WASM support for Xbox and Scenery Gateway System slated to launch with Sim Update 12

We are now just a few weeks away from the arrival of one of the largest updates yet for Microsoft Flight Simulator. The 40th Anniversary Edition of Flight Simulator will be available on November 11th and, with it, we will get a ton of new aircraft, including helicopters and gliders, along with Sim Update 11.

MSFS simmers are continuously waiting for improvements to be made to the platform, and they do come regularly with each new update. One major change that Xbox simmers, in particular, have been waiting for, is WASM support, which will allow a vast number of complex third-party airplanes to finally be available for the Xbox, such as the PMDG 737, Just Flight’s 146 Professional, and more.

We already knew that the MSFS team was making significant advancements with a solution to this problem. This proposed solution was recently scheduled for a tentative release with Sim Update 11 (coming in November, as said above), but it now seems to have been delayed, likely until early next year, for Sim Update 12.

That’s at least what we can infer from the latest development update provided by the MSFS team. WASM Support for the Xbox continues to be in active development but is probably not quite ready for a launch next month.

This will obviously be seen with disappointment by the console community in MSFS, who has been waiting for many months for this problem to finally be fixed and to enjoy the promised feature parity between consoles and PCs. At least we know that a solution is in the works and will eventually be available… but it would also be good policy from Asobo/MS to provide a little more information about the status of this particular task, to tackle some frustrations…

Sim Update 12 doesn’t have a release date set just yet, but we’re fairly confident that it should be out early next year, possibly in January, maybe in February, at the latest. With it should also come another long-awaited feature from the community, one that is likely to bring dramatic changes to the way simmers enjoy their simulator: the Scenery Gateway System!

This will essentially be a way for the community to directly contribute to scenery improvements on the base platform. The idea is that community creators can send Asobo/MS their scenery creations and eventually have that included in the stock simulator, enhancing the experience for everyone.

It’s unclear how Asobo and Microsoft are implementing this mechanic, but they seem to be making advancements with this feature despite no official statement or confirmation about the current progress. But we also noticed in last week’s development update that the MSFS team has finished internal testing of this functionality and will now start a limited alpha with around 50 participants.

This feature has the potential to bring faster and more detailed scenery objects to MSFS, with possibly thousands of community creators contributing through a dedicated and curated repository. This later part is important: no matter how the MSFS team plans to implement this, an evaluation process is crucial to keep the quality high with each new addition and, above all, consistency with the overall scenery.

So, if you thought November would be a busy month for MSFS… well, you were right. However, it doesn’t seem like the months thereafter will be any slower! With these two planned features planned for Sim Update 12, along with who knows what else, we continue to have reasons to be excited about the potential of Microsoft Flight Simulator and its continued growth!