Fodder for rumours - some new FS news

[gman! 1]

Guys. STOP making LIVE seem like a BAD THING.Before you judge Xbox or LIVE, BUY THE PRODUCT and see. LIVE is not a Massive Multiplayer online thing and everybody knows this. What it is is its an online service where EVERYTHING is organized in one place with easy access. You can access friends lists, messaging, voice chat, etc. ANYWHERE in a game. Also LIVE on the Xbox focuses ON THE COMMUNITY. Haven't you seen their XNA project. PEOPLE (like the community) are making Arcade games for the Xbox. Microsoft is not limiting the games to big comanies and stuff like that. Xbox is LARGELY focused around the community and they have great interaction with it. They listen to the community and talk with them. (Visit the Xbox.com website for at least an hour and see what I mean). They also make things easy, bringing all downloadable content (DLC) into ONE centralized place so the user does not have to go searching the whole world for add-ons. Again LIVE is LARGELY focused around the community. One more thing to clear up. Xbox LIVE is not pay 59 dollar for each online game or something like that. It is an online SERVICE. If you use LIVE on the computer (Games for Windows - LIVE) you do not pay A SINGLE PENNY TO USE LIVE. Again. MICROSOFT HEARD THE PC COMMUNITY SAY THAT LIVE SHOULD BE FREE SINCE MOST OTHER PC ONLINE GAMES DO NOT REQUIRE PAYMENT FOR SERVICE AND THEY LISTENED! BEFORE, games for windows LIVE required a fee but that is not the case anymore because Microsoft has EARS!Before ANYONE says something about LIVE again, BUY AN XBOX and/or a GAMES FOR WINDOWS - LIVE game!I wish the guy from PMDG (I think his name is Ryan?) was here because if he knows LIVE is good and everybody knows him so more people will listen to him.You have to pay to use LIVE on XBOX. There are many different payment options for LIVE on Xbox such as paying $5 a month for the service, or paying $50 for a whole year. What I do is buy the 12+1 month Xbox LIVE PREPAID cards at Best Buy, that way no credit cards and you get what you pay for. Plus they include 1 free month in when you buy your first Xbox or get the 12+1 (free) month Prepaid card. You DO NOT pay extra for each game you buy and you CANNOT buy full Xbox 360 games Online to download on your Xbox --> (Microsoft knows the limitations of Xbox and I will talk about that later in this post)... And for ALL the people that think Microsoft will put Flight Simulator on Xbox. Think again and use your brain next time please. Xbox does not even have 1/3 of the power to run a flight simulator on the system, let alone they type of DVD reader they use. The DVD reader in the Xbox's limitation is only being able to read DL (Double Layer) DVDs, which have around an 8GB MAXIMUM capacity formatted. Also don't you notice you INSTALL Flight Simulator on your computer instead of running it from the disk. Wonder why that is? That is because the files on the FSX Discs are HIGHLY compressed .cab files and the installer DECOMPRESSES these files to the hard drive on your PC (This is why it takes 30-1 hour to install even the BEST PCs. This is NOT possible on the Xbox due to the memory of the xbox, and hardware limitations such as read/write speed from the DVD to the hard drive. The Xbox has 512MB of INTERNAL DDR3 memory, and it has different varieties of external storage such as a 256MB and 512MB, memory unit which is not even enough to use as TEMPORARY memory to decompress planes, scenery, autogen, etc. for one area. There are also 20GB and 120GB HDDs and AGAIN there is NO way to decompress the files from the DVD to the Hard Drive even if it is just for a second. Not even the fastest NASA computer will be able to decompress the files from an FSX DVD fast enough with the read and storage limitation of DVDs TO a Hard Drive to load up one area for a split second then delete that temporary decompressed file to load a different area, AND I AM NOT EXAGGERATING THIS ONE BIT, SOMEONE THAT KNOWS ENOUGH ABOUT TECHNOLOGY KNOWS THIS IS TRUE. THIS is why Microsoft cannot put FSX on the Xbox. I know what your going to ask? NO, not even if they get Nasa to do it for them, some things are just not possible...To cut this short. The memory limitations and the speed of the hardware on the Xbox make it almost impossible to port flight simulator to the xbox. Plus porting all that interaction that is done with the mouse and keyboard or controller will take YEARS and YEARS to port, so overall it is not worth it. Microsoft knows nobody will buy Flight Simulator for the Xbox.. even if the consumer did NOT know there was a flight simulator for PC. I hope everyone on the forum that thinks FSX is possible on the Xbox, reads this, and comes to their senses.P.S. I am not a loyalist to Microsoft, I do not work for them. I am just a teen that knows what he is talking about.It obviously seems like Microsoft is trying to move in a new direction with this genre and from the looks of virtual earth and this guys position etc. Microsoft WANTS a world in flight simulator that is just like real life. They WANT more realism in the game with more functionality and more detailed planes. They realize how big the flight simulator community is and I bet they read this forum every day and know how important this is to us. The are obviously committed to this franchise, by what we have seen (the new job listing and the blog post from Paul is great evidence). One of the things that I think made Microsoft fire the original team was the overwhelming amount of people in the community saying that the Flight Sim engine needs to be rebuilt to take advantage of today's PC. (E.G. Putting those 700+ MHz Graphic cards to use to make the game more efficient and some new coding). So the new job listing and the fire of ACES is not really a surprise to me, because Microsoft wants new ideas and they want to get rid of the old game engine, or give it a new overhaul be bringing in new people. I do think Microsoft shouldn't have fired the team like that though after all they hard work they have done for MS, and they should have gotten a longer notice, but it looks like things are alright because I heard the ACES employees will get payed by MS even though they are not physically working for them anymore...

