This is just my honest opinion:While FSX may be the last version of Flight Simulator as we know it, maybe its not that bad a thing after all. If flight sim doesnt get updated, we wont be forced to spend money updating our computers to its standards. Addon developers will not have to constantly update their products for the next version of FS, and focus on improving the present versions of their software for FS2004/FSX. Anyone Agree?Just a thought Alex CYUL

Well, I think MS has or will be changing their business model even more. MS has taken alot of heat for Vista and other efforts and the best we could hope for is they have over reacted. This will not be the first company who has decided to drop a product line. I can almost hear the voices in the decision room. Ok folks, we develop business solutions and I think all our efforts should be focused on just that. It is our bread and butter and it does not make a whole lot of sense to be making games. Just my two cents.Bob

Me too! Of particular interest to me was his observation that FS development had become a subordinate project to ESP which was a more general enterprise simulation, and that the failure of ESP to win enough major clients inevitably brought the entire program to its corporate knees. Fascinating insight, eh!

I have one nit to pick with what is an otherwise excellent summary/commentary:FS was never a "child" of ESP, and never would have been..In actual fact, ESP1 is a stripped-to-the-bone version of FSX! It was the prototype for what was to become ESP2.After the reorganization of the studio, there were FOUR separate and independent teams formed, the first of which -the Core Platform team- was to provide the basic foundation from which three CHILDREN were to be developed:ESP2TS2FSvNextIf ESP et seq. was not successful, the other two teams should not have been affected at all.This was all throughly documented by ACES members in their own blogs, and is also part of the archived message base here at AVSIM and elsewhere. It is not idle speculation on my part... :( Now I may not have the credibility and bona fides that others might enjoy, but I can honestly state that I was among the first who registered at the official ESP Developers Forum and actively participated. I know the names of everyone who posted there, and what was discussed, and continues to be discussed... :( http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/ESP/threads/Now, all that said... I agree that FSX will continue to be a sustainable platform, as will FS9 for the next two years or longer. I know that I'm comitted to continue producing for both versions as long as there is any market at all... :(

Personally I think we are still a few years off from that and in the interim if MS decides to sell or re-open the ACES franchise maybe we can finally get a new sim engine capable of driving more than 10 FPS that can actually offload physics processing to the GPU instead of strictly the CPU and see the same FPS we do in every other computer game/sim...

Personally, I would prefer to see my GPU concentrate on the graphics, and get one of the three idle CPUs in my system to put down the newspaper and actually do some work!

Just a quick fact on FSX sales. I do believe it sold very well in 2007. However, if you go to amazon.com right now, FS9 outsells FSX (#20 in PC Games vs #25). The way FS9 goes from strength to strength is just incredible. I wouldn't bet any money on which sim is going outlast which. Just a quick fact (I myself am an exclusive FSX user, but obviously in the minority judging from 2 recent polls).

This is just my honest opinion:While FSX may be the last version of Flight Simulator as we know it, maybe its not that bad a thing after all. If flight sim doesnt get updated, we wont be forced to spend money updating our computers to its standards. Addon developers will not have to constantly update their products for the next version of FS, and focus on improving the present versions of their software for FS2004/FSX. Anyone Agree?Just a thought Alex CYUL

This is what I wrote in another thread that might apply to your question: "Due to lack of support for multi-core processors nor for multi-GPUs, FSX will never realize its originally intended potential. For this reason, it is doubtful that future PCs will run it any better than it is run now on current systems. FSX does not and will not have enough headroom for 3rd party developers to continue developing for it "for years". This fact will make demise of FS11 much more painful than people here realize. From what I understand, next version of FS was supposed to have a new engine that would have taken advantage of new hardware that emphasizes multicore processors and multi GPUs (SLI & Crossfire). In other words, it would have been a better performing simulator than FSX. Finally, there are a lot of short comings that were supposed to be fixed in FSNext that 3rd party developers will not be able to overcome; examples of some which are: Autogen pop due to lack of Alpha fade, Javeline like snow, HDR lighting etc. The decision to drop the franchise could not have come at the worse possible time for our hobby."

Well compared to the big picture in the economy not being able to sim might be the much lesser of many evils. It is sad that so many ACES personnel have lost their jobs... along with the auto workers and all the rest.Even if worst comes to worst, for many years we will be able to fly FS9 and FSX on the computers we have now.We may have to purchase addon weather and get into multiplayer on FSHost.But if Microsoft truly leaves us a vacuum, I am sure it will be filled. I have said it before, a 90 percent market share cannot be good for innovation in a hobby. MS was not the first to bring us dynamic weather, terrain mesh, GPS, round world or many other innovations. They have responded the most to competitor's innovations. Even their early reassurances that performance would drive FSVNext was a reaction to X-plane's frame rates. If MS leaves the field, the bean counters at other gaming studios will see an opportunity. And *not* just X-Plane.That being said, it still isn't that bad. MS has virtually guaranteed that FSVNext will be a rebuild from the ground up; with a totally fresh perspective. Will they contract out replacements or rebuild ACES for a warmed-over FSX with still bloated code? I think not.In the short term the layoffs at ACES is a sad situation, but in the long term I agree with Randazzo that the hobby will survive and prosper.Donald T.

