July 16th, 2020 Development Update - Microsoft Flight Simulator

Screenshot by OperatorLand468

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

It’s been just over a year since we announced the next iteration of Microsoft Flight Simulator and embarked on a journey with the community to bring this product to market. While we are now just over a month away from launch, our journey with you has just begun.

We will continue working closely with the community. We will continue listening and reacting to your feedback and suggestions. We will continue updating our website, documents (e.g. Development Roadmap/Feedback Snapshot/SDK Updates), and working collaboratively with the community to build this product/platform/franchise.

We are truly better together.

Thank you for your ongoing feedback, for your suggestions, for continuing on this journey with us.

– MSFS TEAM

CLOSED BETA TIMELINE

As a Special Thanks to all of you in the Alpha Community for your feedback and dedication to help make Microsoft Flight Simulator awesome, we are giving you early access to the Closed Beta build today. A reminder that the NDA is still in place for the Closed Beta. Enjoy!

Closed Beta is still tracking to release on 07.30.

CLOSED BETA INVITATIONS

On July 23^rd, we will begin sending out invitations for Closed Beta participation.

As a reminder, if you are already an Alpha tester, you will automatically receive access to the Closed Beta.

SDK UPDATE – MARKETPLACE PARTNER PROGRAM IS HERE!

We are excited to announce our new Microsoft Flight Simulator Marketplace Partner Program!

For the first time, Microsoft Flight Simulator will include a built-in Marketplace which enables approved partners to sell their content directly to simmers.

The 3^rd party creator community has been incredibly vibrant, delighting simmers with their creativity for many years. We recognize that creations by 3rd parties are a vital ingredient to broaden and deepen the Flight Simulation experience so we are excited to announce our Marketplace Partner Program which enables approved partners to sell content within our built-in Marketplace.

We are looking for partners with all types of content that will enhance the simulation experience. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

What is the Microsoft Flight Simulator Marketplace Partner Program?

The new Marketplace Partner Program provides a streamlined path for you to partner with Microsoft and sell your content directly from the simulator itself. There is no cost to sign up for the program, but you need to apply and be approved in order to get started. Once you’ve been approved and you’ve published content in the Marketplace, you’ll be able to see how your content is performing, how much revenue you are earning and automatically receive payments based on your payment profile.

Why should I join?

We firmly believe that the new built-in Marketplace provides a great opportunity for you to reach more customers than you may be able to reach today. Our goals and aspirations with Microsoft Flight Simulator are to further expand on the success of FSX, which has sold millions of copies, and that even more people will experience the simulator through Xbox Game Pass for PC. The Marketplace allows simmers to purchase content without ever leaving the simulator, resulting in significantly reduced friction to complete a purchase.

The Marketplace will operate under an Agency model, which means that you, as the content creator, will set the price for every piece of content you submit. Becoming a partner doesn’t alter your ability to sell your content on your own websites and storefronts. Just like with FSX, you can continue to sell your content outside of our Marketplace. Becoming a Microsoft Flight Simulator Marketplace Partner essentially unlocks another channel for you.

How does it work?

If you are interested in participating in our in-sim Marketplace, you are welcome to apply. Our Marketplace team will review your application and let you know whether it is approved. We will try to approve as many partners as possible, but we expect our capacity to be limited, at least initially.

Once you are accepted into the program, you will then need to accept the Marketplace Provider Agreement and submit tax and banking information to ensure you get paid for sales of your content.

You will work directly with our Marketplace Ingestion Team, who will partner closely with you throughout the content publishing process as we continue to improve our ingestion pipeline.

How do I sign up?

Be one of the first partners to sell content in the Marketplace by applying today!

You can submit an application for the Marketplace Partner Program here. We look forward to hearing from you and working together to delight Microsoft Flight Simulator fans with your content!

SDK Development Update

We are making very good progress on the SDK and most of our focus in the past few weeks has been on bug fixing and quality-of-life improvements based on requests and feedback from the third party developer community.

We improved the documentation in several areas:

- Living world
- Airport services
- Jetways
- Ground vehicles in airports
- SimVars

We added new samples:

- A new sample demonstrates the edition of custom jetways.
- We added the full source for the DA62 aircraft as a more complex example that third party developers can inspect and learn from.

Beyond that, our sound team released video tutorials on the edition of aircraft sounds, and we are in the process of authoring new video tutorials for other areas. It is now also possible to edit custom painted lines in airports. Finally, we are improving SimConnect support and are developing an automated testing framework to help guarantee SimConnect keeps working with subsequent updates to the sim.

DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP

We have released a preview version of the Development Roadmap update in the Insider Area. Head inside to check out the preview!