Aces Axed

This is not a real surprise as they have never made any serious money on their flight sims. There will be other software developers that will also go under within the next year or so. We may never see another WW II combat flight sim ever developed and that is why I intend to stay with CFS 3 and continue to develop and expand it. There is still so much that can be done with the scenery and effects. There are also many important aircraft that have never been modeled. Shipping has been barely touched and offers tremendous opportunity.

I think you will continue to see people come back to IL 2, OFF, ETO and Solomons as they tire of flying the non combat FS sims. Many were thinking that eventually MS would expand FS to include combat, no way that will ever happen now. Mathias and Richard need to get back over here and start building aircraft again that can FIGHT!!!

This is really good news for ETO.:woot:

Best Regards

Steve
 
Looks like any further flight sim developments from Microsoft will likely be outsourced to 3rd parties entirely rather than developing them "in-house". Microsoft also released the source engine used to develope FSX, so it's possible to make a new sim from that. That's how MSTS2 is being developed. I love CFS3 to death but I have to say its lack of certain functions is a pain. There are many other combat sims out there that can be developed for that are not Microsoft.
 
Looks like any further flight sim developments from Microsoft will likely be outsourced to 3rd parties entirely rather than developing them "in-house". Microsoft also released the source engine used to develope FSX, so it's possible to make a new sim from that. That's how MSTS2 is being developed. I love CFS3 to death but I have to say its lack of certain functions is a pain. There are many other combat sims out there that can be developed for that are not Microsoft.

Where is this source code you speak of?
 
Looks like any further flight sim developments from Microsoft will likely be outsourced to 3rd parties entirely rather than developing them "in-house". Microsoft also released the source engine used to develope FSX, so it's possible to make a new sim from that. That's how MSTS2 is being developed. I love CFS3 to death but I have to say its lack of certain functions is a pain. There are many other combat sims out there that can be developed for that are not Microsoft.

Starspeeder,

We have been hearing for years, that a new WW II sim will be developed based on newer MS software, or by others. I will believe it when I see it. If it ever does happen I would be glad to give up my old CFS 3 for it if in fact it was a much better WW II combat sim than what we have now.

The problem is that WW II sims cannot compete for development dollars as most of the younger generation would rather play other type games. Just look at the average age on this forum. The younger generations are driving game software dvelopment not the older WW II fans.

When the new WW II combat sim is on the shelf that beats what we have here, is open architecture and allows mods then I will gladly buy it.

I also agree with you that CFS 3 has a lot of limitations that I wish were not there but it is what we have for now. I would love to see a much better WW II sim and we will all keep our fingers crossed, but until then we will keep working our tails off to make CFS 3 as good as we can for the guys that are still here to enjoy it.

Best Regards,

Steve
 
NachtPiloten, the source code I spoke of is this:
http://www.simpilotnet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=202&Itemid=32
http://www.microsoft.com/esp/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/esp/default.aspx
It's called Microsoft ESP and it's for commercial applications, nothing that the average end-user would be able to play with. It costs about $900 USD for the full package and the SDK alone costs about $100 USD. Not to mention the system requirements are pretty heafty. To quote the above article: "ESP is a software kit that allows commercial and military 3rd parties to build solutions around training, decision making and research. ...ESP is not a commercial or professional version of Flight Simulator X. Microsoft ESP is the technology platform – the engine, tools and content – that powers Flight Simulator X."

I also read that the MS Flight Sim code will be archived, meaning that MS is still holding it for future use. Not just for MS itself but for developers to work with. I have no idea if this means a new "Flight Sim" product will come out at some future time or not.
 
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