Three days later, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 launch is still stumbling with access and bandwidth problems — issues aren't going away anytime soon as more users come online globally
Despite Microsoft's attempts to increase server capacity, global user counts continue to rise, preventing accessibility problems from going away.
Microsoft has provided yet another update on the state of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Jorg Neumann, head of MSFS, reports on X that the game is still seeing availability and bandwidth issues due to extraordinarily high player counts. This time, the global user base has exacerbated the outgoing problems, with Microsoft revealing that more users are coming online from around the world to play the game. Microsoft apologizes for the frustrating experience its issues are causing players.
Microsoft's latest update represents the second update so far, yielding bad news with no permanent solutions. Neumann's only real encouragement was that Microsoft is still working on fixing the backend issues. Neglecting to share a roadmap or a firm date on when playability issues will be solved entirely.
The company's last update showcased noticeable progress in solving the accessibility problems plaguing MSFS 2024 players. Microsoft purportedly added additional server capacity, which helped improve player accessibility, though how much remains a mystery.
Update on the technical issues affecting MSFS 2024: We continue to see access and bandwidth issues as more users come online globally. We’re actively working on increased capacity fixes. We want to express our gratitude to the community and apologize for this frustrating…November 21, 2024
MSFS 2024 issues began right at launch day when most players couldn't play the game, and some couldn't even install it. Microsoft revealed that the dev team behind MSFS 2024 initially tested the game servers with 200,000 simulated users, but despite testing with this extraordinary player count, Microsoft revealed that the backend services were completely overloaded from excessive player counts, causing all of the accessibility issues in the game currently.
For perspective, Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl launched right after MSFS 2024 and has seen an impressive peak of 117,928 players on Steam (with more on other platforms). Microsoft's backend issues reveal that well over 200,000 concurrent players are trying to play the game and still trying to play it, given how problematic accessibility has been for the game.
Unsurprisingly, due to these issues, MSFS 2024 now has a mostly negative review bias on Steam. Hopefully, Microsoft can resolve these issues fully so players can play the game and reviewers can finally review it without frustrating crashes and accessibility issues.
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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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