I suspect FSX was a pet project for someone at MS and after it sold below projections or MS was struggling with some other bureaucratic bullshit, someone told Jim or whoever that he needed to quit focusing on his video game and get some real work done.

I'm sure this led to the creation of Windows RT and everyone pat themselves on the back.

I believe it was very much Bill's pet project, and neglected after he left.

Microsoft as a whole pivoted hard from the PC as their preferred gaming platform to the XBOX as their preferred gaming platform. As for the whys at the time i assume they wanted to make sure that their console was competitive and didn't just die on launch. They probably also considered the PC gaming environment to be so healthy producer and publisher wise as to not find it worth their time to do in-house development for the platform anymore. As for MSFlightSimulator it didn't fit in the console portfolio at the time, mostly because of how those systems are usually interacted with, and also because the install of a basic global world mesh is huge. Good luck landing a 747 with functioning cockpit knobs with an XBOX controller, and say goodbye to the limited hard drive of a console when you have to install 70GB of world mesh to make it the global experience everybody expects. So making it a good cross-platform game on 2002-2015 tech would have been an exercise in making both console and PC gamers unsatisfied.

What you see now though is that MSFT is pushing really really hard into cross-platform play, and investing directly in gaming companies to make sure that the XBOX remains a competitor to the Playstation environment as Sony has been on a roll when it comes to impactful exclusive games for their platform for a while. Their latest E3 presentation really showcased just how much they consider this a priority, and how hard they are currently working to get their own environment of exclusive publishing houses with AAA games up to the standard of Sony. Due to the narrowing of the gap between high powered consoles and high powered PC's in the later years it makes sense that they would do this now as at this point they can offer a flight simulator experience across both platforms that is (hopefully) not only incrementally better, but transitionary better.

> Why did Microsoft let the Flight Simulator franchise go to the back burner for so long? I know these vast corporations have to focus but it is still a mystery to me why they let it go.

The ACES Studio was dissolved in its entirety in 2009 while Don Mattrick (best known for his blunders during the Xbox One's launch and his failure to turn around Zynga) headed up Microsoft's gaming efforts. Despite the fact that it turned a small but steady profit, the thinking seemed to be that PC gaming was dead and that consoles were the future.

As for why it stayed on the back burner so long, the terrain mapping team, the flight physics experts, and all the other specialized expertise in the studio was scattered to the four winds. Did Microsoft rebuild it? Who knows? While the new FS has pretty graphics, the true test will be whether it has the accurate flight physics and global map that FS grognards have come to expect or whether its a merely a coat of paint over a hollow shell.

I'd forgotten that they even let it slip like they did. Last one I used was Flight Simulator X, but I haven't touched it in years. Now if only Microsoft would bring back their excellent and largely forgotten Space Simulator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Space_Simulator

I miss that game!

Kerbal Space Program has mostly replaced it in my mind, though. It's really an incredibly deep game.

While this doesn't answer your question, it indicates people on the team realize folks outside would ask - what happened? From the page:

"..Thank you for being patient enough to weather the turbulence caused by some of our previous missteps. Thank you for being willing to look to the possibilities of the future while asking us to be accountable for the past. .."

Xbox and the casual games market is something Microsoft leadership better understands now.

It's a niche product that requires a specialized and no-longer-common controller. Market growth was in other places and Microsoft chased that.

Now the market is gigantic with plenty of room for rebooting beloved-albeit-neglected franchises.

When MSFS was in its heyday flight yokes were <$50. And they were a super common accessory. Now, you can’t find anything for less than $180 on Amazon.

I'm not convinced flight yokes were ever cheap, meanwhile a Logitech 3D pro is 3 axis plus throttle for ~$35 https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-3D-Pro-Joystick-Windows/dp/B0...

That's even more specialized! I meant joysticks which were even more popular as were 'mainstream' joystick-based games.

Flight simulator X has a premade controller profile for xbox controllers as well as functional controls for using a mouse as a yoke.

Sure, Quake comes with a premade keyboard-only profile as well.

And I'm sure plenty of people played and enjoyed it with the keyboard controls. FSX by default ships with the simulation realism toned way down, so it can be a lot of fun with simple controls. See also Forza: It's a hell of a lot of fun with a gamepad even though enthusiasts would rather by a wheel setup

Uninformed guess: Maybe it relates to their other success at maintaining and re-releasing their well-known and well-loved games?

e.g. it's apparently been worth it for them to re-release Age of Empires II (as an HD edition in 2013), then Halo Master Chief Collection (2014). AoE is re-releasing again with a "Definitive Edition", and Halo MCC will be releasing to PC soon.

Something I also wonder, but in respect of Ensemble Studios and the Age of Empires.

I remember Flight Simulator making a lot of news in the Fall of 2001, and then Microsoft seemed to let it go dormant for a while. Maybe they didn't want more news stories like that.

Terrorism, they stopped making FS after 9/11.

Flight simulator X was released in 2006