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At an event celebrating the 40th anniversary of Flight Simulator - a milestone that reminds that this is Microsoft’s oldest-running franchise, outdating both Windows and Office by a handful of years, developers of the game hammered home its newfound success with a simple stat: Flight Simulator’s player-base has doubled. Twice.

To be specific, Flight Simulator has enjoyed a couple of launches. First it hit PC, and was met with critical acclaim and strong uptake. Later, it was released on Xbox Series X/S, a move which doubled its player base. Then earlier this year, the game was made xcloud compatible, rendering it playable on Xbox One, older-spec PCs, and even on mobile. This doubled the player base again.

“And now in Japan there's – depending on the day – 50 to 100,000 people. In Japan! Still today – this is two years ago that we did this update, and they are now simmers.”

Microsoft Flight Sim has doubled its players twice – and there's a plan to attract even more users | VG247