For me, I don't think it's a question of
if I'll get it, but
when. Certainly, I won't be among the first to get it. I follow a couple of YouTubers that
will be the first and I'll see how their experiences are with it.
I've been watching the official videos put out and some of the commentary and analysis of said videos and I'm cautiously optimistic that the finished product is going to be surprising. However, that's tempered with the following: In the game release trailer, one YouTuber (Jeff Favignano) noted that the video of the aircraft looked manipulated. The tipoff for him with the speed of the strobe lights, which if I remember correctly, he said may be due to the game play being captured at low speed and then sped up for the trailer.
Another thing that's on my mind is past experiences with other MSFS releases. I started with FS98, and jumped on FS2K, then FS2K4 and lastly FSX. Each time, I experienced disappointment with running it with any significant high quality on the best machine my budget would allow. Microsoft has, at least with flightsim, a really bad habit of releasing a product that taxes even the most advanced PCs available.
It's impressive that they'll be using satellite imagery for the scenery, but outside of select areas, I'm not sure how "hands on" they will have been editing out junk. There was a video or two where they showed a bit about the process of "cleaning up" an airport. Since scenery is largely going to be streamed verses installed locally, I guess this is how they will address the work of cleaning up the rest of the planet.
I have to say I wasn't impressed with the Garmin avionics. They look cartoonish. Could it change? Maybe. But the Garmins in XPlane look far better, as in nearly identical to the actual units.
I'm happy with X-Plane, especially the work that they've done recently with Vulcan. Hopefully, Microsoft's reentry into the FS World will have X-Plane the hard push it needs to address areas that they've neglected such as AI Traffic and ATC.
Make Orwell fiction again.