Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is coming to consoles

By Jon Silman August 24, 2020

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 will be making its way to consoles soon, according to the game’s developer.

The game, released on PC on August 18, is the latest in a long line of releases of the popular flight simulator dating back to the first version in 1982. The game has been known for pushing graphics and processors due to its realism and scope, which has mostly relegated it to release on PCs.

A few months ago, Xbox head Phil Spencer said that the game was being targeted for release on the Xbox Series X, but there wasn’t much talk about it after that. Now, Jörg Neumann, the head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, said that the game is indeed being developed for consoles.

“We are dedicated to come to Xbox (console), we’re working really hard to make this happen. We don’t have a timeline quite yet, but we are working full speed. Because we know it’s important,” he said on the Major Nelson podcast.

There are plans to bring the game to both the Xbox One and Xbox Series X console, and Neumann said that the company has been getting a lot of requests for that very thing. He said the game already works with an Xbox controller, and that controls would be “totally doable.”

Flight Simulator is one of the longest-running series of simulators in the gaming world, and the last five were all voted simulator of the year, Neumann said on the podcast, so he felt a lot of pressure to deliver a good product.

The game uses a complete 3D model of the world with a combination of Bing, topographical maps, and Artificial Intelligence.

The game, which is typically played with multiple monitors and a flight stick, can seem intimidating and also technologically restrictive. However, Neumann told The Verge that that isn’t the case.

“We basically tried to make this an accessible simulator,” Neumann says. “Some people are speculating that you need some sort of supercomputer to run it. That’s definitely not the case. There are some pretty modest video cards and PCs. And I think it’s very similar on Xbox where there’s an entire spectrum between Xbox One and Xbox Series X. There’s continued optimization regardless, but Xbox is certainly reinvigorating our optimization efforts, is probably the best way to say it.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Gaming

Is Starfield on Xbox One?

Key art for Starfield

Starfield is one of the biggest games of the year and space exploration has never looked so good (especially on a new PC with the correct settings tweaked). Released natively for PC and Xbox Series X, a lot of gamers are going to be left out of Bethesda's latest RPG — it'll never be released on PlayStation 5 or Nintendo Switch. But there's good news if you're still playing on a last-gen Xbox One. While Starfield isn't being released on the older console directly, there's still a way to play on Xbox One.

There are also a few other ways to play Startfield without an Xbox at all.
How to play Satrfield on Xbox One

Gaming

You don’t need an Xbox Series X to play Starfield. Here’s how

Key art for Starfield

Starfield is the highest-profile Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S game since Halo Infinite, but the game isn't locked to those two consoles. Thanks to cloud gaming and Microsoft's more open-ended mentality of making its games available on a wide variety of platforms, you don't have to own one of Microsoft's current-gen systems or have the Xbox app installed on your PC.
No, it's not on PS5 or Nintendo Switch, but if you want to play Starfield while it's at the center of the video game industry zeitgeist, here are some places where it's playable other than the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series X, and Xbox PC app.
Steam

The most obvious choice if you want to play Starfield elsewhere is to pick it up on Steam. While Microsoft does have a proprietary PC launcher of its own, Microsoft now consistently releases its own games through Valve's launcher. Bethesda joined Xbox Game Studios in 2021 and has a long history of making its games available on Steam as well, so it's not too surprising that Starfield is available on the platform.
Starfield already proving quite popular on the platform too, having peaked at 266,000 concurrent players, according to SteamDB at the time I'm writing this. If you're looking for a way to play Starfield natively on the hardware you own without using a Microsoft platform or service, this is your best option. It'll run on Steam Deck too, although that's not the only way to experience Starfield on the go.
Xbox Game Pass app on Android

Gaming

Nvidia DLSS support for Starfield teased alongside stability-improving update

A ship lands on a planet in Starfield.

Bethesda Game Studios just released the first update for its sci-fi issue Starfield. It's a smaller hotfix-level patch mainly focused on improving the game's stability and fixing some quest-blocking bugs. A message from the developer also confirmed that a lot of major features that are in the works for future patches, including Nvidia DLSS support on PC.

The list of patch notes for Starfield update version 1.7.29 explains that it made "various stability and performance improvements to reduce crashes and improve frame rate," including one related to installations on Xbox Series X/S. Also, quest-blocking issues in All The Money Can Buy, Into the Unknown, and Shadows of Neon are now all fixed. While that list isn't long, a blog post and tweet from Bethesda explains that it's just the start of "a regular interval of updates that have top community-requested features."