MSFS "Hidden" Updates?

[Travis]

Well, just popping around looking to see what was new in the store, I found that MSFS does not update a lot of things automatically. Nor does it notify you in any way that I know of, of any updates. I found quite a few Microsoft published updates. While these are not critical, if you have downloaded or purchased other products, you may find updates for them as well. I suggest one checks this every two weeks or so if they want to stay reasonably up to date.

Here are the steps to check after opening the flight simulator:
1. Click "Profile" on the top of the screen.
2. Click "Content Manager" in the center bottom of screen.
Optional:
3. If you don't want to scroll through the list, or don't want to click each box individually, on the top Right corner next to the search is a "Select All" option.(Changed on Dec 22, 2020 update)
4. Download updates.
5. Not sure if it matters, but a simulator restart might avoid unexpected issues.

Here is a picture of some of what I found on mine.

[Wingman]

I came across this, too... Not sure of the updates' respective criticality, but I checked everything and installed the updates. Note: Using "Toggle All" does place a check mark next to every item, even though not every item listed has a respective update. It appears to have no ill-effect on the result, however, merely not changing the total download size when checking/unchecking an item that has no update.

[ak416]

Yeah, it also doesn't automatically update addons you purchased, not just the default stuff. Always a good idea to check the content manager regularly but especially after major updates, like the US and Japan updates, as a lot of the POI and procedural buildings etc do not get updated automatically.

Couple this with the fact that updates take weeks or even months to get pushed to the end user once submitted to MS/Asobo (on top of the weeks/months it takes to get the product onto the store in the first place), the in-game marketplace is nearly pointless.

[Travis]

I think they are probably just doing a little verification of quality content before they put it into the store. Maybe running it as well for errors or frame hits, I would hope anyway. If this is the case, I do not think it is pointless, but the store situation is lacking much love and quality design, as well as other aspects like aircraft selection, as I do not need 5 giant pictures at a time on my big 4K screen when trying to find my aircraft in the default 30 or so with a horrible scroll bar.

They have a relatively small development team and a lot to sort out and fix. I saw a video recently with the MSFS team, and they sort of mention they released the sim early due to covid, without actually saying the specific words like I just did, which is alright with me. It gave people something to do and enjoy. I think they are doing good, but it does seem slow. Once the SDK is mainly finished, I think a lot more work is going to get done on the sim, and developers and products will come along smoothly. Let's hope that is within the first half of the new year.

[ak416]

In my opinion, 6 to 8 weeks is too long to wait for an update to get pushed for an addon. Especially when you consider the frequency of updates to the sim that make considerable changes to third party aircraft.

Asobo is a 150-200 person studio, of course not all of those employees are developers and not all of their developers are going to be working on MSFS. I also have no idea what Microsoft's involvement is in this process. But if SimMarket and Orbx Direct can allow developers to push updates without having to wait months at a time I don't see what is stopping Asobo. If it's because of QA, maybe they should take another look at the KitFox because that thing has been dormant since it's release and has more problems than anything else in the marketplace.

After finding out items purchased from the marketplace don't automatically update I'm seeing very little reason to buy anything directly from them. Not only will updates come weeks or months later than any other store front, I'll have to update it manually anyways and the package will be locked down with DRM.

As far as the SDK goes, I'm not very hopeful honestly. Recent dev Q and A and the feedback snapshot show helicopters pushed to 2022 and gliders in 2021-2022. That is potentially 2 years from now. I want them done correctly, I want them done well, I don't want them rushed... but two years? That's almost as long as the development cycle between FS9 and FSX. Let's hope proper supersonic flight and afterburners are supported by then. Or that effects system they keep talking about.

[ROBERT DUNN 2]

[Travis]

Haha Bob, that is great and so true.

I do agree with most of what you say AK, but I think the scale is far less than you think, and is only my opinion. Also there is no telling what amount of people are working on it after release changed to. Probably less. I find it hard to believe helicopters will be into 22, I expect maybe mid to late 2021 right after the xbox release. But of course, speculations. For the time being, lets just hope they ramp up the bug fixes. Maybe helicopters will be easier than they are thinking it will be.

[Travis]

Note: In the recent update, the "Select All" button has been moved to the top right corner