Microsoft unconvinced by third-party Flight content

Allowing third parties to build content for MS Flight would create a ‘confusing mess’ for new customers, Microsoft said.

Flight sim specialists told MCV last month that Microsoft needs to let them create content for its new PC free-to-play game MS Flight.

Firms such as Just Flight and First Class Simulations have built expansions for Microsoft’s previous Flight Simulator titles. But Microsoft is handling the DLC in-house this time.

However, it will think about allowing third-parties on board if it struggles to meet a massive demand.

We’re trying something very different,” MS Flight’s exec producer Joshua Howard told MCV. Instead of opening this up to everything, anywhere, by anybody, which frankly creates sort of a confusing mess for a new customer, we get to manage it more, tell a story, help it grow and get on its feet.

I believe this ecosystem will come to be larger than the existing product’s ecosystem. And that will be a point where I can’t meet the appetite of a customer base, and I will invest to bring more people in.

I’m also not interested in limiting MS Flight to merely a triple-A title. I think MS Flight can appeal to people who wouldn’t ever consider themselves gamers.”

MS Flight arrives on February 29th. It could also land on other platforms in the future.

MS Flight is launching on Games for Windows Live, but we’ll be on the lookout for ways we can bring the world of Flight to whole new audiences, platforms, and devices,” added Howard.