Hello Captains and welcome back. I recently received an email from a reader asking about the Xbox platform version of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. To be perfectly upfront and honest, I do not own any gaming console and have zero experience with MSFS on anything other than PC. While I have struggled over the years of not falling into the PC master race group of people, in the case of Microsoft Flight Simulator….stay tuned for the rest of the story.
Hello Jerry. I have a quick question for you regarding Microsoft Flight Simulator. I’m a college student living in off campus housing. I have an Xbox console and play all sorts of games in my spare time. A few years ago when I was still in jr. high I had FSX on our home PC and really enjoyed it and I’ve been thinking about buying MSFS 2024 on Xbox. I’m curious to know your thoughts about MSFS 2024 on the Xbox and if I were to purchase it now would I be able to transfer that over to PC at a later time? Also during my FSX days I was frequently flying on the VATSIM network. I’ve heard conflicting info on whether VATSIM is available or will someday be available for the Xbox. Thank you for your help and advice. Jake
Jake, and everyone else….like I stated at the top of this writing, I do not own any type of gaming console. The last gaming console I owned was the Atari 2600 way back in the 80’s. From that point forward I’ve only ever played games on a PC. While I believe there may be advantages in the console platform for some games, flight simulator (in my opinion) is not one of them. Yes, I’m sure you’ll find hours and hours and even more hours of enjoyment with MSFS 2024 on the Xbox, but the Xbox platform version lacks a whole lot when compared to everything that can be done on the PC version.
First, NO….if you purchase the Xbox version of MSFS 2024, that license can’t be simply moved over to a PC at a later date. So should you decide to buy or build a PC down the road, you’ll need to re-purchase MSFS for that platform.
Second, while I believe you’ll be able to find a variety of controllers which will provide a better experience in flying such as the Thrustmaster Airbus controllers, you’ll only have access to add-ons which are available within the MSFS Marketplace. While there’s a lot of choices on the Marketplace….there’s much, much more available to the PC platform such as one of the very best Airbus A320 series in the Fenix just to provide one example.
Third, while there is some multiplayer functionality for the Xbox platform, you wouldn’t have access to the VATSIM or IVAO only line multiplayer networks and either of these (VATSIM being my favorite) will give you a much more real life experience of flying with other pilots while being controlled by real life ATC. While I don’t like to say never, but at the present VATSIM and IVAO are not available on the Xbox platform and I doubt they ever will be.
Finally, This would also exclude both BeyondATC and SayIntentions for AI ATC. These AI ATC applications are becoming extremely popular to those who just wish to have a better ATC experience than the base sim provides. I personally use BeyondATC as the pricing model best suits my budget and have found that I use it on each and every flight and it works very well and future enhancements should make it an even better product.
I’m sure there may be other limitations which at the present time elude my memory at this moment. The one thing that you can be certain of is with the PC platform you’ll have access to everything available to a sim pilot now and in the future. I can’t think of any thing that benefits the console platform which doesn’t the PC platform.
I hope this helps and thank you for submitting your question.
Until next time…
Happy Flying!!!
Jerry