Microsoft Flight Simulator Achieves 10 Million Players; Airbus A330 Gets New Screenshots & More

Today, Microsoft and third-party developers shared news about Microsoft Flight Simulator and its add-ons, including both aircraft and scenery.

We start with news from Microsoft that announced that 10 million people took to the sky in MSFS across PC, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox Cloud Gaming.

More statistics are as follows.

• 500 million flights
• 40 billion miles flown
• Equivalent of 10 million trips around the Earth
• Equivalent of 200 round trips from Earth to sun

In the nineties and early 2000s, the flight simulation genre was popular and considered at the cutting edge of AAA gaming. Then, following Microsoft’s exit from the market, it suffered a decade of decline due to a string of weak releases from developers unable or unwilling to address the mass market.

For an old simmer like me, who started when he was six with Flight Simulation by Psion on the Spectrum 48k, it’s certainly a pleasure to see this resurgence.

Moving on to third parties, Aerosoft shared a couple of new screenshots of its Airbus A330, showing the exterior and a very small detail of the flight deck.

An announcement comes from SkyDesigners, which will release BA132 Colmar–Meyenheim Air Base (LFSC) in France.

It’s an interesting choice and rather nostalgic, considering that the base is now closed to flight operations and has been replaced by army barracks.

You can see what it looks like below.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is currently available for PC (Windows 10 and Steam), and Xbox Series X|S. If you want to read more about it, you can check out our review.