Today was supposed to be a day of celebration for Flight Sim fans - the arrival of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 on Xbox and PC (including as part of Xbox Game Pass). Unfortunately though, it's suffered a very turbulent start so far.
When the game went live a couple of hours ago, players found that they were suffering from an extremely long initial load time that never actually finished in many instances. Here at Pure Xbox, we're still unable to fly a plane over two hours since we first started trying! Unfortunately, it appears that Flight Sim 2024 is just too in demand right now.
Obviously, a big problem here is that Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 relies on its online servers to function. Yes, it's great that it's just an 11GB download on Xbox Series X, but that means we're probably streaming most of its content rather than installing it natively - and it also means that unlike the 2020 version, it can't be played offline at all.
Here's what developer Asobo Studio had to say in a statement about the servers earlier today:
"We are aware of user reports of long initial loading times into Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. With so many users initializing the sim concurrently, we have a large number of server requests. We are working to help resolve the issues as soon as possible.
For users whose initial load is past 90% and no longer progressing, we recommend a reboot. Otherwise we advise waiting to allow the loading to proceed as normal."
It's not just the long loading times that are the problem though. We've seen weird error messages (as highlighted in the image above) and been forced back to the dashboard a number of times, so it's a messy situation all over. We're assuming most of these glitches are linked to the server issues - at least, we're hoping that's the case!
These problems will most likely work themselves out in the coming days, but when you consider that some people are paying up to $200 to play this game, it's certainly not an ideal start. Let's hope the situation resolves itself ASAP.
Have you been struggling with Flight Sim 2024? Let us know down in the comments section below.
[source x.com]
Comments 43
This is one reason until these services and cloud streaming world has the technology and set up correctly.
Games need to steer clear and give us full down loads and the ability to fully run games off line.
It seems the industry is trying to run before it can even crawl.
We never as gamers even asked for this process to take this route, it’s the industry forcing us this way.
I've been staring at a login queue for 15 minutes on my first boot.
Update - gave up and restarted pc, seems to have fixed it. I am in.
Broken server: THIS IS AN XBOX
Very poor start
“For those whose load is no longer progressing…we recommend a reboot; otherwise we advise waiting to allow the loading to proceed as normal.”
Brilliant response. They could have been doctors. ‘I advise you either take an antibiotic, or allow the virus to run its course.’
@Balaam_ "Brilliant response. They could have been doctors. ‘I advise you either take an antibiotic, or allow the virus to run its course.’"
Don't be silly we all know bleach is the best strategy to tackle a virus 😁
I wonder if Stalker 2 will share the same fate. We will see tomorrow.
There's a version of this on the store that costs £200. Gaming these days is a joke.
@luke88
And there are a number of people on here that paid that too.🙃
Ya'll stand up now, come on now, don't be shy, give em a round of applause everyone, er someone, ok.. anyone?
Now imagine if every game on MS’s servers were cloud only and instead of 10s of thousands of players trying to get on at once it was millions of players!
Big shout out to all the day 1 beta testers!.. oops, i mean day 1 players.
Oh dear. Embarrassing. And just for good measure Stalker 2 has a 36.7GB update after today’s earlier 137GB update.
Isn’t current gen just peachy 🍑
This is what the future of gaming looks like people, we best get used to it. Xbox and Asobo should of anticipated that the servers would buckle on release so therefor should of made preparations to avoid these issues.
@gollumb82 Stalker 2 should be fine since it’s not a game that requires a constant internet connection.
Stuck in Login queue. Great job Microsoft 😂
Because of the way this game streams data, is there a minimum recommended download speed on Series X? Mine is about 65mbps.
Well, the good news is that the title surpassed their expectations. I guess it's being more popular than the previous one. I assume that they're already fixing this.
Your all-digital streaming future, ladies and germs!
What an absolute shambles. I’m not at all surprised that there are issues on day 1, but not even being able to log into the game at all? Poor, and a really bad look for Xbox.
@luke88 that’s an Xbox 😂
Ah modern gaming....
Great!
@MaccaMUFC If this is the future of gaming, I’m glad I have a few hundred games in my backlog. I’ll be good without cluster-effs like this in my future.
Jesus Christ people just do something else for a day or two. You'll live.
People getting riled up over something fairly common in modern gaming. Imagine what will happen when GTA6 launches… Just wait till tomorrow and the issue will get sorted (most likely).
@MaccaMUFC
I’ll be playing it via xCloud (the only way I play Xbox games) but I can wait a day or two for things to be sorted should there be any launch issues.
Heads up another Stalker 2 update just released
36.66 gb.
Mines just doing it now series x.
Bro imagine getting kicked out of Microsoft Flight Simulator...... crazy chattt.😭
That is why X-Plane is better
A Microsoft first party game has a botched lauch. In other news, the sky is blue and the grass is green.
It's been a complete disaster.
No backup way to play, I've learned my lesson with an online only game.
Love Flight Simulator, and bought my Series X just for 2020.
I went out for a drink with pals tonight because I suspected I'd be a ***** show 😀
@gollumb82 Indeed, why would people expect to be able to play a game they paid for at launch! Such unreasonable people.
The worst game launch I have experienced to date, and I was there for Cyberpunk 2077. At least I could play the game even if it was broke.
This might as well be Xcloud only. What a terrible to require 200mbps to stream a game with MILLIONS of Game Pass subscribers and no offline option.
@MeanBeanEgg @dskatter
Hahah. First rime someone called me a shill. If you read any of my posts here you’d know I game on all platforms and have no favourites, take no sides. So you paid for a digital product that is on a server somewhere. It’s not bread or a can of soda. Things like that have happened before and will keep happening. With lots of people trying to access it, there will be inevitable issues. I’m just aware of this and there are worse tragedies in life than waiting a day or two to play a game.
Typical for Xbox this generation.
@MeanBeanEgg
He's not blaming the consumer, he's just saying get some perspective here.
All I've ever read on this site before today on the comments, was that nobody cares about flight simulator, except a couple of people. Now that it's not working on launch, all these same people are losing their minds.
Managed to get the game to load this morning…well, sort of…
On my (not great) connection it is taking 5-7 mins to load through the intro videos. They look absolutely stunning, so I’m itching to get into the game proper. Unfortunately the game is hitching just past the initial menus - I can’t get past the ‘Customize Identity’ screen.
Hope they can get it up and running soon as those intro graphics look superb.
Yet another reason why you should never pre-order or pay extra for early access (though not the case here).
I'll wait until the weekend to try it out and hopefully things will have died down by then. Saturday is supposed to be a big storm so a perfect day for a chill sim game.
Same here... I couldn't get online at all last night, so went straight back to Black Ops. I later went on YouTube to see if there were any live streams, and some were lucky enough to get on, so i watched them instead 😁 It does look amazing... hopefully I'll get on later tonight.
Still not working now? That’s actually ridiculous.
I finally got in earlier and have spent a couple of hours on it. It’s shameful that it wasn’t ready for (what seems like) the vast majority of players when it actually launched, but once you’re in it is a vastly improved experience.
The good news is that you won’t need a super-fast internet connection to play it; I’ve capped the bandwidth to 40 Mbps and had no problems flying around central London.
It blows my mind
all these xbox haters spending time on pure xbox...
Go play some 3rd person masterpiece or something...
Aviator Edition buyers, your in our thoughts 😔
It’s not right that the game has launched this way but as others have said there must be other games you can play in the meantime and also we’ve got Stalker 2 releasing at 4pm.
Missed all this drama. Logged into the game this morning and had a test flight around London, then crashed into my house. Traditions!
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...