Xbox Originally Said ‘No’ To The Idea Of Bringing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 To PS5

Jorg Neumann, who heads up the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise, has revealed during a chat with XDA that Xbox originally shot down the prospect of bringing the series’ latest entry, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, to the PS5 before ultimately agreeing after it decided to embrace multiform releases.

Neumann revealed that he actually pitched the idea Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 coming to Sony’s console early in the game’s development, but Xbox bosses were not interested in the idea. However, things changed with Sony themselves expressed interest in having the series on PlayStation, and Microsoft agreed to it.

It was my idea, actually. With Flight Simulator 2020, we came out on PC first in August 2020. One year later, we shipped it on Xbox, and we found millions and millions of new fans on Xbox that had never seen the flight sim because they’re just not PC gamers. A lot of them thought it was great, and a lot of them stayed.

In 2020, it was already 120 GB when we launched as a download. When we were in 2023, I looked at the install numbers, and it was 300 GB. Then we had our content roadmap, and there was so much new stuff that we were doing that we would be over a terabyte. I said “We need to do something,” so we decided to make Flight Simulator 2024 and had the concept of a thin client. Our client is now 8 GB, and instead of putting everyone on your hard drive and making that download huge, we put everything in the cloud.

Related Content – Upcoming PS5 Games 2025: The Best PS5 Games Coming Soon

That made it possible to go to other platforms, so I proposed, probably two and a half years ago, to go to PlayStation. It was probably a little bit before its time because I was told no. Then, somebody from Sony who grew up with flight simulation thought it would be a great addition to the Sony portfolio. They reached out proactively to our President, who then came back to me and said, “Hey, remember when we talked about the PlayStation thing a year ago? Sony is also interested.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is out today for PS5 and Microsoft has revealed that it will be adding PSVR 2 support to the game in a free update in 2026.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will take full advantage of the DualSense controller to amplify player immersion, with adaptive triggers responding to different speeds and surface types on the ground and sloped resistance while airborne. Flight Simulator 2024 allows players to fly anywhere on the globe at any time of day, features over 40,000 airports and runways, and more than 60,000 helipads.

[Source – XDA]