Sad but true

[G7USL 117]

Good news for developers as now they can concentrate on FS9 and FSX for their excellent add-ons. This will be good for all of us too as we won't have to scrape up more money (Most of us cannot afford anyway) and spend it on our nearest and dearest instead of a faster computer.There is 'X-Plane' though still, and that will only be good news for them. Now and more especially for someone else to take over and show MSFS how it's really done :( MS and Aces cocked up, big time with FSX and sent out to the public (for whatever reasons) a program that wasn't finished and this is the final account result.Lose no sleep though, MS's sale of hardware to suit will force a change of attitude after we have all ridden through the current monetry crisis. :(

[siggy 154]

I am only one, but in my case this back-fires on them. No new FS, no new PC, therefore no new MS operating-system, no new MS applications. I can live with my current PC easily another 5 years. It was only FS that drove the upgrade cycle for me.Maybe they will sell the title to Apple and then we will all run FS on windfall computers :( Sadly,Siggy

Sorry, I can sometimes be a bit terse. The 'Sadly' was not because we may not have a future new FS, I can live without it. I wanted to express my sadness about those people having lost their jobs.Siggy

[David Roch 1,982]

What a sad day for those talented and enthousiast guys..I wish the whole ACES team good luck and thank them gratefully.Is FS dead?We will probably know that soon but that's a minor matter compared to the crisis the world will go through in the next months.And Avsim will (I really hope!!) remain alive :--)

[Christopher Low 5,354]

Look on the bright side, guys.....You won't have to worry about paying for a brand new version of flight simulator for a while.You won't have to buy an entirely new set of addons to get you back to where you were with the last version.Addon developers can concentrate on creating stuff for FSX without having to start preparing for FS11.When you upgrade to a new PC in the future, you'll be able to run everything at maximum detail levels.

[slashed2 53]

This is sad news indeed, my heart goes out to those layed off, I was layed off in September right after I bought a house, but rehired fortunately in November, and my company just laid off another few thousand employees. Losing FS is painful, but losing your job is devastating, here's hoping everyone affected can get through these rough times.Ian.

[byork 2,259]

Anyone got the number for that truck driving school?

[NWarty 0]

That is the bright spot. Knowing that if FS11 ever comes out, it'll be A WHILE from now. Good thing for developers who can now fully concentrate on FSX. Picked up X-Plane 9 from Amazon today. Hopefully Austin and Team seize this chance by the b*lls and really kick XP into high gear.

[victorwest2 0]

A very sad day. It's a pity that MS are unlikely to release the source code for FS.

[oldbear 33]

Shocking indeed.Excuse my ignorance here, but why has MS never transferred FS to a console - XBox?Might this be a possibility for the future?

[Guest Nick_N]

The only thing that is known for sure right now is that Microsoft has made serious cuts and it would appear that the people at Aces have been eliminated from the budget.As for the disposition of future projects... That has yet to be announced. I would be very cautious about reading into things that may be posted on the net and unless what you read is referenced back to a Microsoft source news release that what you see posted may be nothing but a rumor. Anything is possible and just because the entertainment division has been sliced down does not mean future projects are completely canceled until officially announced by Microsoft. They can sub contract the work out and/or reorganize at a later date however there were some deep cuts in other gaming companies this last week so I think what we are seeing is a reflection on the current economy which probably has their financial office in survival mode right now.My heart does go out to the team and their families during this time.Until MS officially announces what they will be doing with future projects we have FSX to build on and that will continue without interruption. The best support we can show for the MSFS franchise is that the community will not let it die. As long as a large company like Microsoft sees a market potential for a future product through a strong show of continued use and support I do not think the MSFS product line will die.FSX and the potential for adding on to it has a shelf life of at least another 4-6 years. A lot can happen between now and then. To the entire Aces Team... Thank You for the dedicated work and contribution to the world of flight sim.

[Geofa 108]

I am still sick to my stomach about this...but...Perhaps the wisdom of Aces in designing software that is taxing for todays hardware, but can be increased in the future via "sliders" is finally vindicated. I'll keep using fsx, and perhaps have all sliders on 100% a few years from now, thus still improving my simming experience yearly. Perhaps by then the world economy will have recovered, and either Fs or another company will be back in the flight sim business. If not I will just keep using fsx the rest of my life and consider my self very fortunate to have been thru 30 years of a time of exciting flight simming that is no more.I will also be happy because the potential for 3rd party developers to continue to push fsx to greater and greater things will probably keep it growing for many years to come. The development is starting to appear greatly now, and thank god there are areas of this sim that allow much future growth, such as the ability to display high res scenery, missions, etc.I thank the Aces team for making something that instead of dying at this point will hopefully only get better and better.

[Guest cbuchner1]

overall impact still hard to gauge, but this looks major.

Hmm... sad news to see the FlightSimulator franchise die in all likelyhood.Did you have any indication or feeling that this might be happening soon when you decided to join Intel?And what's going to happen to those companies who just licensed ESP ?Christian

[GSalden 4,657]

My sympathy goes out to the Aces team and I hope that they all will find new jobs.Also I would like to thank Phil, Paul and all others for what they have done for us.Like Nick already mentioned , this does not mean that FSXI will be cancelled.We will have to wait for further announcements.Let us all show MS that there is a large FS community so they might decide to continue FS.Thanks Aces !

