MS Flight Simulator: the end of an era

As part of the downsizing of Microsoft , the ACES office, which is responsible for developing the Microsoft Flight Simulator game series, was closed. This is the final sentence, not appealable. Millions of fans of the best civil aviation will not wait to continue, and dozens of companies that worked on the release of paid add-ons will have to retrain as a house manager. Together with the dissolution of the studio ACES collapsed and hopes to see their second project - Microsoft Train Simulator 2 , scheduled for release this year.

MSFS is one of the longest series of games: the first game was released in 1982, the last - two years ago (and about a year ago a large addition of MSFSX: Acceleration was released). During this time, Flight Simulator gathered an army of fans, got thousands of free add-ons, dozens of companies worked on software and hardware for this game ... In this situation, several large companies offered to redeem the game code from Microsoft, but they refused, saying that “MS remains true to the series , which proved its success over 27 years. " What this means is not clear, because there is no one else to develop the game. Perhaps MS will remain the publisher of the game, and the development of a third-party company will - time will tell. Fans of flight simulators do not lose hope of seeing MSFS2010 - put under a different name.

Under the cut - a few nostalgic pictures. Rather, the history of the development of aircraft simulators from 1978 to 2007.

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Typical playing place. Three monitors, joystick (or rather hotas ) Saitex X52 , trackball, compact keyboard.


Not a very typical gaming site. The guy bought the Boeing 747 decommissioned cab and installed it in his garage =)


First flight: subLogic for Apple II, somewhere between 1978 and 1982. A little more and MSFS will be born from it.


And these are the parents, Bruce Artwick and Stu Moment.


Screenshot 27 years ago. MSFS 1.0, 1982


The second version. 1984 Flight over New York. Check out the Empire State Building.


Third version. 1988 year. Flying over Paris - see the Eiffel Tower?


The fourth version. 1989 Over the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco.


In the fourth version, you can look at the plane outside: Cessna at the Statue of Liberty.


Fifth version. 1993 year. Paris again.


The sixth version is actually a port from MS-DOS to Windows 95, the differences are minimal. So called: MSFS 95.


The sixth and a half version. 1997 is called MSFS 98. There are many new products: new cities from all over the world (will you find out?), You can control the helicopter for the first time and, most importantly, you have the opportunity to develop third-party add-ons. It is additions that will make MSFS a cult game.


Seventh version of the cabin and outside. MSFS 2000. Three-dimensional view of the cabin. Added 17,000 (!) Airports. Terrible brakes even on top processors (500MHz).


The eighth version, MSFS 2002. It was planned to be released in September 2001, but was detained to immediately remove the models of the World Trade Center.


Ninth version, MSFS 2004. Released by the centenary of the first flight of the Wright brothers, a bunch of historic aircraft, more cities and airports. Realistic (in the sense of real-time) weather, three-dimensional clouds into which you can fly.


Tenth version, MSFS X, 2006. The best flight simulator on the planet. Thousands of cities and airports, hundreds of aircraft, millions of fans, operating virtual airlines ...


Latest official add-on, MSFS: Acceleration, 2007.
Even more planes, helicopters with working winches, fighter jets with rockets, huge aircraft carriers, all the bells and whistles of modern three-dimensional graphics, crazy beautiful landscapes.

Screenshots are taken from the Czech site on the history of aviation simulation and from Wikipedia .