I disagree with a lot of the talk in the flight simulation community that always runs along the lines of "MSFS is a game with nice visuals, use X-Plane if you want a real simulator". I've used X-Plane for many years prior to FS2020 being released, both for legal currency as well as learning the inside out of complex types I haven't flown.
I'm a US certified commercial pilot and have been using simulators since the early 90s.
Regarding #1, the only approaches I've noticed that aren't in the simulator are some RNAV approaches to smaller airports. Are you seeing otherwise? If you need those now, Navigraph seems like a solution.
MSFS is a technological tour de force that has only been out now for 1/2 a year. X-Plane has been around for decades, which is why things like the G1000 are more reliable at the moment.
Aircraft like the newly released Aerosoft CRJ show the potential in the sim, and this is with the developer only having their hands on the SDK for a short period of time.
For developers reading this, a peek at the SDK is interesting. They are using modern techniques throughout the simulator, such as using WASM along with HTML/CSS/JS for gauges, among many other interesting choices.
For anyone like me who immediately scoffed and said "there's no way you can use X-Plane for actual FAA currency requirements," it turns out you can if you have appropriately certified hardware controls to go with it: https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/...
Be careful with this. I used to give aircraft simulator instruction and had to learn that AC backwards and forwards. Bottom line is it's not enough just to get a certified yoke and throttle quadrant. The entire package, hardware and software together, has to be "authorized," not just "certified." The instrument for this is a Letter of Authorization (LOA) that spells out exactly which kinds of currency/experience can be logged on that specific Aviation Training Device, and the approved aircraft configurations (e.g. SR20, PA-28R, BE-76). No LOA, no hours. If you can get a copy of the manufacturer's LOA, and the experience you want is in that letter, go for it! Otherwise, you've just got a very expensive video game.
Well, at this time XPlane is better for IFR training and everything the original poster mentioned is true.
But MS Flightsim is still a young product, so let's wait and see. But if I had to bet, I'd always bet on Austin Meyers and his enthusiasm for aviation.
As I mentioned in a previous post, my Dad used the 80s MS Flight Simulator for IFR training. The graphics, on our amazing CGA monitor, were Battleship Gray ground (with mixes of solid green, I think) with white lines representing "scenery". I'm guessing that (for the 80s) the physics were a high priority, but graphics -- even for the 80s -- were not.
Microsoft could do the scenery more easily than others due to Bing, and frankly, if it weren't for the scenery, I wouldn't have shelled out the cash. The flight physics, while positively amazing[0], wouldn't have even been able to be described to me in a manner that would have gotten me excited enough to purchase it, but on that -- alone -- it'd be worth it[1].
I can't speak as to how well it simulates IFR/related things -- not a pilot -- though I mentioned in a previous post that my Dad basically got his IFR rating by practicing on ancient MS Flight Simulator.
I am curious, though -- what is it that MS Flight Simulator's latest version gets wrong about IFR that X-Plane gets right?
[0] Admittedly, I've probably used it for a total of 3-4 hours since its release. What I saw was impressive in that I wasn't intending to notice the physics, but it was impossible not to. There were moments where I had (extremely minor) anxiety while angled just right, looking out the "window" trying to get the plane to do something nuts.
[1] Bear in mind, my impressions come from not having played a modern flight simulator (outside of ones that are not intended to be accurate) in over a decade. Perhaps some of the things that I'm so impressed with have been available in other simulators and I'm just seeing them for the first time, here. I'm encouraged that so many people love X-Plane; I hadn't looked at it, yet (and not exactly sure as to why), but I'll be checking it out, now.
> MSFS is a game with nice visuals, use X-Plane if you want a real simulator
I completely agree -- Microsoft Flight Simulator has always been more than a game. I haven't used X-Plane, myself, and wouldn't have the expertise to properly judge the differences, myself.
However, as a kid in the early 90s, we had upgraded from an 8088 to a 80486, and getting time on the shared, single, computer, was difficult while Dad was training for his pilot's license and later IFR rating using the 80s version of Flight Simulator.
The funny thing is that until recently, it never occurred to me that the intention of Flight Simulator[0] was to be "a game". Now, I'm sure 1985 (or so) Flight Simulator on an 8088 left a lot to be desired as simulators go, but even back then it was "far more than a game".
