Well...that ain´t came as expected huh?

[Roadburner440]

Makes me glad I did not jump to from flight... when RSR (from PMDG) made his original postings on the subject it seemed like a bad idea. Especially the more we found out on the back end I don't think they were ever really commited to it. Personally if I can not play with my toys and fly anywhere other than 1 island it is not worth the effort. I think the only seriously good sims that had limited land areas were the old Janes series which I immensely enjoyed. I know we have a full pipeline of products for FSX, so we will be sticking with it for the foreseeable future as well.

 

[bushpilot]

Imagine, 3d developers be allowed to continue to sell their products but through a MS marketplace, where MS would provide better and safer transactions for the customers to buy these products and standarize features and quality of the add-on (no more surprises of a bad model after sale). Imagine, if MS with its mighty money power, go after the pirates that make current legal sales of add-ons crumble. Imagine, if MS would have had a customer support dedicated section of their marketplace and pass on a simplified lists of bugs to work on to the developers. Imagine, if MS would have denied 3rd party developers the right to keep making add-ons if they didn't satisfy the customer 100%, also, MS would have settle disputes of sales and/or quality of the product instead.

I imagined, and it was like a nightmare. MS dictating what is "quality" addon? Seriously?

 

[VCN-1]

I was one of I think thousands of beta testers for Flight.

It became obvious early on that Flight was not going to be a product that was going to hold the interest of the avid simmer.
And because of that direction I dropped out of being a beta tester and removed MS Flight from my computer.

It was to me a major disappointment.

It is unfortunate that the programmers who put all that time and effort have been cut adrift.

VCN-1

 

[CodyValkyrie]

I think the only seriously good sims that had limited land areas were the old Janes series which I immensely enjoyed.

Let's not forget that the original MSFS series were dedicated solely to particular areas, such as Chicago, etc. The whole Flight Unlimited series was based upon this concept, and did it quite well. The fall of Looking Glass studios had nothing to do with their simulations, but had to do with financing that caused the company to split. Another parallel that could be drawn is the scenery for Orbx, in which many simmers now exclusively fly in these areas alone.

It is my belief that limited regions are not necessarily the killer of a simulation, but rather the depth and adaptability of the simulation itself even in small regional areas is what makes it successful or not. If we had the option to purchase a very high fidelity and immersive simulator that focused on a specific state or region, I'm willing to bet that most of us here would make the purchase and enjoy the product.

 

[T Square]

This is just my opinion, Microsoft in general has not changed it's buisness plan since it started. It's a simple plan really 1. Create an Operating System where non exsists and corner that market. 2. Once the market is cornered don't produce the best product just an adequate product which will require constant updates to function correctly, a sort of programed/planned obsolesence. 3. This will in-turn require the user, who is now locked into our product because we have monopolizied the market and eliminated all but minor competition, to constantly pay more to purchase or update our product, thus increasing our profits. 4. Repeat the above until the product market no longer supports a profit and dump it like yesterdays trash.
Why should it be any different with FS than it is with Windows. For example we are all about to be blitzed with "Windows 8" it will be rolled out as the greatest thing since the wheel. Now if history repeats it's self, Windows 8 will suck because every other OS that Microsoft puts out sucks and is followed up by an improve version within 1 to 2 years. Which will cost you a new computor because your current rig is hopelessly out of date or it is so full of problems you have to buy the updated/corrected OS to use it. Unfortunately we are all victims of Microsofts monoply of the computor industry in general. We gave them "MS Flight" the Flight Sim community didn't bow at our feet, kiss our boots, or most important spend their money, screw them ! Windows 8 is on the way will make them pay ! Again just my opinion.

 

[cheezyflier]

i think part of the reason that some people might feel that microsoft turned it's back on the community is because of a couple of things.

1) fsx was doing pretty well when they killed aces. they never considered what their core end user is to begin with.

2) they widely circulated a survey asking all kinds of questions about what they might do with flight simulator, creating alot of speculation and anticipation. then they released a product that could only have ignored the data they collected from it.
by their actions they quite clearly did abandon this community. the motivation being profit-driven requires no mensa candidate to figure out.

imagine this sort of business model being adopted across the board. all products and services available through large companies are only what some accountant learned from sifting marketing data. so you only get what they're sure will sell at a certain rate, and you get zero respect or consideration before, during, and after purchase. when you have that image in your head, you're seeing your future.

 

[GypsyBaron]

I guess there wasn't enough 'rain' in MS Flight's 'ecosystem' and it died on the vine.

Paul

 

[Skyhawk_310R]

Hmmm don't know if this is good or bad news. That new M$ strategy got what it deserved, and many are in high hopes for LM now to bring P3D further. With MS crashing with the flight concept, I wonder what will happen now. I hope this calamity has no adverse effects on LMs plans.

