# MicroSoft Flight Simulator: Why did it end? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [February 19, 2017, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-flight-simulator-why-did-it-end/780271 "2017-02-19T23:06:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2020, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-flight-simulator-why-did-it-end/780271/21 "2020-01-09T09:16:42Z")
How accurate is the flight modeling in War Thunder? That’s the flight game I see people most often talk about now. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2020, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-flight-simulator-why-did-it-end/780271/22 "2020-01-09T21:24:00Z")
It’s ludicrously simple. Control is mouse pointing. You can stall your plane and it has some basic damage modelling, but other than that it’s not a real flight simulator. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2020, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-flight-simulator-why-did-it-end/780271/23 "2020-01-09T22:31:16Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Flight games in general died off. Flight games, especially combat ones, were once a major part of the PC gaming market. I must have played doens of them; Falcon 3.0, F-15 Strike Eagle, Gunship, Il-2 Sturmovik, Red Baron, Aces over the Pacific, EF 2000, MiG Alley, B-17 Flying Fortress, and on and on. “Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe” was so awesome. > > For a variety of reasons, flight games just stopped being popular. They’re still around, but few in number. I’m not sure why; maybe they simply got pushed out by other game types, especially MMOs. My guess is because prior to about 2000, the hardware just didn’t have the horsepower to even come close to accurately simulate flight. That changed sometime around the turn of the century or a little later; the games could actually simulate flight. Think F-15 Strike Eagle III (1992) vs. Falcon 4.0(1998). The former was a blast, if not particularly accurate in terms of flight simulation, while the latter was way TOO detailed/realistic. Realistic enough that not playing on the noob-mode was not actually fun. I mean, few people really want to play on the wimpy mode, but few people really want to put the time and effort in to really actually be able to fly an actual combat aircraft. IL-2 Sturmovik had a lot the same kind of issue; it just wasn’t fun. And it’s not like I didn’t play the absolute crap out of flight games prior to that- F-15 Strike Eagle III, Knights of the Sky, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, B-17 Flying Fortress, Project Stealth Fighter, Gunship (helicopter) and Gunship 2000 were all games I played a lot of. But then I got Falcon 4.0, found it nearly unplayable, and then waited a bit and bought IL-2 Sturmovik and had the same problem- it was too realistic to be fun. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2020, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-flight-simulator-why-did-it-end/780271/24 "2020-01-10T01:44:49Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Looks like a new iteration of MFS [has been released](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=888048). Misleading OP, which links back to my thread from earlier in the week. Latest scoop is it will likely be released sometime in the spring, which of course is always subject to change. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2020, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-flight-simulator-why-did-it-end/780271/25 "2020-01-10T01:53:15Z")
Back when MS ended it I remember a article as to why. Because of increasing processing power, thus increasing realism, meant greatly increased programing realism into flight sim’s. Along with that it increasing realism became the reality that flying was boring, there was only so much they could do with it. Thus they would have to increase realism yet that only lead to a more boring experience. It was just not economical and MS decided to pull the plug as they saw this cycle only continuing. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2020, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-flight-simulator-why-did-it-end/780271/26 "2020-01-13T17:33:36Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Back when MS ended it I remember a article as to why. Because of increasing processing power, thus increasing realism, meant greatly increased programing realism into flight sim’s. > > Along with that it increasing realism became the reality that flying was boring, there was only so much they could do with it. > > Thus they would have to increase realism yet that only lead to a more boring experience. It was just not economical and MS decided to pull the plug as they saw this cycle only continuing. I was thinking about my earlier post over the weekend, and remembered that one of the things that infuriated me about Falcon 4.0 was that at one point, I had to use the hat on the joystick to look around the cockpit and use the mouse to click a little switch on some instrument panel. In a supposedly exciting fast-paced fighter-plane game. I had to go click a little cockpit switch for some reason with the mouse. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-flight-simulator-why-did-it-end/780271.md?page=1)