Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020)

How is the Flight Simulator technically possible?
Future technology! It all started when I was working on a project around Hololens. The idea behind it was that you can visit certain places in the world. It all looked good and felt like you were right there. Then I asked myself if you could do it worldwide. I then showed the project to Phil and he looked at me and asked: "Why are you showing me a video of Seattle in some airplane? I then drifted off to the right and he looked at me and said, "Oh, real time?"
But that was just one city, and there are more than two million cities worldwide. Then I went to the Bing people and they sent me two petabytes of data. And then you need a streaming engine that can do that. I looked around the world, and I've already worked with Asobo, they had the technology. So we looked to see if we could fly around the world, and that all worked. The cloud makes it possible.

How does the simulation work?
On the one hand, we have a real-time simulation of the weather that takes things like air temperature, air pressure and so on into account. We have around 65,000 sources at our disposal. Our provider is based in Switzerland and leaves all this data to us. But we also have other partners. For example, we have the data from all planes worldwide - they then fly accurately through the landscape. We also collect data from ships and want to take trains and animals into account. We want to make the planet right!

You've already mentioned VR. How high is the topic on the priority list?
Very high! Asobo and I have years of experience with VR. We know what a lame-word not allowed and a good implementation look like. We want to find a good solution, for example by cutting the cockpit off from the rest of the world. Then you can move around freely and the world in the background doesn't start to shimmer. We already started with VR, but we want to do it right.

Will there be a software development kit for add-on developers?
Yes, that will be published soon. Normally such a tool comes out when the game appears. We do it differently, at least six months in advance. The add-on developers were all happy. Basically, we're not doing a flight simulation, we're doing a platform. There has to be an ecosystem all around, otherwise it can't be healthy. I often talk to the add-on developers and have asked them each time what features they need to do a good job.

Will the Flight Simulator stay open for third-party software?
Yes. The development of Flight Simulator X ended in 2007, and the game has been kept alive by third parties ever since. I often talk to the developers, and one of them builds airports for the game. He told me that was his life. He takes weeks off, then gets an all-access pass to an airport, takes 40,000 photos, and then builds on it for a year. Bizarre, that's so great! That's exactly the kind of people we want.

Do previously saved landscapes remain on the PC?
Yes. So you can either stream the game - of course that depends on the connection. We rely on adaptive streaming. If you have a line between 15 and 25 Mbps, you can stream in HD. Below it is then in SD. But when the Internet is completely gone, you still have a world - that's dynamic. You can also download your flight route in advance. Then the streaming is completely gone. Most pilots will stay local. They will fly from Munich to Augsburg. I think they will download the route in advance.

For years the Flight Simulator was completely silent, now it's back with a bang. Why actually?
Technology and tools. We want to offer as much realism as possible - the world is important for this. And in order to present that, we need two things: photorealistic rendering and all the sensor data. The whole world is now full of sensors. That didn't exist in the past. What there wasn't was a way to get this data to people. For example, we can transfer forest fires into the game in real time. This data is all free of charge. So it wouldn't work without the cloud and our many partners.

Who's the game actually aimed at?
Our goal is that everyone who has the dream to fly can also fly. In addition to aspiring and real pilots, we also have people who simply want to visit the planet. Our game should also be accessible. The Flight Simulator is like taking flight lessons. You can work your way into it with tutorials and explanations. Using a Cessna is not that difficult. If you spend a week with it, you can fly with it. The big airliners are a completely different subject - it's a real job.
We noticed with our trailers that a lot of people are really interested in them, who normally don't use a flight simulator. My job now is to give them the opportunity to learn how to play and fly and that it's fun. I feel responsible for that.

The next Flight Simulator will be released in 2020. What are the construction sites until the release?
We're almost finished with the planes. We still have to sit down with the people who actually developed the planes. They then tell us what we need to improve. The airports are also okay, but of course there is still room for improvement. As a biologist, it is also important to me that as many animals as possible are involved. The planet is simply more interesting with life. We are currently also working on trains and ships.
Season is also such a topic. Basically, you can easily add snow. But you'll also need things like snow clearance vehicles. The snow must thaw sometime, then the rivers are completely different. But that's also the case with animals. Bears are known to sleep in winter. Some animals fly south, others north. There we talk a lot about how far we can get."

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