Microsoft says Flight Simulator 2024 still suffers from access problems despite adding more server capacity to handle demand
MSFS 2024's backend is slowly improving to meet the game's colossal swarm of concurrent players.
After a troubled launch that has only grown more concerning as time goes on, Microsoft has provided an update on the ongoing situation with MSFS 2024 and its severe stability/crashing issues, and all is still not well. The team behind MSFS 2024 posted on X that more server capacity has been added to the simulator, helping improve player accessibility. However, this has not permanently fixed accessibility issues for all players.
We have increased our server capacity and are seeing more players accessing the sim, however, we are still seeing access issues continue. This is not the launch experience we want for our players and want to apologize to the community. We will continue to work around the clock…November 21, 2024
Microsoft is continuing to struggle to meet the incredible amount of concurrent players playing (or trying to load) MSFS 2024. Playability issues began on launch day two days ago, when the vast majority of players couldn't play the game, with some even unable to install the game at all, representing one of the worst game launches in history. The cheery on top was that Microsoft neglected to share any pre-launch codes with reviewers, preventing many 3rd-party reviewers, including Tom's Hardware, from providing a thorough review of the game at launch.
A day later, Microsoft provided a video update on the state of the game and clarification on the issues occurring. It turns out that Microsoft only tested the game's servers with 200,000 simulated users before launch to ensure that the game could handle that many players. However, despite Microsoft's preparation attempts, the backend was purportedly instantly overwhelmed on launch day and the days after. Obviously, player counts for MSFS 2024 are well over 200,000, which gives us an idea of how popular Microsoft's new simulator is.
MSFS 2024 is suffering from overwhelmed backend services responsible for virtually all game accessibility problems and the vast majority of game stability issues. The mission service database, in particular, is completely maxed out, resulting in many users being unable to fly missions in-game. Default planes are also missing from the user's libraries.
Thankfully, Microsoft is working on stopping these issues entirely. However, the trillion-dollar company has still not provided a roadmap or a deadline on when full game functionality will be restored to all players. We're monitoring for more updates from the Microsoft team and will follow up as neccesary.
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Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.
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Francis412
Here here.hotaru251 said:just another reason online only games shouldnt be a thing. -
emike09 "Obviously, player counts for MSFS 2024 are well over 200,000, which gives us an idea of how popular Microsoft's new simulator is."Reply
SteamDB shows an all-time peak of 24k players since launch. No clue how many players from the PC Microsoft Store, but I guarantee it's much less than Steam. Which leaves us with XBox and GamePass users.
In the June 2024 MSFS Dev Q&A, Jorg Neumann indicated that PC vs XBox users vary, but hovers around 60/40 split, sometimes even 50/50 (https://fselite.net/content/microsoft-flight-simulator-june-2024-dev-qa-msfs2024-info-su16-new-aircraft-and-more/).
So, let's take that 24k from Steam, double it for Xbox, and double it for GamePass and Windows Store just to cover all sides. That's roughly 72,000 concurrent users, which I think is a very high estimate.
Even if 200,000 simulated users were used to test the servers, there is usually a little overhead available, or perhaps it'd just be a delayed login instead of a complete failure of the system. I call BS on the excuse of servers being overloaded. I think something happened along the pipeline they didn't test for, or broke. I think the world would have been just fine if they did a staggered release based on platform. Or did one more public beta a week before launch. -
Kpop4Ever I saw all of this coming weeks ago when they announced they were reducing the install size by putting more assets in the cloud. Right then I knew I wouldn't bother trying to get it on release day, and now I'm probably going to wait until SU1 drops. FS 2020 still works great.Reply -
Heat_Fan89
True but Sony and Microsoft have been moving away from physical game distribution and it was Gamestop who accelerated the move. If it wasn't for Gamestop bragging about all the money they were making on used sales, which caused Publishers to band together to put pressure on Microsoft and Sony to combat the losses in new sales.hotaru251 said:just another reason online only games shouldnt be a thing.
Gamestop had the audacity to tell game publishers that used sales for them equaled new sales for the publishers. Meanwhile Gamestop was raking in the cash and Publishers were not.
Hence why we see game delivery going more and more towards digital. -
watzupken When you release a new game and only planning 200K users worldwide to play this game at the same time, you are essentially being ignorant of just being silly. Microsoft is not new to releasing games, and at launch, you should expect the most number of players. And honest, I won't bother about games that is not installed on your system because there is too much dependency on our network and the service from MS. Any one of it fails, you essentially "bought" a game that you won't be able to play or runs very badly.Reply -
NinoPino
Totally agree with your analysis.emike09 said:"Obviously, player counts for MSFS 2024 are well over 200,000, which gives us an idea of how popular Microsoft's new simulator is."
SteamDB shows an all-time peak of 24k players since launch. No clue how many players from the PC Microsoft Store, but I guarantee it's much less than Steam. Which leaves us with XBox and GamePass users.
In the June 2024 MSFS Dev Q&A, Jorg Neumann indicated that PC vs XBox users vary, but hovers around 60/40 split, sometimes even 50/50 (https://fselite.net/content/microsoft-flight-simulator-june-2024-dev-qa-msfs2024-info-su16-new-aircraft-and-more/).
So, let's take that 24k from Steam, double it for Xbox, and double it for GamePass and Windows Store just to cover all sides. That's roughly 72,000 concurrent users, which I think is a very high estimate.
Even if 200,000 simulated users were used to test the servers, there is usually a little overhead available, or perhaps it'd just be a delayed login instead of a complete failure of the system. I call BS on the excuse of servers being overloaded. I think something happened along the pipeline they didn't test for, or broke. I think the world would have been just fine if they did a staggered release based on platform. Or did one more public beta a week before launch.
Another point is that, also admitting a overload of servers at launch, here two days was passed, and for sure, the actual number of concurrent users is much lower than it was at launch, but the problems continues. -
jp7189 One of the great things about the cloud is the ability to expand resources on the fly in times of heavy load.Reply
I wonder if Microsoft has access to a cloud platform that could help here? Perhaps they could call Google or Amazon.
/sarcasm -
alter anima
Removing the need to be online means removing multiplayer, live weather, live air traffic and more. It also means you'll need a more expensive PC with much more local storage and more processing power.hotaru251 said:just another reason online only games shouldnt be a thing.
The root cause problem hasn't been that it requires you to be online.
The problem is that it wasn't properly tested before launch, and as a result wasn't given enough Microsoft Azure data center resources. At least that's what we're being told. Let's hope fixing that fixes everything. -
Roland Of Gilead hotaru251 said:just another reason online only games shouldnt be a thing.
Interestingly enough, the vast majority of gamers play online. As high as 80%. There'd be a whole lot of dissatisfied customers if online wasn't a thing. Just sayin! :)Francis412 said:Here here.