[n4gix 4,947]

This morning I found 2 bits of news that may just indicate that Microsoft is assembling a new team to work on their 'new' flying game. Why they would fire the whole team and then rehire is beyond my logical reasoning, but read for yourself and make up your own mind.arc...10-0EE92F108D14[/url]

It never hurts to be repeated, but this was just reported and discussed in this thread:Is the Dream Really Dead?http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=242899

[dmaher 0]

[gman! 1]

“I am just a teen that knows what he is talking about” …Cheers, Some reason I really like that sentiment.I largely agree with what you’re saying…not your tone though. :( You are talking about Xbox a lot too…that’s just for illustration right? I think we all get we are still talking Windows Live when it comes to FS.I’d say Games for Windows Live has a huge branding problem at this point :) The association of FS with Live in itself doesn’t imply anything about its design to me. The most I’d venture is MS see’s value in publishing add-ons…and I’d suppose online-distribution of FS is on the horizon. If the press release had said “Steam” instead I think most folks would have said, “Sweet!”There aren’t a lot of developers that are committed to “flying games”. I used to have access to an industry report on game sales data through an old job…as I recall it referred to our genera as “flying games”….and ”flight related games” It’s not the politically-correct term but I’m sure no offense was intended I don’t really fear Xbox rumors…I imagine MS has considered the option carefully...and so far they haven’t ported the game. I assure you if they ever do, it won’t mean the end of the Windows version. A Windows skew is a primary tool for developing Xbox games…they are almost transposable. Windows games still add value to Windows…Sorry one last thought… Games that have 2 year development cycles are called sequels. If there is an FSXI and it’s an incremental enhancement (like we were expecting) 2+ years is in the realm of possibility. If it was to be substantially new it would be at least 4+ years IMO.

Please read. http://members.microsoft.com/careers/searc...;SortOrder=Deschttp://paul-flightsimguy.spaces.live.com/B...!1246.entry...sorry if it sounded like the tone was angry. I was just a bit frustrated with people saying false things and misinforming the public. I was not angry in that post, I was just trying to get my point across so everybody can understand. When I type something in CAPS or bold or make the font size bigger, it is because it grabs the readers attention just like it did a second ago ("When I type something in CAPS or bold or make the font size bigger") B). I am just trying to make sure he/she reads the whole post and does not just read bits of things, so they can get the idea.Also about the "I'm just a teen..." I am telling ppl that there is no way I work for MS; generally when someone thinks about a teen, they think of a crazy young texter (I admit. I love texting my friends, and I do not know whats wrong with it. Saying TTYL, L8r, LOL, LMAO, OMG, etc saves us time when texting and if the person is normal, it shouldn't degrade their English.) that does not know one bit what he/she is talking about.Again, I think Microsoft has listened to the community, the read these forums, they saw the huge "FS11 Wish List", they heard the users say "we need a new engine" or "we need an engine overhaul", they heard about performance problems (although this is a big myth), and they heard a lot of other problems. Although there response to the problems were not the best, they are probably doing all they can from what I have seen from the last few days to get new ideas and bring the Flight Simulator franchise back. From what I have seen, it looks like Flight Sim is back in development, and we can expect to see an FS 11. I really hope they read that wish list thoroughly and put in those must have. options like using the FMS on glass cockpit planes for enthusiast, and things like improved ATC, slopped runways, a career mode (The [old] ACES team was already working on FS11 and this was one of the features :(). Do not get so depressed and think that this is the apocalypse for MS FS, everyone. FS will always live on, and if you read those posts, it looks like FS definitely back.)Here is one of my posts from the Microsoft Virtual Earth thread (http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=240837)

