Microsoft originally rejected a pitch to bring Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 to PlayStation consoles, but the company eventually agreed, and this led to a “whole avalanche” of Xbox games on PlayStation. That’s according to Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann.
He told XDA-Developers that it was his own idea to bring Flight Simulator to PlayStation consoles, culminating with the launch of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 today, December 8, on PS4 and PS5.
The 2020 Flight Simulator game eventually grew to become 300 GB in size, and there was so much content planned that Neumann said the game could grow to become 1 TB. So instead of doing that, the team made a new game, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, and the game now only has 8 GB of space for a requirement, with everything else sent to the cloud. This way of packaging the game allowed the game to come to other platforms, Neumann said.
“So I proposed, probably two and a half years ago, to go to PlayStation,” he said. “It was probably a little bit before its time because I was told no. Then, somebody from Sony who grew up with flight simulation thought it would be a great addition to the Sony portfolio. They reached out proactively to our president, who then came back to me and said, ‘Hey, remember when we talked about the PlayStation thing a year ago? Sony is also interested.'”
It was this very conversation that Neumann believes “kicked off a whole avalanche of Xbox titles coming to PlayStation,” even if Flight Simulator wouldn’t end up being the first.
Microsoft started bringing more of its games to PlayStation (and Switch in some cases) earlier in 2025, including Grounded, Sea of Thieves, and Forza Horizon 5. Microsoft also brought Doom: The Dark Ages to PS5 this year, along with The Outer Worlds 2.
Looking to 2026, Microsoft will release Halo: Campaign Evolved on PS5, representing the Halo franchise’s debut on a rival console platform. It will launch day-and-date with the Xbox edition of the game next year.
For its part, Microsoft has said it decided to bring Xbox games to PlayStation and Switch because it wanted to meet players where they are. The PS5 has sold considerably more units than the Xbox Series X|S, so bringing Xbox games to that platform is a boon for Microsoft’s business.
Microsoft CFO Amy Hood has reportedly mandated that Xbox make more money, which may help explain the push for more multiplatform releases, along with the recent Game Pass price increases, Xbox console price increases, layoffs, studio closures, and publishing deal cancellations of late.