DCS keeps getting mentioned, and for good reason. They've proven MS is not the only one who can develop high-end realistic flight sims. However I'm afraid that studio is way too engaged in it's current DCS franchise to even consider taking over the MFS code. But I'm tempted to think there are those who are both capable and willing out there.btw.. maybe it's all you FS9-huggers who actually strangled FSXI before it was born*runs for cover

I feel slighted here. What about FS8 and FS9 huggers. Heck, I read posts of people still simming FS98 and they love it.FS2000 seemed to be a red headed step child, I rarely see it mentioned.Please, if you are going to slight FS9 users, remember to include FS8 users too. There are allot of them still around.

I'm no industry expert but I'm not sure this is all about cost cutting.I watched a BBC documentary a week or so ago made on the occasion of Bill Gates stepping down from day-to-day management of Microsoft.The closing theme was of the rivalry with Google and the failed acquisition of Yahoo. The conclusion was that the day of the heavywieght high spec PC on each desk was dead and that Microsoft had to move quickly to rebase its strategy on the internet with advertising & other revenues replacing sales of all those copies of Windows.This move seems fully consistent with that plan, although quite when our internet connections will be up to running something which sometimes struggles within a highpowered desktop remains to be seen!

... the MSFS was always one of the best sellers so the money is there.

Interesting statement... I have been simming since 1984 and have heard this mantra repeated many many times, but as yet I have seen no evidence that truly substantiates this statement. I'm not saying that it isn't true, but some evidence would be appreciated, evidence apart from the fact that it has been sold for twenty something years....Cheers,

Who wouldn't fork out 100 to 200 bucks for a highly sophisticated FS ?

Bingo... Mango you have got it in one... I have in the past questioned the pricing model that MSFS has been sold under. It has been marketed at the price point similar to the "games" it sits alongside on the EB and other store shelves.When people have in the past questioned why MSFS (for many previous versions) have not taken advantage of the "latest" graphics tech and such, the devs more recently have piped up and said, quite rightly IMHO, that the development of a global flight simulator was a much more complex task than some FPS with a limited area of operation etc. etc. Given this, how on earth can the same be sold for the same amount?So, to produce and market successfully a sim like FSX at a level of profitability that ensures longevity, what do you all think is a fair price. In Australia we already pay in the vicinity of $110.00 for the deluxe version of the sim. Will 2 x that amount ensure a successful title? I would personally have no problems paying $200- $250 every 2 - 3 years for a well developed, updated and supported product.Interested in your thoughts,

Interesting statement... I have been simming since 1984 and have heard this mantra repeated many many times, but as yet I have seen no evidence that truly substantiates this statement. I'm not saying that it isn't true, but some evidence would be appreciated, evidence apart from the fact that it has been sold for twenty something years....Cheers,

Chris-It is on other threads (check out here, Phil Taylor's blog, and the fsx forum) but fsx(in print from several sources) sold over 1 million copies in the United States alone this year and has been on the top 10 games selling list.

Gaming may be alive and well, but the flight sim genre is dead. Have a look at Falcon 4, ProFlight, Fly!, Jane's F18, LOMAC and IL-2. All of them are either dead or dying.

I believe Falcon 4 is still quite popular.http://www.frugalsworld.com/modules/news/

I believe Falcon 4 is still quite popular.http://www.frugalsworld.com/modules/news/

Thats part of the problem. Falcon 4 is still the top military flightsim. Just buy an old Falcon 4 CD and use the free patches and you are at the 'as real as it gets' stage. Everything released after that might be beter in some specific part but overal the Falcon 4 package is still beter.You can compare it with FS9.1 versus FS X as viewed by some of the airliner / heavy metal types. At the moment on current day hardware FS9.1 with AI traffic, complex airports and a complex aircraft add-on scores beter for them then FS-X. New / other flightsims can only hope to beat FS 9.1 & FS X in small area's but they will not beat the overal package. This splinters the community and that means problems for the payware addon market.

In answer to the question posed by the original post: Is it that bad?No it is not. People would do well to remember that Microsoft did not invent flight simulation, they didn't even invent Flight Simulator, it wasn't originally a Microsoft title. There's nothing stopping anyone else developing a civilian flight simulator, many have done so before, but they had to contend with the marketing power of Microsoft, and could not.But now they don't have to, so alternative flight simulation titles stand a better chance of taking off. If Microsoft don't want the potential profits from a planet full of people who want to buy a flight simulator program, you can bet somebody else will. It's as simple as that. And when that happens, guess who'll come back to the flight sim software business...Chock

So Microsoft axed the ACES Game Studio does this mean the Microsoft Flight Simulator series is dead? No I don't think so they've been at it for over 20 years and to quit just like that something doesn't add up. I'm sure they'll continue the series just with someone else.