First off I’ve entitled this article Microsoft Flight 2011 just to try and distinguish it from FSX. I don’t even know if release will be in 2011,2012 or perhaps later, this is all information that hasn’t been released yet. Microsoft have decided to drop the "Simulator" moniker from the end of their long running series and go with plane and simple "Microsoft Flight".

So What exactly is Flight? Is it just Microsoft Flight Simulator 11 in disguise or a completely new kind of airplane simulator game ?

The details at present are very sketchy with nothing more than a brief question and answer session,some teasers and high resolution screenshots on the very Spartan official website which are well worth checking out.

Here is what we can glean so far:

Back in 2009 Microsoft disbanded their ACES team which developed the Flight Simulator series, the new game is listed as an internal development utilising some of the "creative minds" behind the original games. From this I assume it’s safe to say that Flight Simulator X and Flight Simulator 2004 will have some influence on the new game.

Given the technology on which these older airplane simulator games were developed I’d assume we will be seeing some drastic improvements to the game engine and graphics, with enhanced scenery being listed as one of the games features. The screenshots so far do like breath-taking.

Earlier versions of Flight simulator were designed to run on single core PC’s, but I can see this new release being optimised for at least 4 cores. Again speculation on my part, but Microsoft likes to be at the forefront of things technology wise so I assume they will do so here.

Microsoft Flight is stated as being a new breed of simulator available on the Games for Windows – Live service. So we are likely to see heavy multiplayer or co-operative gameplay and social interaction, after all with the acquisition of Skype, Microsoft have taken a massive step forward in web based communications.

New planes are a given, FSX has seen many many planes developed by the community and third party developers over the years. The idea of a centralised "content marketplace" for new developments sounds very good.

One thing that may not please some old school simulator pilots is the line "redesigned to make the experience easier for virtual fliers of all interests and skills". Does this infer a dumbing down of the control system or perhaps a second mode of operation, akin to the arcade mode we see in combat simulators such as IL-2?

In addition Microsoft talk about universal appeal and simplicity whilst keep the millions of existing airplane simulator fans happy, it will be very interesting to see how exactly this is achieved.

Now that I’ve talked it up here is another teaser that Microsoft has released, just little snippets to get us champing at the bit for now it would seem.

However this airplane simulator pans out one thing for certain is that the interest is going to be enormous, so I’ll aim to keep on top of any info from the Microsoft Flight Simulator 11 development team as they are released.