While today Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has been released on PC and Xbox Series X|S, the party has been spoiled by infrastructure issues, that are severely limiting access at the moment of this writing.
Microsoft posted a video to explain the situation, starring Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann (with whom we just posted an interesting interview earlier today) and Asobo CEO Sebastian Wlock.
Neumann mentions that the team knew the excitement for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, but “completely underestimated how high” with the effect that the infrastructure has been completely overwhelmed.
Wlock explained that the issue is located in a cache that exchanges data between users and servers upon login. That cache has been tested during the tech alpha simulating 200,000 concurrent users. Yet, it’s getting “completely overwhelmed” tonight.
The developers have tried to restart the servers while throttling the number of people who can log in at the same time. It worked well temporarily, so the developers tried to reduce the throttling by increasing the speed of the queue by five times. While things worked out for about half an hour, the cache then collapsed under pressure again.
At the moment, the developers are doing their best to ensure that everyone can log in as soon as possible.
The current failure can either completely block users from logging in, or allow logins with missing data, which will cause the lack of certain aircraft or content within the simulator.
When the issue is fixed and the extreme traffic normalizes over time, all these issues should be gone, according to Wlock.
Neumann concludes the video by apologizing for the issues and reiterating that the team is working on the issue.
If you’d like to read more about Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, you can enjoy our hands-on preview with plenty of interesting details for your perusal. It’s worth reminding that Simulation Daily won’t publish a review, as we do not review games. We prefer to provide you with the tools to judge whether a game or a simulator is for you by yourself.
You can also watch our previous interview with Jorg Neumann himself and Asobo CEO Sebastian Wloch, another with Asobo CCO David Dedeine, and one featuring Chris Burnett of Working Title and Brandon Yaeger of Got Friends about their work on MSFS 2024.
Last, but not least, you can take a look at our A-10 flight through the Grand Canyon, our first look at the extensive pilot customization, another at the first mission of the Career Mode, a video featuring the new walk-around move showing off a Boeing 737 MAX up close and personal, and a challenge with the A-10 over the Blue Ridge Mountains.
