Hello Captains and welcome back,
I recently had the pleasure of chatting face-to-face with a fellow flight sim enthusiast I’ve recently met. Our neighborhood is home to a variety of clubs and interest groups—including a flying club that celebrates all things aviation, from real-world flying to simulated flight. While the majority of our club members are licensed pilots, there are a few of us who proudly represent the simmer side of aviation.
Tom, the gentleman I spoke with, shares a similar background to mine. He’s not a real-world pilot, but has been immersed in flight simulation for nearly 30 years. Over a good cup of coffee, we traded stories about our experiences and discussed what’s next for the simming community.
Tom currently flies in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and, like many of us, is eagerly awaiting the release of PMDG’s 737 for MSFS 2024. During our conversation, we speculated on why the release has taken so long. Tom pointed me to a video from PMDG’s CEO, Robert Randazzo, which outlines the challenges PMDG is facing with the Microsoft Marketplace. I watched the video when I got home—you can view it for yourself here.
What I want to share next is a belief I’ve held since the announcement of a new sim in the summer of 2019. From day one, I’ve felt that developing Microsoft Flight Simulator for both PC and console platforms would impact the experience for us PC-based gamers. Don’t get me wrong—MSFS 2020 remains the finest flight simulator we’ve had to date, and I’m confident MSFS 2024 will eventually earn that same praise. But it’s clear that cross-platform development comes with compromises, and I do believe that PC users have been held back as a result.
Of course, from Microsoft’s standpoint, expanding the sim across multiple platforms was a smart move. It opens the doors to a broader audience and, crucially, a new revenue stream. Early on, I thought the Microsoft Marketplace might be the greatest innovation since pockets on a shirt—but in reality, I’ve rarely used it. My recommendation has always been to purchase directly from developers. Updates arrive faster, and new releases often appear weeks before they hit the Marketplace.
Looping back to the original spark behind this post—it’s clear the process for a developer like PMDG to get products into the Marketplace is both demanding and time-consuming. Still, for Xbox users, the Marketplace is the only avenue to access these add-ons. So yes, it’s another revenue stream, and for many devs, a necessary one.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed that PMDG can push through with the 777—and soon after, we’ll finally see the 737 touch down in MSFS 2024.
Until next time…
Happy Flying!
— Jerry
Great information