Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024’s release has not been smooth sailing yesterday. After its launch, many users experienced long loading times, crashes during loading, and content issues, such as planes not appearing, inside the simulator. Many users took to various forms of social media to express their dissatisfaction with the situation.
While it was no surprise that MSFS 2024 was going to be popular on release, it seems that Microsoft has underestimated exactly how popular it would be, according to a statement made by Jorg Neumann, head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, in a short video shared by Microsoft. Joined by Sebastian Wloch, CEO of Asobo, and Jayne, Senior Community Manager, they gave an update on the issues surrounding the launch of MSFS 2024, and how the team is working to address these.
From a more technical point of view, Sebastian explained how, upon simulator start-up, some database cache was getting saturated. While he shared that Asobo had tested this feature thoroughly, it seems the team was not quite ready for the huge influx of players on launch day. This caused Asobo to implement throttling measures, as well as a queue to prevent too many people going into the simulator at the same time. These measures are still in place, and although more people are reporting to have access to the simulator now, the development team is still working on fixes for the loading issues. The default aircraft that many users have reported missing from their library are caused by the same issue.
In closing, Jorg expressed his understanding with the frustration that the situation has caused for many simmers, and assures that the development team is on the situation, working to fix the issues.