I remember playing with it after my dad purchased it. The pretty picture on the front/box art gave everything the appearance of being a game. But it was missing one, critical, element. Games, I thought, were supposed to be fun. But outside of a small handful of major airports, which had a few lines to represent landscape, the game was basically "make the small airport disappear into large amounts of gray landscape", dial in the frequency, aim the plane, and then the best part -- when you're done, try make it a car[1].
As a child, I flew with my Dad in his Piper Cherokee probably somewhere in high doubles/low triple digits (over about 5 years). As a kid, I remember my Dad saying something along the lines of: Take-off, Landing and Problems are the only time the pilot is doing anything. Most of the time you aim the plane and wait. My Dad used to keep a 500 ct box of Atomic Fireball candies to keep him awake on long, multi-leg flights.
I have only, briefly, played with the latest Flight Simulator, but I felt like they nailed a lot of the physics engine. I used to love taking my friends with us on trips in the small plane. Where we lived, by about my teen years, all of my close friends had been on at least one commercial (jet) flight, and they all acted macho (the boys, anyway) having flown before (none would admit to a fear of heights at this point). The most intelligent of my friends would start to see their anxiety rise shortly after the hangar was opened. My Dad would hand me this pole to attach to the front landing gear -- so that I could pull the thing out of the garage. I was all of 145 pounds soaking wet, so watching me pull a larger-than-a-car-sized object that seats 7 with one arm and no physical exertion is the first sign that it's going to be a bumpy ride.
Shortly after, when my Dad asks for everyone's weight, the new passenger is confronted with the fact that "the plane is so light that everyone's safety partly depends on where I sit in this thing". If they aren't scared, yet, the next chance is about ten minutes after take-off, when my Dad would usually make a comment over the headphones about how smooth the air is -- I'm not sure if he was always being sarcastic, but "a smooth flight" was usually about as bad as the worst turbulence I've experienced on a commercial jet. So depending on how long we had planned on flying that day, my buddy now realizes this is as safe as they're going to feel.
The best description I've heard of it is that it feels like you're sitting in a kite. It's a kite that can be controlled, safely[2], but you feel every gust of wind and you can't help get the feeling like mother nature is getting annoyed with you and might just decide to slap you out of the air, much like we would do to an annoying fly... and that it would take very little effort on her part.
[0] In reference to the original MS Flight simulator from the 80s/90s -- there are many flight simulation games out there, but the point of these games is usually "to use a plane for war/combat/other traditional game purpose". The physics engines of these kinds of games are far simpler and sometimes feel like the plane is flying through loose snow rather than air -- i.e. like a ski/snowboard simulation game that includes "up/down" and reacts more slowly to turns than "being firmly attached to the ground" but not so slowly that you feel completely at the mercy of the wind.
[1] Also known as "landing" -- on that version, if memory serves, a good landing was characterized by a high-pitched "chirp" (implying the wheels hit the ground) and you could roll around on the ground. If you didn't stick the landing, the plane just stopped dead wherever it touched the ground (I think a "game over/start again" screen popped up but I'm not sure).
[2] I've written a few stories about the kinds of fun my Dad has experienced flying -- he was a "private pilot" in that he was not licensed to charge people to take them places, but he flew multiple times per week as a sales manager/owner of his company. He hated flying if he wasn't the pilot (commercial or otherwise) because he'd been through enough trouble in the air (and handled the problems successfully) that he had greater confidence in his abilities to handle problems than "a person he didn't know who was in charge of his life". I had always thought we were trying to save money, but it was far more expensive to fly the small plane (alone) than commercial.
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
That is not a fair comparison. If MSFS has less features but better graphics it is either moving backwards as a sim or becoming more arcadeish. A sim with less sim is less not more.
The new Flight Simulator is an upgraded version of the engine that dates back to at least 1990s, if not earlier, and traces of the fact are obvious. Legacy aerodynamics simulation from Flight Simulator X (2006) is included and fully functional. Air traffic control system introduced in Flight Simulator 2002 is also there with minor changes throughout the years. Even some artwork is 20+ years old, such as "737-400_scenery_t1.bmp" texture map[1] for a fictional 737-400 that came with Flight Simulator 2000[2]. I guess they forgot to remove it, or left it for backwards compatibility reasons.
