Well a large number of folks must have noticed -cause it (and it was a national chain) was out of business within the year-and it had been in business for years. I can just visualize the corporate meeting-spreadsheets showing that raising prices, charging extra for salads, reduce the size of the potatoes would save the bottom line and increase profits. A quality product being a self sustaining entity didn't enter the equation.

My, that sounds like "I went there once, never Bennigan..." :(

no, it wasnt Shane Kim that made the call. it was Phil Spencer. he should be placed in Wikipedia as the "exec who shut down FS".

Well, that's most interesting, because a little bit of research reveals exactly the flavour of this Mr Spencer and what side of the toast he butters. Let's start with an interview he did in 2007 before taking up his post. Answering questions about the direction he wanted to go in, it is clear the Xbox is the absolute priority and he refers to it around 12 times in the interview but never once utters the word "PC". Although he seems to have a position in favour of "the best games" he can find, already we see the beginnings of a corporate led drive to maximise profits against other criterea, but there is not yet a broad hint of corpo-babble in subsequent links:http://www.developmag.com/news/27865/QA-Mi...s-Phil-Spencer#Later, in 2008, we get an announcement on Microsoft's website about the emerging "Game Studio" concept, and we see corpo-speak beginning to creep in with typically ghastly marketing language of the kind that personally makes my flesh crawl:"Phil Spencer, a Microsoft Game Studios veteran for six years, will assume leadership of all first-party development and publishing efforts worldwide. Both leaders will report directly to Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business......."

That's also interesting to read:http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/micr...nd-phil-spencer"The past six to 12 months saw studios close and staff laid off across Microsoft. Is Peter's new position an effort to refocus Microsoft Game Studios after such a significant shake-up internally? Phil Spencer: That's exactly right. I moved into the role of head of worldwide studios when I came back from London and one of the first things I did was try to think of all the strategic initiatives that all the different studios thought they were on and I drew this chart and had ten or eleven different things on there. And I recognised from that, as an organisation we need to focus. We have great talent in the organisation but we need to make sure that talent is really focused on fewer things that we can do extremely well. The downsizing that we went through was more about removing things that weren't a core focus of the organisation and creating scale and space for us as leaders to think deeply in the areas that are going to be critical in terms of our long-term success. Live is a crucial area for us, for example. And since that time we've hired a significant number of people back into the organisation and I expect we will refill all of those positions and even more. The acquisition of Big Park was perfect, we've been working with them for over a year on Joy Ride and what we found was a studio of people that were really committed to online, free-to-play, micro-transactions and building new IP. It made sense for us to work together more closely and that's why we went through the acquisition. It's about getting focus behind the initiatives that really matter. "The new core focus of Microsoft: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADNovOex21A :( :(

Well, to be perfectly frank, I tend to accept what Paul Lange and other members of the "new team" have stated more than I will anyone's speculation... :(

Fr. Bill - The last public statement I saw from Paul was that, while he wished he could reveal what was going on with Flight Sim going forward, he was not yet permitted to do so. I haven't seen anything since then. Have you? Do you have a link to it? It would be good to have reliable, new information.

Behind the bean counters are the managers and CO's that demand more profits at whatever cause. And behind them the board of directors. The end of the line are shareholders who really do not know or care about anything they invest in except return investment. And nowadays, we might even be them.

Yep, and we'll sell our souls for that little bit more profit. Who would have thought a great American Beer Legend as Budweiser would be sold off to a foreign company. American shareholders didn't care, just give me that little bit more profit. Daimler got hold of Chrysler years ago and the first big shock they had was the shareholders that only care about profit. We'll sell out anything for a profit. Trouble is, the product and people that buy it are the ones that pay the price in the end.

Fr. Bill - The last public statement I saw from Paul was that, while he wished he could reveal what was going on with Flight Sim going forward, he was not yet permitted to do so. I haven't seen anything since then. Have you? Do you have a link to it? It would be good to have reliable, new information.

Unfortunately, only the ubiquitous "other places" is the source, and even those doors are in the process of being shut. :( So there's really nothing more that can be said... :(

