Microsoft Flight Simulator is a series of flight simulator programs for MS-DOS, Classic Mac OS and Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was an early product in the Microsoft application portfolio and differed significantly from Microsoft's other software, which was largely business-oriented. As of November 2022, Microsoft Flight Simulator is the longest-running software product line for Microsoft, predating Windows by three years. Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of the longest-running PC video game series of all time.
Xbox Game Studios is an American video game publisher and part of the Microsoft Gaming division based in Redmond, Washington. It was established in March 2000, spun out from an internal Games Group, for the development and publishing of video games for Microsoft Windows. It has since expanded to include games and other interactive entertainment for the namesake Xbox platforms, Windows Mobile and other mobile platforms, and web-based portals.
Halo is a military science fiction media franchise, originally developed by Bungie and currently managed and developed by 343 Industries, part of Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios. The series launched in 2001 with the first-person shooter video game Halo: Combat Evolved and its tie-in novel, The Fall of Reach. The latest main game, Halo Infinite, was released in 2021.
IL-2 Sturmovik is a 2001 World War II combat flight simulator video game and is the first installment in the IL-2 Sturmovik series. The release focused on the air battles of the Eastern Front. It was named after the Soviet Ilyushin Il-2 ground-attack fighter, which played a prominent role in this theatre and is the single most produced military aircraft design to date. Along with its sequels, IL-2 Sturmovik is considered one of the leading World War II flight simulators.
Flight Unlimited II is a 1997 flight simulator video game developed by Looking Glass Studios and published by Eidos Interactive. The player controls one of five planes in the airspace of the San Francisco Bay Area, which is shared with up to 600 artificially intelligent aircraft directed by real-time air traffic control. The game eschews the aerobatics focus of its predecessor, Flight Unlimited, in favor of general civilian aviation. As such, new physics code and an engine were developed, the former because the programmer of Flight Unlimited's computational fluid dynamics system, Seamus Blackley, had left the company.
Combat flight simulators are vehicle simulation games, amateur flight simulation computer programs used to simulate military aircraft and their operations. These are distinct from dedicated flight simulators used for professional pilot and military flight training which consist of realistic physical recreations of the actual aircraft cockpit, often with a full-motion platform.
Call of Duty 2 is a 2005 first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision in most regions of the world. It is the second installment of the Call of Duty series. Announced by Activision on April 7, 2005, the game was released for Microsoft Windows on October 25, 2005, and as a launch title for the Xbox 360 on November 22, 2005. Other versions were eventually released for OS X, mobile phones, and Pocket PCs.
Microsoft Flight Simulator began as a set of articles on computer graphics, written by Bruce Artwick throughout 1976, about flight simulation using 3-D graphics. When the editor of the magazine told Artwick that subscribers were interested in purchasing such a program, Artwick founded Sublogic Corporation to commercialize his ideas. At first the new company sold flight simulators through mail order, but that changed in January 1979 with the release of Flight Simulator (FS) for the Apple II. They soon followed this up with versions for other systems and from there it evolved into a long-running series of computer flight simulators.
FASA Studio was an American video game developer that was founded in 1994 in Chicago, Illinois by the tabletop game company FASA Corporation.
Microsoft Flight Simulator X is a 2006 flight simulation video game originally developed by Aces Game Studio and published by Microsoft Game Studios for Microsoft Windows. It is the sequel to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 and the tenth installment of the Microsoft Flight Simulator series, which was first released in 1982. It is built on an upgraded graphics rendering engine, showcasing DirectX 10 features in Windows Vista and was marketed by Microsoft as the most important technological milestone in the series at the time. FSX is the first version in the series to be released on DVD media.
Brian L. Schmidt is a music composer for various video games and pinball machines.
Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator: WWII Europe Series is the first version of all three combat flight simulation games from Microsoft. It was released on 28 October 1998 and it is set in the European Theatre of World War II. This game spawned two sequels: Combat Flight Simulator 2 in 2000 and Combat Flight Simulator 3: Battle for Europe in 2002.
Jane's World War II Fighters is the 1998 combat flight simulation video game. Set in the European theatre of operations during World War II, it is part of the Jane's Combat Simulations franchise. The game was considered a commercial failure, and contributed to the end of the Jane's Combat Simulations line.
The Xbox is a home video game console and the first installment in the Xbox series of video game consoles manufactured by Microsoft. It was released as Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market on November 15, 2001, in North America, followed by Australia, Europe and Japan in 2002. It is classified as a sixth-generation console, competing with Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube. It was also the first major console produced by an American company since the release of the Atari Jaguar in 1993.
Asobo Studio SAS is a French video game developer based in Bordeaux and founded in 2002. The studio is most known for developing video game adaptations of several Pixar movies, A Plague Tale: Innocence, and the 2020 version of Microsoft Flight Simulator. The studio's name is derived from the Japanese word "asobou" (遊ぼう) that means "let's play".
Aces Game Studio (ACES) was an American video game developer based in Redmond, Washington, owned by Microsoft Game Studios. It was founded in 1988 under the name Bruce Artwick Organization Limited at Champaign, Illinois, by Bruce Artwick, creator of Microsoft Flight Simulator, Microsoft Space Simulator and also co-founder of Sublogic.
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is a 2011 first-person shooter video game developed by 343 Industries, Saber Interactive and Certain Affinity. It is a remaster of Halo: Combat Evolved (2001), developed by Bungie. Publisher Microsoft announced Anniversary alongside Halo 4 at the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo. It was released in November 2011, the 10th anniversary of the original Halo, for the Xbox 360 console, and re-released as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection for the Xbox One in November 2014. A Windows version was released in March 2020.
Dovetail Games (DTG), a trading name of RailSimulator.com Ltd (RSC), is a British simulation video game developer and publisher. It was formed in 2008 by Paul Jackson, Tim Gatland and Charlie McMicking. It originally produced the RailWorks franchise, now called Train Simulator.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is an amateur flight simulator developed by Asobo Studio and published by Xbox Game Studios. It is an entry in the Microsoft Flight Simulator series which began in 1982, and was preceded by Microsoft Flight Simulator X in 2006. The game is a return of the series after 14 years, with development beginning six years prior to its release. It was released on August 18, 2020, for Windows, with a virtual reality (VR) version released in December of the same year as part of the free Sim 2 update. Microsoft Flight Simulator is the first game in the series to see a VR and console release, with it being released on the Xbox Series X and Series S on July 27, 2021.