"not much" is a bit subjective. In any case, I'd wager that 99% of the ATC code was taken from them. It has the same incorrect terminology and nonsense than in any other version of Microsoft Flight Simulator.
From scratch? No, consequently there is a pretty much automated aircraft converter [1] and the directory structure is incredibly similar and early alphas had the fsx flight physics, and started with fsx airports before the ml scenery was finished.
It's certainly a more ambitious engine upgrade of the engine than p3d or fsw, even excluding the cloud scenery stuff, but "write a flight sim from scratch" is a task on par with "write a Web browser from scratch".
Yes, most of this forum could write a IE3 or Netscape 2 or Lynx clone in a long but manageable amount of time, but if you want to catch up to Chrome/Firefox/Safari, good luck.
I completely agree about avionics, for example the first time I tried FLC mode on the G1000, the "Nose up" and "Nose Down" buttons were inverted ("Nose up" would increase the target speed, hence actually moving the nose down, and vice versa). And many things were missing, even basic ones such as "track up" mode for the MFD. Overall, X-Plane avionics are much better.
I also agree with you that X-Plane still gets an edge in terms of flight model, even though the gap is not as wide as it used to be between X-Plane and FSX/P3D.
The one obvious shortcoming of X-Plane, when compared to MSFS, is the lack of accurate world scenery, on the one hand we could say that it's just eye candy but on the other hand accurate scenery could help students prepare for VFR flights. Yes, you can generate high detail scenery for X-Plane using Ortho4XP, but it's time consuming and it requires a lot of disk space.
VFR students shouldn't be anywhere near a simulator, imo. Primary training is all about stick and rudder skills, which you can't pick up in a simulator. The feel of the controls isn't even close.
(I guess you could use a simulator to help teach pilotage and dead reckoning... but that normally gets sprinkled in with the other lessons along the way.)
On the other hand, simulators are useful for IFR training, when you're focusing on procedures. But you're not looking at the scenery in that case. ;)
> VFR students shouldn't be anywhere near a simulator,
I agree but I wasn't talking about stick and rudder skills, I was talking about cross country VFR preparation (learning landmarks etc.). I guess you can do it just using Google Maps, but it would be fun to do it in sim IMHO.
PS regarding the expression "VFR students": there is a preconception where VFR skills are just something that you learn as a beginner pilot, and then once you have enough experience, you start focusing on IFR. I think this mindset is wrong. There are some very experienced bush pilots who regularly - and sometimes mostly - fly VFR; aviation is not just airliners.
Now that you mention it, I could see MSFS being useful for general area familiarization.
Foreflight has 3D mode now for the same purpose. But MSFS would certainly be more fun, and an instructor could mix in other navigation skills. It would be a good exercise to drop someone into an unknown area to practice VOR navigation.
(And 100% agreed about the "VFR students" thing. Poor choice of words on my part.)
Pair X-Plane with PilotEdge, and you've got something that can help you with your radio skills so that you can effectively communicate with ATC. So many pilots go without flight following (asking ATC to watch your path and notify you of things you should be aware of) simply because they are afraid of the radio.
Completely agree about stick/rudder skills though...
Is anyone doing anything akin to a direct drive system for HOTAS force feedback? That would be incredible.
I have TM's Warthog system which is presently collecting dust due to lack of triple screen support (Nvidia Simultaneous Multi-projection or SMP, AMD has nothing) - in my space/flight titles, but hopefully not forever.
It's not anywhere able to convey forces affecting the plane in the way my DD steering wheel system does for driving. The feedback I get there combined with transducers is truly sensational, especially once you've had the time to become attuned. I'm becoming half competent now and it's an amazing thing to be able to do from the home.
Whilst there might be limited stuff to simulate in higher end fbw planes, for anything hydraulic there ought to be some options. I once had a Microsoft FFB joystick but considerable time had passed since.
There are sticks, yokes and even rudder pedals with FFB, from a couple different vendors (for example the ones made by the Swiss company Brunner) but they cost thousands. Unfortunately, AFAIK, there is nothing in the lower cost segment.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if someone could license brand names like Boeing, Airbus, Embraer, Cirrus, Garmin, or Cessna and sell reasonably priced panels mimicking instrument panels of those makers with their help?
