How did Microsoft make Flight Simulator seem so real?

Re:How did Microsoft make Flight Simulator seem so real? by kewrkewm53 on Monday April 05, 2021 @02:02AM (#26695781)

I would argue that historically MSFS series has indeed been more of a platform and an ecosystem than anything else. It's predecessor Flight Simulator X also had quite shallowly modelled default aircraft, yet over the years third-party (mostly payware) devs modeled almost all commercial airliners in use today to a very high detail.

So, I think MSFS2020 will be a great simulator for those hardcore simmers who are willing to pay 50-150USD for a single aircraft modeled to a very high detail, just like they did in FSX days.

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Re:How did Microsoft make Flight Simulator seem so real? by mastazi on Monday April 05, 2021 @08:06AM (#26697928)

Yes, for sure the add-ons ecosystem will fill every possible niche. However if we look at X-Plane, we can see that having good quality default avionics can actually help add-ons makers, the two things are not mutually exclusive! Many 3rd party X-Plane add-ons improve on the default avionics rather than having to develop a unit from scratch (like it’s often the case with P3D add-ons). This means that developers can focus on other aspects (e.g. failures, systems, walk around, manuals) while reducing dev costs.

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