first two are going to be the Cessna 185F from Carenado and then the CAP-4 Paulistinha from iniBuilds. He says they don’t know what the next two will be but they will be available for free.

He also mentioned that they have signed a partnership with Embraer and they intend to make some of the aircraft in the company’s line-up. Embraer doesn’t have a huge collection of aircraft so what they do pick from the list should be awfully interesting. The KC-390 perhaps? Will they get one of their third parties such as iniBuilds to do an E-Jets release? The EMB 110 Bandeirante has been done by a third party previously though there are many versions and variants. What about the EMB 120 Brasilia? Lots of possibilities!

Some free planes in the mix going into the base sim sounds like a good thing to me.

Watch the video above or visit the latest development update on the Microsoft Flight Simulator website to learn more!