An LCD touchscreen and a plastic overlay would do wonders and still be a reasonable compromise.
I think you've fallen into the uncanny valley, where it is very close to real but not close enough, so it feels off. The rest of us without your reference context continue to find it amazing.
X-Plane has a big advantage by the fact that it has been out much longer. Their built-in Garmin GNS430 / 530 and G1000 are not exact replicas of the real ones (subtle differences in behavior and missing functions). However you can fix that with a simple add-on, because RealityXP sells an add-on that lets you connect the real actual Garmin simulator software that is often used for training (which you can download for free) with the simulator. And if you do that the buttons are all 100% exactly the same as in the real thing.
I'm expecting this type of thing to be released for MS FS as well over the coming years. It just takes time for these third parties to write a version for MS.
I don't understand how it's an excuse that the current version is new or newer than X-plane? Either this is not actually MSFS but just a new game that sells by using (abusing) a known name or it is MSFS that has roots back to the 80's. If it's the last then it is clearly moving backwards if it has missing features and less realism. The logic that every new release is starting from scratch and isn't comparable to the old version is strange. Even if they throw out all the code and start coding from scratch MSFS is still not some un-comparable game to the last release.
To take it to an extreme: If Adobe started from scratch and released a new shiny Photoshop that looked good but had the features of MS Paint would people see it as moving backwards or "give it time, third parties will re-add missing features"?
In case of third party content I think it's a valid point. X Plane did not have these add-ons when it was released, they came a few years later. So it's not that strange to give MS FS a bit of time to catch up in terms of third party add-ons.
Missing features in the game itself can't be excused that way, but guess what... X Plane still after many years also doesn't have a good enough for training built-in simulation of a GPS.
FS2020 is the first simulator Ive played and on a whim Ive been using an add on pack call "FS Academy VFR/ IFR" to learn IFR. It's ok although the PDF manual needs editing because it throws acronyms at you without defining them so I find myself googling terms like VOR, NDB, OBS, etc.
Thanks for your comment regarding X Plane's better IFR realism I'll be sure to check it out next. I enjoy "programmatic and calculated flying" a lot more than I expected, it's a shame FS2020 doesn't encourage it. I think the Hacker News crowd would enjoy this type of flying if they knew more about it. It also makes me feel a lot safer knowing how meticulously pilots have to plan everything. I dont plan on getting an instrument rating but the basic IFR knowledge made me a lot more confident with regular VFR flying because I feel better calculating descent and turns banks rather than just "eyeballing and feeling" them. I got much better at landing than with the in game tutorials to the point where I want to get a PPL.
>3) Planes don't feel "right" at the edges of the envelope.
Is there a simulation that does this well? With regard to racing sims, there's still some argument on what has the best tire model. I can only imagine how complex aero and airplane models must be.
Aero models are actually much simpler than racing tyre models.
Most older flight sims used a lookup table for aerodynamic forces, which is gives a pretty decent model for most of the flight envelope. Newer sims do model the airflow around the wings but it's still relatively simple.
Tyre models have similar history, most models are empirical and based on the Pacejka tyre model with some adjustments, not quite a lookup table but some very basic math formulae with no physics behind it. Notable exception is iRacing which has a physically based tyre model based.
But the physical phenomena going on in a deforming, elastic racing tyre are much more complex than a wing cutting through air.
Not sure about the details, Forza Motorsport 4 has completely redeveloped the tire model at some point, with fresh intel from (IIRC) Pirelli, and they only improved since then.
I could be wrong but it seems to go way beyond Pacejka in my experience (including sidewall deformation). On old cars it's night and day.
I assume most sims have moved beyond vanilla Pacejka model by now, but they are generally still empirical models with their roots in Pajecka. The standard model doesn't account for dynamically changing pressures and temperatures, for example.
When tyre manufacturers provide data, it is usually in the form of coefficients for the Pacejka model or some variant thereof, the model being the de facto standard in the automotive industry.
But I admit I don't know the specifics about Forza 4 tyre model.
At least a few years ago, the iRacing tyre model developers said in their dev log videos that their model is unique in being physically based and not an empirical model. But that may have changed.
