The Day After the Night Before
The one where a teaser trailer caused a lot of people to get really angry, really quickly.
I'm not going follow the crowd and post a video pretending to analyse the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 teaser trailer. I had a look at the news breaking last night, looked at the breathless videos from all manner of "YouTubers" that should really know better, and was kind of disappointed in the community to be honest - or rather, disappointed by the various attempts to generate traffic off the back of it.
I once saw a wonderful cartoon about the social internet - with the caption "I have nothing to say, and I'm saying it". It came to mind last night.
Within hours of the teaser trailer landing, Microsoft could obviously see a pitch-fork toting mob forming all over the internet, and put out an FAQ. It hasn't worked so far, because there are thousands of content creators trying to make a story out of those few paragraphs of text - to make bank with advertising revenue. Fanning a flame of their own invention. Eating their own tail.
Needless to say - we've been here before. I'm old enough to remember people complaining about Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11. Every time, people said "that was it", they were "going to pack it all in", they had "had enough".
This will be no different.
I'm a software developer. Here's the thing about software development - software is built to a given budget, and a given timescale. There are always elements of a product or project that - with hindsight - you would have done differently. It's worth remembering that Microsoft Flight Simulator was in development for several years in almost complete secrecy before the first announcements were made. Decisions would have been made along the way that the development team probably regret - decisions that opened some doors while closing others.
If I'm going to be drawn on the teaser trailer at all, I will admit to being somewhat downcast. The graphics shown will almost certainly require a significant hardware upgrade, which is only natural given the product will aim for the bleeding edge of consumer hardware capabilities at point of release. We have all seen the cost of graphics hardware. My fear is that an already niche interest will become increasingly narrow - reserved for those wealthy enough to afford the hardware to do the simulator justice.
The huge appeal of flight simulation has always been that those who might never be able to afford to fly a real aircraft can simulate one at home. If the hardware required to do so moves out of reach of an already lucky minority, what's the point?
It's obvious from the trailer that new features are being added to the simulator to "game-ify" it. Goals, missions, adventures, and more. Given that the simulator has become increasingly accurate over the last 18 months, I can only imagine that Asobo and Microsoft can see that they are losing players at a rate of knots (pun intended). The casual gamers that want to jump in a plane and *do something* aren't really interested in how to avoid fouling spark plugs on a cold morning, if the slipstream effect on a given airframe is accurate or not, or if the VNAV works properly on the latest 200 ton tube-liner.
The irony? As the hardware requirements increase, the pool of potential players decreases based on their ability to afford the hardware to run it.
Anyway.
I thought I might share my thoughts. What do you think about the announcements, and perhaps more importantly - how amused have you been by the reaction? :)
I agree, I think a lot of the negative hype has been created to fuel likes. I also work in software dev, as a tester (don't hate me :D ), so I can see why they've created a new product to appeal to a different audience. I don't know how MSFS2020 has done on Xbox, I'm sure a quick Google would answer that, but the cynical side of me sees this new 2024 version as a gamified flight sim experience to appeal more to console gamers.
There is already apps available for MSFS2020 that gives that type of gaming, Neofly to name just one. I've used that app, and enjoyed the different gaming it provides. But I also like the detailed sim aspect. I won't move to the new game, I'll stick with the one I have.