Mark

That's pretty much my reaction to it also. It could be the big end to Microsoft's involvement with anything flying related. Remember, the big proponent of aviation with Microsoft, co-founder Paul Allen, is no longer active with Microsoft. Paul was the reason why there was a stream of FSX and CFS titles coming out of MS like clockwork.

It could also be a smart analysis that the strategic pieces of this effort were off base. Does this therefore mean that MS is going to rethink and continue the FSX series? Who knows! But, it would be nice if that were the case, and in the process, perhaps finally zig to the multi-core processor architecture that drives PC's today. MS really failed when they decided not to support multi-core processor in optimal form with FSX.

Ken

 

[Skyhawk_310R]

This has nothing to do with "turning your back on the community". Truth is that the community isn't big enough anymore to make it worthwhile for MS to invest money for (comperatively) so little in return for them. Ask yourself this: where would all those add-on developers be if MS hadn't invested in the development of the base program? Flight was a (desperate) effort to get the punters interested in (civilian) flight simulation again. It is not MS that has turned its back on flight simulation, its the (mass) market that has (and did so long ago). And instead of gloating about the demise of Flight, that's the thing we should be worried about: the world at large apparantly doesn't give a flying **** about flightsims. The failure of Flight only confirms what MS was probably expecting. MS most likely will now turn its back on flight simulation(s). And given the state of affairs, I can't blame them for making that sound business decision. They're not a charity. As for Prepared, we're still to see if and under what conditions Lockheed Martin will (be able to) develop it further. IMHO, Prepared at the moment is nothing more but some vague promises by LM and a desperate clinging on to hope by the FS-community.

Just my 2 cents

While I respect your views, I have to present the contrarian view in reply.

Take a look at Microsoft sales figures for their full line of PC-based games. What you will note is the dominance of the FSX series in those sales numbers, along with CFS and CFS2, and to a degree even CFS3. Microsoft made more sales off their FSX line of releases than anything else they have ever released for gaming.

In terms of the role of the add-on community, Microsoft long knew that the time between releases was fill admirably by the vast add-on community. The prime role being that this community kept the shelf life and interest of each release active long beyond the timeframe of any other genre of gaming. This allowed MS to maintain, even increase, its sale base when the new titles were released.

I also disagree with your conclusions about LM's Prepar3D. First, it was never intended as a game. The fact that it can be used as such simply points out to its robustness. In terms of being a low-cost commercial PC-based flight simulator, it has a wide appeal and is selling well. It is certainly not a "vague promise," but instead something realized and available to a customer base eager to use it. However, you are not the intended customer base, but rather a mutually beneficial ad-hoc and tertiary customer base the product was never really designed for. However, Lockheed Martin has recognized this tertiary customer base and has made efforts to facilitate the base.

Cheers,

Ken

 

[Mathias]

Nothing of all this in the past 7 years - the cancellation of CFS4 the week before it was supposed to get released to the beta testers, the appeareance of FSX, the rise and fall of ESP and the desaster of Flight - has nothing to do with actual sales. Sales were good and it's said that FSX was the best selling title of the whole franchise. Well, one exception maybe, Flight and ESP probably were commercial failures while FSX sure was not (all the best of luck to LM, I just don't see them having more success than MS with ESP)!
It is biz dev who at the time of CFS4/pre FSX decided to go the commercial simulation/ESP road that didn't work, and it was biz dev who decided to use what was left as a testbed for new marketing strategies what didn't work either.

 

[anthony31]

I'm surprised they lasted this long although I guess that MS posted a loss for the first time a week or so ago may have had something to do with the cleanout.

Just by going on forum numbers you could tell that people just weren't interested in Flight. I doubt the total number of users got to even half of those still using FSX.

Ultimately though MS have only themselves to blame. They produced something that was a crap game and a crap flight simulator. No wonder it failed.

 

[roger-wilco-66]

Good discussion.

I have the impression that MS never really had a sound marketing and product strategy for FSX, that's why it went down the drain. Their marketing strategists did not and still do not understand what they created with ESP/FSX or even FS9 and fail to see where they can position themselves in the market to be a evolving and prospering part of it. They only knew how big that market was, and they probably saw that there was a whole industry of addon suppliers making a bigger buck out of the MS flight sim series than they did and wanted to put an end to that.
MS Flight went down the drain because MS tried to tie that addon market into their own system. That was the sole reason for MS Flight to come into being. The failure of that strategy is foreseeable: you only have to take a look on how extremely dynamic - in terms of different product types, evolution of product quality and frequency of releases, and freeware development ... - that market is. It failed because the customers (or community, if you want) expects and wants that market to be dynamic the way it is. Anything else is not acceptable.