Empirical models are generally considered "better" feeling for sim racing, iRacing's model is criticized for being bad in handling extreme slip angles and ratios (read: drifting).
Project CARS described their tire model that they developed for the first game[1], based on three coupled simulations for the carcass, threads and heat. They describe it as a fully dynamic model.
Not sure what the state of the art is though, I just recalled this post from way back.
> The standard model doesn't account for dynamically changing pressures and temperatures, for example.
Forza definitely accounts for these, there are three thermal bands exposed in the telemtry UI: outer, middle, and inner. Pressure is a tunable, and it varies with heat.
There is also axial and radial deformation. Like, on small rim/big wall tires accelerating produces a tire twist along its rotating axis, as the wall itself is elastic, which creates a lag in tire reaction, followed by a tightening (and even a bounce) when it reaches elasticity limit. Same on turns when the tires deform laterally and depress, which creates some additional lag/bounce back effects that tally up to create interesting situations at the limit. This all matches up with my (completely anecdotal and limited) real life experience.
Most people play the cars tuned up to a given perf class slot, which often includes rim/tire upgrades by default (there's an auto-tune feature) when handed by the game for the cars to be sort of competitive in that perf class, so they probably don't get to feel that to the full extent. I myself don't care about the perf, I like to restore the car parts and settings to stock condition and enjoy the "original" feel of cars I will probably never drive or ever come near, and lap the car by myself or with a couple of like-minded friends.
> Empirical models are generally considered "better" feeling for sim racing
Yeah, theory has this way of matching reality, save for the corner cases that are the ones being interesting. I god honest don't know what Forza is using, and certainly don't claim it's a super accurate sim, but they did a fantastic job to make it feel realistic to great detail, and gracefully degrading from a full-fledged sim race setup to a gamepad (where it still manages to convey a ludicrous amount of info given the device limitations)
Live for Speed also had tyre deformation, temperature, pressure etc but it was still based on Pacejka model, applied to different parts of the tyre separately.
I think this might be spot on. Simulators tend to have extremely steep learning curves and turn off a lot of people. MSFS2020 is trying to capture the casual market too, which inherently means lowering that entry barrier.
It's a fantastic game though, and the satellite imagery AI magic they've done is outstanding.
Disclaimer, not a real pilot but I have flown X-plane for many years. So, yes, I am biased. But I do recognize the enormous progress MS has made with their latest sim. The visuals are stunning and the rest got a fairly big upgrade as well. It's hard to not get enthusiastic about it. I don't have the hardware to run it but I definitely want it.
Avionics in the default planes (both products) are not intended to be hyper realistic. Study level plane add ons exist for both X-plane, and all of MS recent simulators. They typically cost more than the base simulator and you can geek out over every little part of the plane's functionality. There's a great ecosystem of add on developers for both simulators that can get you a lot of realism.
That being said, Austin Meyer's primary motivation for building and continuing to build X-plane has always been simulation fidelity whereas MS core customers do include some hardcore users, they are mostly a bit more casual users. However, add-ons exist that do have a some hard core users and they do provide an excellent experience.
In between shipping Vulkan support for the core sim (which landed last year), Austin Meyer actually dedicated an entire release (11.40, 2019) to addressing some long standing edge cases with aerodynamics. There's a great overview of that on Youtube where he explains what he did (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4UfGE-JJY4). He even addresses "that new MS sim" at the end of the presentation.
There's all sorts of subtle behavior that he figured out the mathematics for and built into the sim. I like flying tail draggers in x-plane and the behavior definitely improved. It wasn't bad before (famously) and it got a lot better with that release. That represents the level of attention that goes into the product and it's a reason why lots of people like me continue to enjoy that product. It's also the reason you get more sensible behavior at the edge of the envelope for a lot of planes. Some plane manufacturers actually use plane-maker (which is included with x-plane) to model their new models: it's the easiest way to get a feel for how their plane will behave before they build it.
Likewise, the reason the default G1000 is so nice in X-plane is that they have a German contractor who is a real life IFR pilot obsessing about it for years for the past decade or so. His mission in life is to make this thing as real as it gets. And it's apparently very good. I've not actually touched the real thing ever of course but the simulated one is quite a complex thing to figure out. X-plane also has had ways to interface with real Garmin equipment for many years. But that's just one vendor and of course there are many. Most of the other ones are only available via add-ons.
