What's the deal with Microsoft Flight Simulator's premium airports?

The new Microsoft Flight Simulator has wowed ever since it was first unveiled last year, though the announcement of the release date contained details that had some people's jaws dropping for other reasons as it emerged to access a small number of high-profile 'premium' versions of airports such as Heathrow - an example that hit home seeing as it's so close to home - you'll have to buy the pricey premium edition.

"Honestly, when we started, our attitude was let's be very humble, and let's be generous," Microsoft's head of Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann told Eurogamer. "We basically said, let's put a bunch of planes in there, and let's put a bunch of airports down. The thing that's interesting about the flight sim world is that there's this community of third party developers, and they make a living making airports.

"We didn't fully realise that we need to tread very carefully, because if we make too much stuff, we're hurting them. And we don't want to hurt them. We want to have a thriving ecosystem, and they can be as creative as they want to be for years to come. We actually took out a bunch of airports and stopped development on a bunch of airports because it was too much."

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