Console wars death watch:Microsoft Flight Simulatorcoming to PS5 in December

For decades now, the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise has been associated with Microsoft's own DOS/Windows operating systems and, more recently, Xbox consoles (weird exceptions like this 1986 Macintosh port notwithstanding). However, that era seems set to end as Sony announced during this evening's State of Play livestream that Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will come to the PlayStation 5 on December 8.

The move isn't entirely shocking for modern Microsoft, which has been publishing previous Xbox exclusives on competing consoles in increasing numbers for a while now. And Flight Simulator 2024 has been available on Xbox Series S/X for almost a year now, as the name suggests, giving Xbox owners a "timed exclusive" at least.

Still, it's a bit striking to see a franchise that literally has the Microsoft brand name integrated into its title moving to a major non-Microsoft platform like this. The impact is a little bit like seeing a Sonic game on a Nintendo console for the first time in 2001, after years of Sega selling itself as the anti-Nintendo.

Of course, for Sonic's big move to happen, Sega had to exit the game console business entirely after the market failure of the Dreamcast. Now that yet another major Microsoft game franchise is going multiplatform, one has to wonder what the future of the Xbox as a distinct console even looks like.

"We run a business," Microsoft's Phil Spencer said in a 2024 interview. "[The video game industry] has been growing for a long, long time, and now people are looking for ways to grow. And I think that us, as fans, as players of games, we just have to anticipate there's going to be more change in how some of the traditional ways that games were built and distributed [are] going to change... for all of us."