If you're looking for a game that operates on a truly global scale, it's difficult to think of a better candidate than Microsoft Flight Simulator. Since the current version released in the summer of 2020, it's become something of a poster child for bringing the real world details of our planet into a simulator, thanks to its use of topography data imported primarily from Bing maps and processed by Microsoft Azure's AI.
Yes, Bing maps. This is a Microsoft product, after all. I got a chance to chat to the Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, Jorge Neumann, about the tech that's gone into its development, and what the future of flight simulators might look like in the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. And what he revealed to me, tech-wise, sounds nothing short of astonishing.