There is the old fashioned concept called the 'law of contract'. The seller presents an invitation to treat (an advertisement), the buyer makes an offer (usually for the advertised price) and the seller accepts the offer. The goods are handed over or the services completed (performance of contract) for which the buyer returns 'consideration' (his hard earned cash). If it all goes wrong the judge will usually ensure performance of the contract first and if that doesn't work, well 'remedies' for a failed or misrepresented contract are many and varied. The concept has served us well over the centuries and it doesn't matter whether we are purchasing a $16 million dollar luxury yacht or a $16.00 computer magazine. It centres around the now rather archaic idea (at least as far as the internet is concerned), that for a price what was once yours is now mine in its entirety and I have full possession and full rights of use for eternity. If I was to purchase a motor vehicle from my local car dealer for example, I would expect the vehicle to come with all the advertised fittings, features and accessories. In taking the car back to the dealer for a routine service I would be understandably upset to find that they had disabled my cruise control "in accordance with new company policy" and that they refuse to enable it again. Suddenly my vehicle would be missing a feature or accessory that was advertised and that gave a fundamental benefit to purchasing this particular vehicle. Such a breach of contract would not really happen because it is not rational and in any case would soon be put right by legal action under the law of contract. Now, this one is for real. I purchased an in-car GPS. There were a number of models and makes to choose from but in the end the model with the handsfree bluetooth capability that played through the FM radio served my purposes exactly. It was the more expensive model but then again the handsfree bluetooth was an extra capability. Soon after installing my GPS and getting used to it I noticed the device took some time to search for satellites and come on line after turning on. So, I re-read my documentation which said I should visit the makers website for latest updates and downloads. But, what the documentation also said in fine print, was that if I chose not to connect my device on-line at least once a week, I would not get the benefit of fast locking onto satellites. In other words this was a 'silent' feature that was fully controlled by the manufacturer. This concerned me a lot. But, since it wasn't an advertised feature, and since I could still use the GPS, there was not much I could do legally. Of course the whole purpose of slightly crippling the GPS in this manner is to entice the owner ( or should that now be the user?) to go online and in so doing be blindsided by the plethora of pricey offerings the company presents. There were also free items available for download including voices with different accents and images for backgrounds etc along with free updates to the devices features, all honeypot features to keep you attracted . So, over the next year I became a slave to the device and dutifully plugged it into its cradle and logged on to the manufacturers site to receive my silent satellite loading feature, when one one day (just out of warranty) I noticed a new operating system was being offered ...for free! It had a number of features which promised to overcome some annoying quirkiness and so I immediately downloaded and installed. The next time I used the GPS, it no longer had the bluetooth handsfree feature. After scurrying around a number of user forums I found out that "It was new company policy" and the feature had been removed in the new OS. Somehow they had also engineered it that you could not re-install the old OS. This is plainly a breach of contract but what legal recourse do I have over international boundaries for a $700 item out of warranty?This is the control that manufacturers, software developers, music distributors etc all now have by making the internet the primary place of purchase and/or support for their products. It remains a sound marketing practice for global reach, reduced cost of sales and marketing intelligence. While it provides some benefits to consumers, it denies us all the " full possession and full rights of use for eternity" that we would normally expect and that would normally be protected for under domestic 'law of contract'. We have little legal protection against these internet dependency practices which are becoming the norm. The justifcation for this approach remains that multiheaded monster "PIRACY!" which, like the alleged posession of weapons of mass destruction, will be milked as long it needs to be because it plays right into the Marketing Managers hands.Taking my case to the small claims Court against a multinational company headquartered in the Northern hemisphere is out of the question. Did I consider downloading a pirated version of the old OS for my GPS? You bet I did! I was so angry. Still am, but in the end two wrongs don't make a right so instead I forked out another $650 for another manufacturers GPS which has the capability. (I know, I can hear some of you saying.."you **"). If you are still with me, you'll see that some are ready to embrace this new world where you must always be connected to their servers and continually pay companies large and ongoing sums of money for the priviledge of using their products without ever actually owning anything or having any control over how the product will look or perform for you in the future, but that others like me have already been robbed by this new process without any reasonable legal recourse. Worse, I wasn't even robbed by a pirate!!No, Microsoft has not got it right!Terry

You had several options as well as the one of public opinion. You didn't exercise anyone of them in good time. You convinced and conditioned yourself to take it. We all lost ground again in the war all evil forces opposed to honest free trade and commerce because of it. "Buying" = "voting for it", "Not buying" = "Not voting for it". In due diligence "Complaining" = "Bad publicity" = Not good for business = Good Effective Weapon and the only one legal against rotten manufacturers that want to impose their own ways. Shape up next time or ship out cause we can't afford so many losses people. When you want something Make sure you get it just the way you want it or else you are going to keep on taking it and drag us with you in the process. We do not live in an isolated bubble anymore. Our choices count a lot this days.No, Microsoft has not got it right! It seldom has it.MAB :(

Yep, and we'll sell our souls for that little bit more profit. Who would have thought a great American Beer Legend as Budweiser would be sold off to a foreign company. American shareholders didn't care, just give me that little bit more profit. Daimler got hold of Chrysler years ago and the first big shock they had was the shareholders that only care about profit. We'll sell out anything for a profit. Trouble is, the product and people that buy it are the ones that pay the price in the end.

