With the Xbox Series X|S version of Microsoft Flight Simulator coming next week, the flight simulation hobby is going to be open to a brand-new audience.
Yet, Microsoft and Asobo Studio are also working hard to keep improving the simulator for the existing enthusiast audience as well.
To know more about what we can expect in the short, medium, and long term, we had a chat with the head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, Jorg Neumann.
Giuseppe: Let’s start off with something you revealed really recently: Orbis’ Flying Eye Hospital MD-10. Could you talk about how this collaboration came to be? Also, I can’t help but think that you could make it flyable down the line, and likely payware, perhaps with proceeds going to Orbis itself. Is this being considered?
Jorg Neumann: Orbis was seeking a partnership with Microsoft and talking about all sorts of cool stuff. It’s a very cool non-profit and their very first initiative was the Flying Eye Hospital. They told me the story — I did not know about it — and I immediately fell in love because to me our hobby, flight simming, is a close neighbor to real-world aviation.
Any time I see aviation making an impact on the real world and specifically something like this that is great… Flying to socio-economical situations where people need that type of help… I think it’s wonderful. So I genuinely wanted to help.
I looked at the MD-10 and wondered if we could make it. Frankly, our team was totally committed to other things, so we couldn’t make it flyable. It takes quite a long time to make a good flyable version of an aircraft like that.
So we said, let’s make sure that people can visit the plane. I wanted to show that there is a relationship between the real world and the digital world and make it available for everybody at the Xbox launch.
After releasing the video, I’ve read all the comments and everybody was asking about making it flyable. I put it on my “to-do” list to reach out and I haven’t done it yet, but would I like to do it? Of course, I would like to. I want to help.
We’re also going to spend more time with aviation’s history related to museums, and my intent is to help museums in the real world to preserve things. This is as far as I’m able to talk about it today.
A few weeks ago we announced the Junkers Ju 52. It means something to me being from Germany. I grew up with that. I call these planes “local legends” even if I haven’t coined an official name yet, but somebody will come up with something better.
Fundamentally, when we go around the world with our World Updates, my goal really is to have planes that are made in these regions, that mean something to the people in these regions, and celebrate aviation in these regions, and make them available.
I can’t do it for free. I wish I could, but there are licensing issues and that kind of stuff, but I’m going to keep the prices as low as I can possibly keep them without making the people who own the planes mad.
But I take this very seriously: these planes cost a lot of money to preserve, and I want to do what we can to help in the digital space.
About what you said, let’s make the Flying Eye Hospital payware and direct funds to Orbis, I’m going to look at that simply because the community feedback wants that. I can’t guarantee it right now. We don’t have the manpower to make that plane on our own, so we would need help. But there is help. We’ll see. I want to.
In general, I think this whole “giving back to aviation” concept is very much on my mind. Very, very much.
Giuseppe: This kind of initiative certainly conveys the idea of Microsoft Flight Simulator being used as more than just a simulator, but as a gateway to the world of aviation in general.
Jorg Neumann: Yes. That’s the goal. Flat out. I think at some point or another, the platform should morph into something that enables the aviation lifestyle. That’s how I think about it.
On my bucket list, I would love to have a floatplane company in New Zealand and just fly around the islands and give myself some purpose… but it’s a long story. We talk about it quite a bit. We have barely started because, honestly, we were quite busy getting Xbox done and other things like the Top Gun Maverick thing that we’re doing, which is super-cool by the way… I’m very happy that we could find that partnership.
But beyond that, this is where our mind is already going, and the Flying Eye Hospital… The folks at Orbis themselves said, “can we fly to all the locations where Orbis has a footprint?” The answer is “Yeah, we can. We just need to do it.”
Some comments said “don’t let it sit here” and I will take that to heart. I read everything I can and try to operationalize it down the road.
Giuseppe: Let’s talk about the Xbox version. We’re just a week from release. What’s your outlook on the last finishing touches? Is everything ready?
Jorg Neumann: It’s ready and we’re so excited. It’s the first time in over thirty years that this platform comes to a console. There are many unknowns on how the audience will receive it, but there is also so much potential.
Fundamentally, we see ourselves as being in service of the hobby. And it’s a great hobby that I think people will fall in love with. People in the hobby love aviation and we feel that there are many that would be interested in the hobby but they just never had access to it.
I believe a lot of people at times make the assumption that everyone can just buy a $3,000 PC. Most people can’t do that. The fact that you get basically the equivalent experience that you can get on a high-end PC on a console that costs one-sixth, that’s remarkable. I’m very happy with that and proud of it.
From day one, we decided that we couldn’t sacrifice quality. It needs to be completely intact and maybe even better. The good news is that it looks great and it plays in some ways better because there is so much optimization work that has been done. Some of the stutters that we saw on PC… For instance, when you take your A320 over New York, even on my PC it starts to be not-so-30 frames per second. On Xbox, it is 30 frames per second.
The PC build that comes out next week will benefit as well from this, as performance is dramatically improved. I’m very happy that the transition has been completed and that the quality is great.
Then we added these features that I honestly think are just great features in general. We told ourselves that there is going to be a bunch of newcomers to the hobby: if they’re purely console gamers, there is a very good chance that they’ve never seen a flight simulator before.
So how can remove friction? We knew that the tutorials we had on PC were pretty good but were also pretty long and they were already getting a little bit technical, so we wondered, “what would someone do the first time they touch a plane?” The answer is, “traveling somewhere.” That’s how the idea of the Discovery Flights was born.
During the Discovery Flights, you don’t do all that much because basically the flight instructor does just about everything, but you feel like you’re doing it and you feel like you’re in control of the plane. You get a bit of a sense of what this is all about even if you don’t have to do it all yourself.
We tested the Discovery Flights with what we call “Newcomer Audience” and they really love it. I think we have 16 Discovery Flights. Each World Update has two and then we picked some great locations on the planet that are interesting, like Rio de Janeiro, the pyramids, Mount Everest… you can fly there and see the Base Camp.