The developer PMDG has released a new statement about their development status for Microsoft Flight Simulator and unveiled to the community what should be expected from the team. Robert Randazzo talked in the recent forum post about the mentioned development, compatibility, and delays.
The State of PMDG Line-ups in MSFS 2024
The PMDG team has been working with the new simulator for the past few weeks, and the current phase is similar to the release cycle phase in the previous Microsoft Flight Simulator. Unfortunately, the current Microsoft Flight Simulator products by PMDG have been proven incompatible with the upcoming simulator.
This, however, doesn’t correlate with Microsoft’s statement that Flight Simulator 2020 products will be compatible with 2024. Robert Randazzo said that PMDG expects Microsoft to resolve compatibility issues by day one of the release.
Compatibility Across Platforms
Moving on, Robert said that some products are going to be compatible with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 only and vice versa. The Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020-only products won’t have the capability of being ported over to 2024. The same applies to 2024-only products. Next, there will be products that will be compatible with both platforms. The existing products by PMDG should fall into this category.
The Forum post also mentions upgrade fees and which products will be compatible with the mentioned platforms.
- The PMDG 747 Series (including Classic), PMDG 777-200ER and -200LR and PMDG 737 MAX will be released for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 only.
- The PMDG 777-300ER might get a small upgrade fee. However, the price for this shouldn’t be drastic, Robert said that it would be best if the upgrade for this aeroplane was completely free, but the work that’s being done on the upgrade needs to be paid.
- The 737 NG Series will receive a significant upgrade and an upgrade charge will apply to those who want the new Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 features to work in this aircraft series. If you already own the current version of the aircraft, you won’t pay the full price for this upgrade.
- The team still has not considered if the DC-6 Cloudmaster will be upgraded to be compatible with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
Delays of 777 Freighter
Robert mentioned that the 777 Freighter should have been released by early August, but a few issues during the development arose. This includes developers being ill and other life events in the team. This pushed the possible release date to the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 release window.
Robert mentioned that the team wanted to take zero chances with this release, and was afraid that the last-minute release of the 777 Freigher for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 would mean that it wouldn’t be compatible with the new simulator. Thus, the team decided to rebuild the Freighter variant of this popular long-haul plane on the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 SDK and its features. However, clear expectations are still yet to be disclosed.
Lastly, Robert mentioned that it is likely the 777 Freighter will be released for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. A few weeks are, however, required to polish information about this upcoming release. With that said, except for the 777 Freighter, no other products are expected to be released for the previous simulator by the PMDG team.
If you would like to read more about PMDG and their work, make sure to read our previous article on their development update here.
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