Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has been released, and a senior developer on the project has emphasized the necessity of incorporating machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to bring the game to market. Jorg Neumann, in an interview, stated that it would have been impossible to manually create the game's map data. 'We would have spent our entire lives and then some just marking up terrain, which is not really the core of the thing. So it's just a tool that helps us,' he told Rock Paper Shotgun about the role of machine learning and AI.

One common concern is that advancements in machine learning and AI could result in job losses. However, for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, this was not the case. 'The only thing we've done is grow,' Neumann said. The development team for the 2020 version of Microsoft Flight Simulator consisted of 100 people. For the new release, 200 people at Asobo worked on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, with an additional 600 people at support studios, totaling 800 people involved in the game's creation.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 employs machine learning to generate detailed terrain. The team marked up approximately 28,000 'tiles' representing Earth, which included textures designed to mimic forests, deserts, rivers, and more. This data was then input into a machine learning platform that generates potential assets, which are subsequently reviewed by a human, and the system is retrained accordingly. 'You basically say: 'Oh, OK, got this wrong.' And then you retrain it. We did that in four different stages,' Neumann explained.

Prior to this, EA Sports management had stated that it would not have been feasible to release EA Sports College Football 25 on time and to the required quality without using machine learning and AI to generate various assets. EA CEO Andrew Wilson has acknowledged that advancements in AI could lead to short-term job losses but believes the game development labor market will expand due to newly created positions.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 launched on November 19 and faced immediate server issues and other problems, partly due to the developer's 'complete underestimation' of the game's demand. The game is now available for purchase on Xbox and PC, and it is also included in the Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass libraries.

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