Microsoft Flight Simulator’s FSExpo Marketplace presentation has revealed many new details about MSFS2024’s marketplace, its UI, and its features. Additionally, content migration from MSFS2020 was discussed, a new Marketplace Content Portal for developers was announced, and the MSFS2024 SDK release date was revealed.
MSFS2024 Marketplace and MSFS2020 Migration
Asobo has listened to the feedback on its MSFS2020 marketplace and has worked on making MSFS2024’s marketplace more user friendly, focusing on making it look more streamlined and less cluttered, as well as making content easier to find.
One of Asobo’s top priorities when working on the new sim and its marketplace is backwards compatibility with MSFS2020. Hard work is being put on making sure that aircraft and sceneries from 2020 are compatible with 2024, as these are the most popular add-on categories by far. However, missions and add-ons that refer to the sim’s biomes might not work correctly in the new sim. Content migrated from 2020 will be differentiated from 2024’s content with a small tag on the top-left of its thumbnail, as shown in the screenshots above.
Marketplace content will be automatically migrated to the new sim’s marketplace for developers to test before releasing to the public. If a user owns the 2020 version of the content, its migrated version will automatically be available in 2024. If developers choose to make a new version of their content that is MSFS2024-native, that version will replace the 2020 version in the marketplace, and developers will have the option to offer an upgrade to the 2024 version of that content for free or for a fee.
The 2020 version of that content will still be available to those who purchased it, and it can be accessed through the new content manager shown above. In late September, Marketplace partners will have access to MSFS2024’s SDK and to their migrated content to test and fix in time for the sim’s release in November. The Marketplace Content Portal, which promises to make content uploads and updates easier and quicker for developers, will also be available around this time.
Marketplace Content Portal
The Marketplace Content Portal (MCP) is a way for developers to check the status of their content as it’s being uploaded to the Marketplace. MSFS2024’s Marketplace Content Portal and its new features were showcased during the presentation. Overall, it promises to make uploading content easier and to expedite the process of releasing it to the public by almost completely automating the process of revision before sending it to Microsoft.
Developers will also be able to edit the information of their content, such as the price, thumbnails, sale duration and amount, and more directly from the MCP instead of having to reupload their entire packages, as is the case in MSFS2020.
That is all for the MSFS Marketplace presentation. You can view a VOD of the presentation here. For more information on MSFS2024, check out our article breaking down the MSFS FSExpo presentation here. Take a look at the rest of our FSExpo 2024 coverage by checking the FSExpo portal.
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