I smell something fishy.Remember that job listing that came out a few days ago for a new position at Microsoft to develop a flight simulator.Something about that phrase reminds me about Virtual Earth... B)

From what I have seen with the Microsoft ESP 2.0 videos and Microsoft Virtual Earth, the environment in Flight Sim looks like its going to be, or will be close to the Virtual Earth Scenery. So again with that job listing and Virtual Earth, it seems like Microsoft wants to combine the environments so we can have a VERY realistic flying experience :(

[boshar 6]

Sounds like a new flightsim / google earth 3d experience engine.Could be great with a new 3d engine. No backward compatibility to consider. Maybe some nice to fly aircraft and you can go explore your next vacation spot by flying over it or just see your own neigbourhood from the air.The games industry nowadays is full with talk of casual small games. A lot of them running in a flash / browser based enviroment. You have a large group of potential customers and sell your game in little instalments. Kind of like MS Flight Hawaii, MS Flight Stunt Island, MS Flight Scotland.Laminar claims to have a lot of succes with their IPhone releases (basically bite size chunks of X-plane with different planes or scenery). Microsoft could release their own bitesized flight games on Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA). Austin can cut down his X-Plane 9 to a game that can be played on an IPhone so I'm sure Microsoft can make their flight games work on an X-Box. There is much talk in Games Industry magazine like Edge about the small more casual games stuff so the industry sees it as the way forward.I wonder if Microsofts new direction is allong these lines...

[gman! 1]

Sounds like a new flightsim / google earth 3d experience engine.Could be great with a new 3d engine. No backward compatibility to consider. Maybe some nice to fly aircraft and you can go explore your next vacation spot by flying over it or just see your own neigbourhood from the air.The games industry nowadays is full with talk of casual small games. A lot of them running in a flash / browser based enviroment. You have a large group of potential customers and sell your game in little instalments. Kind of like MS Flight Hawaii, MS Flight Stunt Island, MS Flight Schotland.Laminar claims to have a lot of succes with their IPhone releases (basically bit size chunks of X-plane with different planes or scenery). There is much talk in Games Industry magazine like Edge about the small more casual games stuff so the industry sees it as the way forward.I wonder if Microsofts new direction is allong these lines...

Don't give Microsoft ideas like that for the Windows platform or else will pay separate for each part of the world!!!! :( You frightened the heck outta me! (just playin with ya)

[dmaher 0]

Sure server-side games are an emerging thing (it

[Guest byoungblood]

Here is one of my posts from the Microsoft Virtual Earth thread (http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=240837)From what I have seen with the Microsoft ESP 2.0 videos and Microsoft Virtual Earth, the environment in Flight Sim looks like its going to be, or will be close to the Virtual Earth Scenery. So again with that job listing and Virtual Earth, it seems like Microsoft wants to combine the environments so we can have a VERY realistic flying experience :(

If Virtual Earth is what the next Flight Sim will pull from Live!, then I can get excited about that. Especially if it means not having to land through a tree because the stock scenery didn't exclude enough of the autogen off of the ends of a runway. :)

[Mace 1,902]

Well I have been wishing/predicting for a while that the scenery engine would move from vector driven to what is capable on Yahoo/google/microsoft.

So, what *is* capable on Yahoo/google/Microsoft these days? Am I way out of the loop in this type of scenery? So far, I have never seen anything that impressed me that much with that type of scenery, to be honest--I mean, it looks great if you're flying in similar conditions to which the photos were taken, but that's all. Maybe Microsoft can move it to the next level. (That would mean, on-the-fly adjustment of textures for time-of-day, and season...). Now if THAT could be done, with a reasonable cpu overhead, THEN we'd have something and I'd be the first to abandon vector driven scenery. But until then...