What could they have done better? The failure started years ago, after ESP/FSX had been developed. In my eyes, the ESP framework, under which FSX runs, is a fantastic product and a sound basis for serious simulation products. This is the biggest core competence MS had. It completely escapes me that something complex and genial like ESP is created and never touched again. From my point of view, they should have made upgrades (new DirectX versions, performance fixes, 64bit, multicore support, scenery engine, bug fixes...) to FSX / ESP in regular intervals and charge money for them. Develop real life cycles for ESP/FSX, and stay in close contact with the addon developers and serve that market as a team.

The future is dim, IMHO. The ACES team is somewhere else, Paul Allan is gone, the competence of further ESP development is probably lost. That's maybe the reason they licensed it to Lockheed Martin, to possibly wring the last buck out of it. But beware. That meager cash cow might be immensely fat for others, and MS doesn't realize it. I see black clouds on the horizon when after an analysis the whole market seems almost to consist of academic users.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[JoHubb]

The future is dim, IMHO.

For Microsoft, yes. For Flight Simulation, I don't think so.

Windows 8 sounds like a disaster, at least for PC games.

FSX is alive and kicking. It isn't perfect by any means but it is remarkably good. By all accounts sales of FSX addons are booming. P3D is expanding FSX's potential and is being supported by third party developers. X-Plane is making inroads, and again, sales are encouraging. Third party developers are increasing supporting it. Even FS9 is alive and kicking - Carenado have just released a new Bonanza created especially for FS9. If sales are good, more will follow.

I reckon flight simulation has a bright future. I don't care if the 20-30 yr old age group get into it. There are more and more 50 year olds coming on stream. whose kids have flown the nest and who've a bit of extra time for distractions such as flight simulation.

My tuppence worth!

 

[roger-wilco-66]

For Microsoft, yes. For Flight Simulation, I don't think so.
[...]

What I meant. MS is out of the race, at least for now.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[grunau_baby]

What I meant. MS is out of the race, at least for now.

Well I am not too shocked really, cause their "Flight" business model was doomed to end like this. Any business goes down, when it starts losing customer orientation, that´s basic economic kingergarden-knowledge. And - apart from the poor people who got dumped - I am glad for this clean cut. P3D and others (Aerosoft also anounced plans when FS11 was canceled) who are still passionate about simming and off course their own business will hopefully fill the gap (only a very small one in this case) "MS Flight" left.

Alex

 

[cheezyflier]

jmo, but i think most of you guys have rose colored glasses on. flight simming is pretty much over.
with microsoft out of the game, you'll never see another product on the scale of fs9/fsx ever again.

 

[Tako_Kichi]

flight simming is pretty much over.
with microsoft out of the game, you'll never see another product on the scale of fs9/fsx ever again.

I think that's a bit of a bold statement to be honest. MS wasn't the be all and end all when it came to flight sims although they were about the only developer to offer a civilian aircraft sim. There have been many flight sim developers in the past (combat based admittedly) and I know of at least two FSX/FS9 developers who are working on their own flight simulator 'engines' (the background code that drives the sim).

FSX and FS9 will continue to be used by the simming community for as long as there are payware and freeware developers willing to invest time (and money) into making new products for them. Enjoy what we have now and support the developers so that they can make more products and the flight sim community will last for many years yet.

 

[stansdds]

I think MS does want to be out of the flight sim market. I expect they will focus on operating systems, business software, and X-box game titles. Flight sims won't die, other developers will enter the market, even though it is a relatively small market.

 

[hae5904]

Simply put......P3D is the present (version 1) and the future (starting with version 2) :salute: (and not to forget DCS.........)
Glad I never believed in that MS Flight crap......

Cheers,
Hank

 

[Sascha66]

Lawman, I concur 100% with what you just said, and I believe you said it much more eloquently than I could have. I enjoy FSX and have enjoyed the simulations that MS has produced for a long time. I however have no sentimentalism in that this is still a business at the end of the day. My business will not operate on that nature if I wish to survive, hence why I have been clear with my customers that I support all flight simulation platforms, and HAVE indeed marketed beyond FSX many times. A business that does not move with the market does not survive. My business IS that market. I go where the water takes me or I sink. Simple.

I disagree with you and Lawman on this: From your post, it seems that you believe that the market changed and MS was somehow not involved in this process

But MS had it in hand to do much better. If there is any decline in the popularity of flightsims at all, it is because MS has disappointed and not gone on and developed a flightsim with a "WOW" effect since FS9.

Even FSX was more of a backward-looking effort with very little to set it apart from FS9 and with an outdated graphic on release!

Since MS had the market cornered, it was up to them to keep pushing the envelope. Instead they left that to numerous freeware and payware developers.

MS could have kept flightsims an immersive product with showcase quality truly at the cutting edge if they had wanted to.

"A business that does not move with the market does not survive." MS had the rare priviledge of completely defining the market.

They didn't have to go where the water takes them.

They WERE the water.

They blew it. Epic fail. Simple.