The recent MS simulator does represent a very huge upgrade in realism with better default planes, improved approach to aerodynamics, weather, etc. It's much more engaging without investing a lot in add ons (which in the past was the only way to not make it look hopelessly outdated). Those add-ons still exist of course. Including scenery add ons, airport add ons, etc. It's good out of the box but not that good that those add-ons are no longer needed. In a way it caught up to X-plane's rendering capabilities (and a bit beyond). Where before x-plane just looked way better out of the box. I use a lot of ortho4xp scenery with osm2xplane objects and a few other goodies (all free btw) and you get quite far with just those two. But what MS did is definitely a few levels better. But for a six year old product, it's not bad.
X-plane 11 is coming to the end of its cycle. I expect v12 betas to start showing up end of this year or early next year. I expect that there will be a lot of progress on the scenery front particularly now that they have the Vulkan upgrade out of the way. They've always been good at making the most of data driven scenery production given that they have a small team. And there is a lot of open data to work with.
Thanks for that -- just out of curiousity, what is "instrument currency training"? My Dad was an instrument rated pilot (among others) and trained on the original MS Flight Simulator. It was obviously missing far more than probably any of the flight simulators released after 2000.
Also curious -- what is meant by your third bullet point? Where is the physics most obviously screwy? As a non-pilot, I was blown away by how the plane felt. Obviously, I don't have the sense for what the plane is actually doing like my pilot father would have, but while playing, it was the dynamics of how the plane moved that really impressed me.
I use simulator (X Plane) to shoot approaches every few days or so. In real life, you don’t really get to go down to minimums every flight. Simulator helps me to stay proficient.
In normal flight, the models are easy. However, in more unusual flying modes (eg stalls, spins, etc) its very hard to model a specific aircraft behavior vs a generic one. I have experience flying several models and a stall in Citabria (tiny aerobatic high wing) is very different than a stall in much bigger Bonanza. X Plane gets some (not all) of it right while MSFS doesn’t even trying it seems.
I'm not a pilot by any means but I did play xplane a lot and flex the 737 with the FMC and autopilot and such. When I tried doing the same in MFS, it was just nonfunctional. The detail wasn't there.
I disagree, I believe that MSFS and XP11 are marketed to a similar niche. MSFS was marketed as a realistic sim and not as arcade, there were multiple statements about that, including in the very first post of the official blog[3]. At the same time, you can buy XP11 on Steam, a platform for gamers[2], and while it's true that there is a version of X-Plane for professional use[3], most people who own it, use it in a home setting.
You may have misinterpreted what the parent meant about a "game" vs a "simulator".
XP11 focuses on the flight models and physics of flying a plane, whereas MSFS2020 focuses on the visuals.
Neither are perfect, but for those studying or familiarizing, XP11 is a far better choice since it goes out of it's way to mimic real life. MSFS2020's basic G1000 (crammed into nearly every cockpit in the game) still has buttons that don't function, just for starters.
Different focuses, one's a "game" and the other is a "simulator".
OK after reading your comment I get what you mean, yes it’s possible that that’s what parent meant. However I still think that MS should spend some effort fixing the avionics, because in their current state, they are not up to scratch, even considering the different focus as explained in your comment.
Completely agree, and am hopeful they will add the missing features and have some sort of "realism" update.
Basic things like the inability to manually set barometric pressure - there's no option in the G1000 implementation, you have to press 'B' on your keyboard and it just sets itself. Little things like that add up and firmly take MSFS2020 out of the "simulator" category... for now.
Some others have mentioned that MSFS2020 might be more akin to a platform, upon which content will be added over years and years. Some enterprising individuals have already figured out how to add helicopters, for example, while officially there's no support for helis by MS/Asobo. So, I remain hopeful.
I would argue that historically MSFS series has indeed been more of a platform and an ecosystem than anything else. It's predecessor Flight Simulator X also had quite shallowly modelled default aircraft, yet over the years third-party (mostly payware) devs modeled almost all commercial airliners in use today to a very high detail.
