Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 missed an obvious ‘Copilot’ opportunity to replace its robotic voices with my favorite AI assistant

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As a dedicated Flight Simulator enthusiast with countless hours logged in the skies, I find myself yearning for a more immersive experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. With my daily interactions with Microsoft Copilot, I’ve grown accustomed to its convincing and casual voice model. It’s like having a chatty co-pilot by your side, which is quite enjoyable!

Microsoft’s Copilot is integrated into many of the company’s products, including the sidebar of its Edge web browser, which I find myself using often. Although it functions as a standard AI assistant for most text-based inquiries, it also has a conversational aspect and can be interacted with verbally using any device equipped with a microphone, similar to its mobile app. Initially, Copilot was slightly slower than OpenAI’s paid and conversation-focused ChatGPT Plus, but Microsoft Copilot is free for desktop use and delivers responses that sound quite genuine.

It could be that I’m part of a smaller group, but I find Copilot quite appealing. In fact, its widget is conveniently placed on my home screen, so I often engage with it, and my interaction suggests it’s more effective than some might believe.

In my experience, I’ve been utilizing it excessively, and when I dive into the enhanced, post-update Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 for a while up there, I can’t help but notice how dull and mechanical the text-to-speech (TTS) conversations with AI characters sound. To be clear, it’s an improvement over nothing, but considering Microsoft possesses this conversational voice model that’s very casual, it seems strange they aren’t leveraging it in their flagship simulator game, which has been streaming data from the cloud since 2020.

The voice model that developers at Asobo Studio have used in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 sounds more like an accessibility solution than an attempt at virtual interaction. Most of the time, it sounds like I’m listening to a screen reader than my flight instructor. Again, I’m not expecting the same audio production as some AAA blockbusters, but the technology is on the table; Microsoft only needs to leverage it.

Captain Ben, I’m all buckled up and ready for take-off. Where’s our next adventure taking us?

Instead of stating: “I’m so convinced that the experience would be even more immersive by providing a fully realized 3D representation of our globe at a fraction of the install size, I asked Microsoft’s Copilot assistant to playfully join me in my imaginary Flight Simulator 2024 update with this whimsical role: ‘Let’s imagine we’re flying together in my plane and you’re my virtual copilot.’ Of course, this is all pretend, but transmitting a high-quality text-to-speech line instantaneously could create the same effect in MSFS 2024, which now has my wishlist for future updates.

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/

Regarding criticisms of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 versus its initial flawed release, one insignificant concern I have is more about personal preference than any real issue. However, the game is continuously improving with every update and shows a positive trajectory overall. I’m optimistic that it will regain its former excellence in due time, at which point I’ll reevaluate my ongoing review of MSFS 2024.

Despite Microsoft having top-notch speech technology, it seems unusual that they aren’t making this available to their game developer partners, especially since their Copilot Agents are being launched elsewhere.

I’m hoping for great things from the future, especially in terms of improving the speech technology within games. However, let me clarify that upgrading the speech tech of any game is a significant task, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, with its vast virtual Earth landscape, poses a challenge for Asobo Studio before they can add new content. Nonetheless, I’m optimistic that Microsoft, with their enormous Azure server resources, could pull it off. After all, those servers aren’t just sitting idle, are they?

For now, check out MSFS 2024 on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for access to the Xbox and PC versions.

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2024-12-05 20:39