In late 2007, Aces Game Studio announced Microsoft ESP (Enterprise Simulation Platform), a development platform for companies that want to create products that use the technology in Flight Simulator. Following the closure of the Aces Game Studio in January 2009, Lockheed Martin announced in late 2009 that they had negotiated with Microsoft a licensing agreement to purchase the intellectual property (including source code) for the Microsoft ESP product. It is the commercial-use version of Flight Simulator X SP2. On May 17, 2010,[15] Lockheed announced that the new product based upon the ESP source code would be called Prepar3D (P3D). Lockheed hired members of the original Aces Game Studio team to continue development of the product.

In November 2010, Lockheed Martin debuted Prepar3D version 1.[16] Version 1.1 was released in April 2011, with a retail license cost of US$499.[17] A developer license is also available for a monthly fee of US$9.95. In March 2012, along with the release of version 1.3, the pricing strategy was revised. The Professional edition is now available for US$199, with an Academic License available for US$59.95.

After releasing version 2 in 2013 and version 3 in 2015, the team released 64-bit version 4 in May 2017.