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Microsoft jumps back into Flight Simulator market with a P3D killer

Microsoft announces new Flight Simulator for 2020

Microsoft announces new Flight Simulator for 2020

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.

Microsoft Flight Simulator uses Satellite imagery and an AI platform to produce stunning near photo-real images.

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.

Aircraft are reproduced in quality not seen before in a Flight Simulator

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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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.

Photo-real ground imagery and ultra-real worlds has always been the holy grail of Flight Simmers
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