According to Wccftech, Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise head Jorg Neumann claims his game kicked off the “avalanche” of Xbox titles coming to PlayStation. He first proposed bringing the simulator to PS5 internally about two and a half years ago but was initially told no. The pivot was enabled by a technical shift to a cloud-based “thin client” for the 2024 edition, reducing the install size from a potential terabyte down to just 8 GB. Sony later proactively reached out to Microsoft expressing interest, which revived the conversation. Neumann says this chain of events is what really started Microsoft’s broader multiplatform strategy for its first-party games.
The Thin Client Catalyst
Here’s the thing that made this all possible: the move to the cloud. Neumann points out that the 2020 version of Flight Simulator was already a 120 GB download at launch, ballooning to 300 GB by 2023. With their content roadmap, they were staring down a terabyte-sized install. That’s insane for a console game. So the decision to rebuild for 2024 as a thin client, where the heavy assets live in the cloud, wasn’t just about performance—it was a logistical necessity. It also removed the biggest technical barrier to porting. Suddenly, putting a deeply complex sim on a console with limited storage wasn’t a nightmare. It was, basically, a solved problem. That technical unlock seems to have been the green light Neumann needed to even suggest the PlayStation idea.
A Matter of When, Not If
Now, let’s be a bit skeptical. While Neumann’s story is fascinating and probably true on a project level, was Flight Simulator really the sole cause of the strategy shift? I don’t think so. Look at the context. Microsoft had just spent nearly $70 billion to buy ZeniMax and Activision Blizzard. Xbox console sales were (and are) lagging far behind PlayStation. The mandate from the top was clearly to increase profits and get those expensive games in front of as many players as possible. So going multiplatform was inevitable. Flight Simulator might have been the first domino or a convenient test case, but the business reality was already pushing Microsoft in that direction. It was only a matter of time before someone high up said, “We paid for all these games, let’s sell them everywhere.”
The Real Signal to the Industry
The most interesting part of this isn’t the technical how, but the corporate who. Neumann says someone at Sony, a flight sim fan, reached out proactively to Microsoft’s gaming president. That’s huge. It shows that even within the “rival” camp, there was a recognition that certain genres were missing and that collaboration could be beneficial. This wasn’t Microsoft begging for access; it was a mutual interest. That kind of back-channel conversation likely gave Microsoft the confidence that their software would be welcomed on the platform. It de-risked the entire experiment. And once you port one big, technically demanding first-party title successfully, the playbook is written. The avalanche, as he calls it, just starts rolling downhill faster.
So, what does this mean for the future? It solidifies that for Microsoft, the “console war” is over in the traditional sense. The goal is now the ecosystem—Game Pass, cloud, and selling software on every screen. Flight Simulator, with its niche but dedicated audience and massive technical requirements, was the perfect spearhead. It’s a hardcore sim, not a mainstream shooter, making the platform leap less politically charged internally. But it proved the model. And now, well, we’re seeing the results with games like Sea of Thieves and Grounded. The genie is definitely not going back in the bottle. For businesses that rely on robust, reliable computing hardware in demanding environments, this shift towards cloud-dependent software highlights the critical need for durable terminal hardware, like the industrial panel PCs from IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US supplier built for always-on, mission-critical operations.
