We have to admit, there’s something pretty surreal about seeing the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 on the PlayStation 5 Store Page – in a year, where yet again we’ve been robbed of PlayStation exclusives. For decades, this series was peak PC nerd territory, checklists, altitude calculations, and forums arguing about cloud density – it has it all.
When 2020 hit, and the series was dragged onto Xbox, we thought: Yeah, that makes sense – Xbox is Microsoft after all. Now, the latest entry has finally made it’s way onto the catwalk of Sony’s flagship console, with the December 2025 release, and it’s just not sitting right. This isn’t a case of “neat, Microsoft does some multi-platform stuff, finally!” either, the timing couldn’t be worse.
This weird release is happening at the same time a lot of PlayStation diehards are asking why PS5 exclusives feel thinner on the ground than in previous generations – and why even Sony doesn’t seem that obsessed with keeping its crown jewels locked away anymore, as much as the focus seems to be on console sales, at least for this generation.
So you’ve got a once-impossible sentence (“Microsoft Flight Simulator is on PlayStation”) and a generation where exclusives feel more like a timed perk than a permanent badge. How did we get here? Let’s talk about it, y’all.
The PS5 Exclusive Problem – Why Did Flight Simulator Make It, When Others Didn’t?
The console wars are officially over, and on paper, PlayStation 5 is doing just fine, if we’re being honest. It’s really on the verge of overtaking even the PS4’s lifetime sales, Black Friday was a blast for PS fans, and even previously blasted games like Ghost of Yotei being first party are still selling millions of copies – so it seems to us that the hardware isn’t the issue here.
But this one’s more about feeling, and it’s decidedly different from previous generations, which might have to do with the fact that yes – we did grow up with these, and nostalgia can be a fickle thing indeed.
It still can’t be denied, not even objectively, those eras were defined by unmistakable “only on PlayStation” moments – your Bloodbornes, your Shadow of the Colossuses (Colossi?), your weirdo experiments that couldn’t have come from anywhere else but PlayStaion – this generation isn’t that. Sadly.
This generation has been… a lot quieter, and that’s being nice here. TheGamer’s retrospective, for example, didn’t mince words, calling the PS5 / Series X cycle “a tragic waste of time” so far when it comes to truly generation-defining exclusives. Polygon used the phrase “lost generation” and pointed out the awkward irony: PS5 is winning the sales war handily, but players still question what exactly they needed a new box for beyond nicer versions of PS4 games.
What does GamesHub say? Well, we’re in the same boat, and we’re wondering, is this a larger issue with gaming in general, or are genre and console generation defining titles just becoming rarer, since the amount of money being dumped into these AAA titles has just gotten too much?
Or maybe, part of the problem is timing. For the first few years, most PS5 games were cross-gen: Horizon Forbidden West, Ragnarok, Gran Turismo 7, Spider-Man 2’s tech roots, you name it. Great games, but not the clean break older generations had, especially considering, they all appeared on the PC eventually.
Another chunk is self-inflicted, and yes, Sony, you gotta listen to that criticism too. Sony spent a good part of this cycle chasing live-service dreams that mostly fizzled, quietly shelving or rebooting several GaaS projects. That energy could have gone into more single-player showpieces, but instead we got a slower, safer trickle of prestige titles and a lot of remasters, and we all know: This is what PlayStation was good at. Singleplayer spectacle. What gives?
Truly, a big reason might be that Sony now loves the PC. Where once the idea of God of War appearing on the mousey box would’ve sparked a nerdy meltdown, in 2025, this is just an expected phase of the pipeline – as much as the talks are still ongoing in changing that, but that’s a story for a different day.
Put all of these thoughts together, and the meaning of the word exclusive starts to wobble indeed. Is a PS game still an exclusive if it appears on the PC after 1-2 years? If it’s actually cross-gen for half of its shelf life? Players have caught onto that notion, and it doesn’t feel like they’re liking what they’re seeing too much. The sales charts aren’t affected yet – but that might just be a matter of time.
Games Like Microsoft Flight Simulator On PS5 Might Be the New Normal
As much as it pains an old-school PlayStation player to say it, these releases might become the norm in the future. True, the more this actually does become normal, the less consoles are ecosystems with a distinct identity, and that might just hurt the player in the long run. We loved to complain about the console wars, but go back in time and remember the games we got as a result of that rivalry!
But maybe we’re exaggerating. Maybe it ain’t all that bad, and the era of exclusives as culture wars is finally dying – who knows. Right now, though, the picture is pretty clear: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 soaring onto PS5 isn’t a weird exception anymore. It’s one more sign that the idea of “this lives here and nowhere else” is being retired – even on the platform that built its legend on exactly that promise to begin with.