So, I think MSFS2020 will be a great simulator for those hardcore simmers who are willing to pay 50-150USD for a single aircraft modeled to a very high detail, just like they did in FSX days.
Yes, for sure the add-ons ecosystem will fill every possible niche. However if we look at X-Plane, we can see that having good quality default avionics can actually help add-ons makers, the two things are not mutually exclusive! Many 3rd party X-Plane add-ons improve on the default avionics rather than having to develop a unit from scratch (like it’s often the case with P3D add-ons). This means that developers can focus on other aspects (e.g. failures, systems, walk around, manuals) while reducing dev costs.
What I mean by a "game" is that the goal of the software is to be enjoyable. It's definitely marketed towards a crowd that wants a simulator, but it's not trying to get you ready to fly a real airplane (even if that is possible as a side effect). That's not how it's marketed.
Whereas, the flight simulator that Airbus trains its pilots on is evaluated by a different goal... that simulator's goal is to make sure that you don't kill 400 people on an A380. You're not supposed to enjoy it, using it is paid work and not recreation.
Yes this makes sense, I would say that MSFS is purely focused on the entertainment market, P3D (and many other specialised sims) on the professional market, while X-Plane caters to both segments.
I love planes but am not a pilot or trying to be a pilot. I think MSFS is enough of a simulator to satisfy me. It has enough technical sophistication to be interesting and teach me things. But I dont need to learn to fly with it. And the scenarios I play are completely contrived anyway.
Nope. MSFS and X-Plane may start as games, but you'd be surprised how widely they are used in professional aerospace and aviation for a variety of purposes. In fact, back when MS had the old Flight Simulator (disbanded in 2006,) they had developed and sold a parallel commercial version which was used in a variety of flight simulation and training platforms. It was this version that was sold to Lockheed Martin, which became Prepar3D, which--whether you agree or not--is explicitly licensed as "not a game."
Now, one could argue the differences between X-Plane and MSFS in terms of realism. From a professional point of view (airline pilot or aerospace engineer,) both are very much in the same general field. Truth is that neither of them meet performance requirements to be used in the kind of certified full motion flight simulators airline pilots use on the job, although both products arguably have components that are useable in those. However, both products are also highly extensible. Just because the out of the box models may not be super detailed doesn't mean an add-on product can't come with its own flight and system models--for instance, PDMG and FlightSimLabs produce airliners for the old FSX and Prepar3D that will outperform most everything on X-Plane from a realism perspective. Expect that their products will be on MSFS2020 in time.
Also, it's important to distinguish between flight model realism and systems realism. Both X-Plane and MSFS add-ons can and do come with their own flight and system models which replace out of the box componentry, but arguably it's the flight models that are more dependent on the capabilities of the base sim. Everyone complaining about the lack of realism in the MSFS stock G1000 implementation should just wait 6-9 months, and surely something better will be out.
From my POV, the new MSFS does 2 extremely impressive, arguably revolutionary things, and the aerospace/aviation industry has taken note: a) The photogrammatry rendering of the whole earth in high fidelity 3D detail, and b,) the representation of the real ATC airspace through leveraging ADS-B (i.e. FlightAware and Flight-Radar 24.) Simulating a single airplane to a high degree of fidelity on desktop hardware is easy. Simulating (I mean truly simulating) an airspace of airplanes is not... ATC in most sims--to date--is scripted, not fully simulated. Piping in the real world (and combining it with live multiplayer) is a very interesting alternative.
The visuals are not that relevant for professional training, it's much more about accurate instruments and procedures. On the other hand, in my multi-crew coordination training the first part was sitting in front of a cardboard 737 cockpit. That could also be done with a cardboard cockpit + 2 screens connected to MS FS. Because with cardboard only you have no time pressure, while if something is really "moving" you do have time pressure.
I tried the latest MS FS when it got out and went back to X-Plane for majority of my instrument “currency” training:
1) MS FS still doesn’t have a lot of US instrument procedures available.
2) Avionics (e.g. G1000) doesn’t behave as in real life: buttonology is just wrong and often the logic is wrong too.
3) Planes don’t feel “right” at the edges of the envelope.
I still checkout MS FS challenges once in a while, but I treat it as an arcade. It is not real by any means thought rendering is pretty nice.