[dbrucem 0]

I am still sick to my stomach about this...but...Perhaps the wisdom of Aces in designing software that is taxing for todays hardware, but can be increased in the future via "sliders" is finally vindicated. I'll keep using fsx, and perhaps have all sliders on 100% a few years from now, thus still improving my simming experience yearly. Perhaps by then the world economy will have recovered, and either Fs or another company will be back in the flight sim business. If not I will just keep using fsx the rest of my life and consider my self very fortunate to have been thru 30 years of a time of exciting flight simming that is no more.I will also be happy because the potential for 3rd party developers to continue to push fsx to greater and greater things will probably keep it growing for many years to come. The development is starting to appear greatly now, and thank god there are areas of this sim that allow much future growth, such as the ability to display high res scenery, missions, etc.I thank the Aces team for making something that instead of dying at this point will hopefully only get better and better.

Very well stated Geofa. I have been simming since the Sub Logic days and have purchased just about every version that has been released. Looks like FSX will be my sim of choice and it will continue to get better with time and hardware upgrades. I too would like to thank ACES for their efforts to advance flight sim and for their interaction with the flight sim community in recent years. Best of luck to all laid off MS employees in these difficult times.

[=Hollywood= 0]

I'm with you Geoff, I'm completely sick to my stomach about this...I woke up today all stoked to have finally solved airport plateau issues and was about to get to work on them when I was confronted with this news, over the course of the day, I've just felt sicker and sicker in my stomach...Many of us here were on the beta team for FSX and many of us have a friendship with the guys at ACES who have been laid off... All I've been able to do all day is sit with a blank stare directed towards my monitor, occasionally checking the forums and internet for developing news...FSX does have a bright future and I was worried about what would happen to the franchise when I saw all FSX could do, for me it was a dream come true and multitudes of things I'd hoped and had joined others in asking for made it in to FSX...We do now have a sim where we can geocode the world, FSX is still the only real time 3d VisSim platform that is easy to navidate and see the world as close to reality as possible, nothing else on the market is even close...I do think that we might want to consider the road ahead, what do we do if Microsoft has called it quits for good? I personally don't want to switch to X-Plane because I feel like I'd be turning my back on all the friends from ACES who have worked so hard throughout the majority of my life... I started with FS1 and am still here and will remain here as a flight sim user well into the future...Here's some thoughts....A) There's the EAA:( There's people like Chuck Yeager, Richard Branson and Burt Rutan amongst many other Aviation enthusiastsC) There's literally hundreds of thousands of users in the Flight Sim community onlineD) There's a whole team of aviation software developers now looking for workE) Not all IP for the FS platform is necessarily in Microsoft's handsF) CUDA technology is available from NVIDIA, could that be used to build a new sim with new processing techniques?G) There are markets beyond just the FS entertainment market that can benefit from sim technologyH) There's a ton of commercial FS add-on developers who will need to plan for the future as while FSX may have legs now it will eventually get long in the tooth probably about 5-6 years from now and there will be a need for a new sim in coming years and MSFT may not pick the ball back up, who knows they may not survive this economic crisis I) There will be a need for Visual Simulation and 3D vision based technology is really making inroads right nowJ) This is a perfect opportunity to build a whole new sim from the ground up, without being encumbered by big corporate giants, without being encumbered by Direct X teams and OS teams and budget teams and advertising teams, it would be possible to build a whole new much more nimble and versatile sim platform independent of the operating system, I have longed to go back to FS on a Mac ever since FS4, there has been talk before about it but it never happened, lets make FS break free from the OSOn the practical side this is what I envision for a new sim beyond Microsoft Flight Simulator...1 - It will be a global simulator, simulating water at depth, fluid dynamics, aviation, ground vehicles, space to the edge of our solar system2 - It can be massively networked3 - It can contain a streaming server for imagery4 - It can contain a global database of all earth's objects down to every tree5 - It has intelligent scaling for performance6 - It has room for massively distributed cloud computingThose are just the start of concepts of a what a future simulator could entail... While I am deeply saddened by todays events, especially for those I know somewhat personally over the last few years, who says we need to camp around Microsoft anymore singing kumbaya???Lets face it FSX has legs, it can definitely continue to grow and expand on the 3rd party end of things, but at the same time lets not look at a giant corporation to be the savior of the franchise, how hard would it be for us as a community to put our heads together and come up with a proposal to either buy out the technology or start preparing for a new sim for the future?...We have one of the biggest networks of aviation buffs in the world! Let's not sit around thinking it's the end of simulation altogether, this could be our finest hour and this could be the beginning of a whole new journey in simulator technology...Come on guys let's rally the troops, lets do all we can do to make the future happen the way we want it to happen, unencumbered by massive corporations...On a personal note I just want to ask, how many Billion did a certain person retire with last year? Maybe we should ask the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for funding! I'm sorry guys no disrespect to Bill Gates but when he can retire with Billions and then thousands are getting laid off from the company he left something stinks!!!