Microsoft releasing new edition of Flight Simulator

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/10/microsoft-releasing-new-editio.html

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Pah!

When I was young, my school computers had this available.

It’s allegedly extremely accurate to actual jumbo jet operation.

It may well be. There’s certainly lots of dials and gauges and all sorts of things you can (eventually) get to do things.

I don’t think anyone I knew at school managed to get off the ground, let alone fly anywhere. Possibly the lack of any kind of manual may have something to do with that.

But if you tell the kids of today that, they won’t believe you.

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I wonder if there’s a 737 Max sim where the plane decides to take a dive.

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XBox only?

That’s lame.

Like you can actually simulate a plane with just an xbox controller.

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Sheer luxury. At my school the flight simulator was a box with a stick taped to the floor. We would simulate air crashes by havin’ your own classmates throw you down the stairs while you were sitting in the box.

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My. Things certainly have come a long way from when I played v1 of “Flight Simulator”.

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I seem to recall that elaborate collections of yokes and pedals were a lively niche market, once. Perhaps such enthusiasts have moved on to different software?

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So - will it enable me to land a plane in an emergency?

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Iirc there’s a grand total of one HOTAS available for the xbox, and it doesn’t have any pedals. There’s also no compatibility with MFDs on the xbox, nor proper heading and accelleration API feedback if you wanted to use a simulator chair.

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No, but probably Windows 10 only.

(It’s going to be available on the XBox Gaming Subscription, which despite the name is also on Windows.)

We should really get in the habit of saying “Windows” instead of “PC” for stuff like this, too. Some games get a Linux version…

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No, and I’m going to stop parroting stupid PR talk like “XBox Exclusive” now that XBox is just a sprawling everything-about-gamering brand covering Windows stuff too.

There will definitely be a $300 deluxe Flight Control controller for this for Xbox tho, mark my words.

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Anyone else remember the flight simulator embedded as an easter egg in Excel 97? Bonus points if you remember what keystroke combination got you there (cuz I sure don’t, after twenty years).

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subLOGIC lives!

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It will be a new feature in the next 737 iteration.

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I don’t believe the hyperreal!

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Yeah but you’ll have to pay extra for that.

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That is deluxe compared to the TRS-80 version, which was black and white, and the TRS-80 pixels were the size of pencil erasers. A quick Google suggests that what I had was by subLOGIC rather than Microsoft…
flightsimulator-trs80
https://fshistory.simflight.com/fsvault/fs1-trs80.htm

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X-Plane is still leading the pack no?

I love flightsims, but after a while the world just feels so dead and static.

Definitely. Especially for cross country flights in realtime… I love the idea of sand boxes, but I also want to play. Someone created a helicopter playground scene mod for FlightSimulator X years ago with fun obstacles and such to fly through, but there just isn’t enough of that in the serious flight sims.

What an amazing surprise, been playing flight sims for over 35 years and I have missed this title a lot!

FSX and MS Flight gradually crushed my soul because of outdated graphics, time spent managing add ons, and losing the world to sandboxes. But they did learn a lot along the way and added in some great arcade style challenges and missions. I hate to say it, but MS Flight gave me some of my more memorable experiences in flight simming.

Now maybe they are taking the arcade style back into more of a simming world and we get the best of both worlds?

Honestly, i thought the MS Flightsim days were over, that long running engine finally hit the dev wall, and a new build was out of the question investment wise.

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