UPDATE — 9:47 PM (EST) 11/19/24 – Jorg Neumann, Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Asobo CEO Sebastian Wloch have produced a quick video update addressing the launch day issues. In short, the infrastructure has been “overwhelmed “by very high demand that was “underestimated” by the team. The team continues to work on the backend to get the servers back online. The original story is as follows:
Designed to run almost entirely on Microsoft Azure’s cloud stack, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 was brought to its knees in the early hours of its launch. The simultaneous global launch proved too much for the servers, leading to thousands of problematic reports from players.
Rather than being able to jump into the simulator and get started in flight sessions, thousands of users have found themselves being held in a login queue with an error message that reads: “Too many users are trying to connect at the same time.”
Cloud-power conundrum
Asobo has explained that the decision to move to a streaming-on-demand design was made to help minimize the sim’s installation footprint. While it’s convenient for the end user not to have to reserve so much disk space, the limitations of this design have been exposed on launch day.
With thousands (if not over a million) requests being sent simultaneously to log on, the sim’s servers were overwhelmed and users have gained spotty access. Some have been able to jump in and play, such as streamer “V1-Simulations.” For most others, however, the reality has been sitting in a queue waiting for a slot to open.
The Microsoft Flight Simulator support team has been trying to help steer users toward solutions, such as rebooting the sim:
Of course, the Internet has done what it does best and has turned the situation into one of humor, with memes aplenty already being shared:
One Xbox Series S player that goes by the Reddit handle “microwarvay,” shared a clip of their early gameplay session. In it, the aircraft they selected, an Airbus A330, was completely malfunctioning.
Other feedback from some console players cites similar issues, while others have confirmed they’ve experienced outright application crashes. Yet still, other reports mention airplanes missing from their library simply due to the servers not being able to load the data properly.
Considering that the most expensive SKU of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is $200 USD, early adopters are understandably upset to see the sim launch in such a poor state.
The waiting game
As time goes on, Microsoft and Asobo are actively working on the server issues in the backend. In the meantime, customers are left trying time and again to see if they can eventually get a session going.
In my personal experience, I began downloading and installing the 12GB sim client to my PC shortly after the 11 AM launch. It took about an hour after the client launched for the full installation to be completed. I was able to get as far as setting up my controls and tried to get a session going, but the sim froze and I had to force close it.
While this is a disheartening outcome thus far, it’s not entirely surprising. A simultaneous global launch was bound to be hard to pull off; one would think Microsoft and Asobo would’ve tried to prepare ahead and mitigate such issues, but here we are.
A staggered release across different time zones would’ve likely worked a lot better. Alas, we’re past the point of “should’ve, would’ve, could’ve.” All to see now is how much longer it will be before things are straightened out.
For a live look at the server status, keep an eye on the Xbox Support page.
