The world’s leading software company has announced its re-entering the Flight Simulator market with a new product that looks absolutely stunning!
Microsoft has been making Flight Simulator software since 1982 but stopped suddenly when it closed the Aces Studio in 2009 leaving Flight Simulator X as its final product, software that many still use today.
Dovetail Games bought the rights to Flight Simulator X (FSX), creating Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition while Lockheed Martin took the ESP platform on which FSX was based and developed Prepar3d (P3D). Prepar3d, however, has never been a retail product for the home user with expensive licence fees of around £200 for the full product.
But it’s now clear that Microsoft has been working in secret for some time to come back with a stunning new product simply named Microsoft Flight Simulator and it’s not just for PC users, its for the Xbox One too!
The news that it is available for a games console may strike fear into the heart of hardcore ‘simmers’ though, many of whom haven’t forgiven Microsoft for their short-lived ‘Flight’ software which went down like a lead balloon but the official info from Microsoft shows that it is a full world simulator akin to what we are used to from current offerings.
The software itself uses satellite data and Microsoft’s visionary Azure AI engine which harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to create a rich experience for the user and create near photoreal graphics, and my word does it do that if the pre-release trailer is anything to go by!
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</div>Little is known yet about 3rd party development but watch for announcements from all the major Flight Sim Add-On companies over the coming few months.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is due to be released in 2020.