Yes, but a large proportion of shareholders nowadays are institutional, and they have a lot more power than all the individual shareholders put together. You only have to look at the history of MS "games" to see how low their common denominator was aimed at (Monster Truck Madness anyone?).Rob Young

Yes, but a large proportion of shareholders nowadays are institutional, and they have a lot more power than all the individual shareholders put together. You only have to look at the history of MS "games" to see how low their common denominator was aimed at (Monster Truck Madness anyone?).Rob Young

Good point Rob, Shareholders (you would think), would want what is best for a company/corporation to ensure long term operation and profit, but with the issuing of share Blocks, the power of individual shareholders is squeezed by very large shareholders (in themselves, other corporates) who demand a return on their investment on a consistent basis, and it seems to me, regardless of economic or social consequence. Minor shareholders may have revolted at this, or they kept silent because the Dividend was, for a time, consistent and was good. Then Major Shareholders began buying out smaller shareholders with offerings less than those offered to large share blocks and have been getting away with it where the Law fails to prevent this strategy. When the Major Shareholders are not satisfied with the direction or performance, they drive to replace Board members with individuals who more reliably reflect their ideology. In a very simplified explanation, this mindless strategy was triggered because;1: Controls are insufficient on Share Trading to prevent bullying by larger shareholders2: Board members bow to the "Collective" belief that greed is good and controlling the Local/Country/GLOBAL market sector is required so that becomes the overall primary objective for future planning. This strategy obviously, in order to work, requires acquisitions on a regular basis to maintain control of a market type (ie "monopolizing).3: Alan Greenspans' "non interference" and the Free market will police and correct itself strategy. (Even he has now conceded this hasn't worked).I have been following this debate now for a couple of days and I have observed that there a lot of passion here (not hard to do). I suspect the reason is people feel very strongly about this Simulation - to many of them it represents a big investment - in equipment, money and time, so that we don't want it dumbed down or heavily controlled so the money ticket can be clicked at every opportunity. As well, when they took their eye off the ball and shipped way to early, (Driven no doubt by the above rational), it was the community that struggled on trying to make a purse out of a Sows ear. Sure there where good sorts and brave individuals within this Corporate who assisted and pushed for patches, but sadly they were up against a Combine Harvester, not a real human.My conclusion was, and still is, that a large Corporation should have never had control of this Simulator. It is far too important to the community. Thank you Jim, for introducing the topic

Yep, and we'll sell our souls for that little bit more profit. Who would have thought a great American Beer Legend as Budweiser would be sold off to a foreign company. American shareholders didn't care, just give me that little bit more profit. Daimler got hold of Chrysler years ago and the first big shock they had was the shareholders that only care about profit. We'll sell out anything for a profit. Trouble is, the product and people that buy it are the ones that pay the price in the end.

You've hit on (what is in my opinion) one of the biggest problems in the country today. What is going on at Microsoft is a case-in-point.

The system has been running amok for quite some time (about 68 years). The model is exosted. But we do not have a better one either at the present time to replace it. I get the suspicion that it is more a problem of morals (lack of) that is infringing in Politics and Economics and not the other way around. Capital needs to be truly Free and full of Choices (freeware and payware TOGETHER!!!) if it doesn't, Capitalism just doesn't work. But who can explain that to CEO's and Wall Street so called gurus??? The expression: "kill the competition" was meant to be figuratively speaking NOT buying, merging, crushing or putting them out business. Being the only one in town doesn't make you the best, just the only one. Also, how can a company improve itself realistically if it doesn't have anything to compare. On top, people (customers) soon will get tired of the only game in town.IMHO of course,MAB

The system has been running amok for quite some time (about 68 years). The model is exosted. But we do not have a better one either at the present time to replace it. I get the suspicion that it is more a problem of morals (lack of) that is infringing in Politics and Economics and not the other way around. Capital needs to be truly Free and full of Choices (freeware and payware TOGETHER!!!) if it doesn't, Capitalism just doesn't work. But who can explain that to CEO's and Wall Street so called gurus??? The expression: "kill the competition" was meant to be figuratively speaking NOT buying, merging, crushing or putting them out business. Being the only one in town doesn't make you the best, just the only one. Also, how can a company improve itself realistically if it doesn't have anything to compare. On top, people (customers) soon will get tired of the only game in town.IMHO of course,MAB

As much as all of us want this sim to continue I still don't think any of us know the bottom line. I have been at this as long as one can be...Sub-Logic days...the first one. We are all emotionally involved with this product...and that is what it is....a product. Public held companies are mostly horrible. There are always exceptions....but very few. If anyone ever shops at REI it is one of the last true co-ops in the world. Where else can you wear a pair of boots for 6 months and take them back and get your money back and they never question you. You can do this with anything you buy in that store yet they make money...even though it is considered non-profit because all the profits are returned to us the members. Almost the same at Bass Pro Shops. If not happy within 30 days return it for refund no questions asked....and yet Bass Pro has made Johnny Morris one rich man. But these stores sell many items....as does Micosoft...but MS is not going to keep MSFS around to promote good will. What does it have to do with Office or any of their other products? You are right in that we can't go elsewhere for a flight sim. If I want another fishing reel I have many places to go and this is what drives Bass Pro to do a good job. I am still of the opinion that we will just have to wait and see how this all comes out but an article off of MSN the other day actually made me stop in my tracks. The title was "Can Windows 7 Save the PC". Does anyone really think the PC will die? Is the thinking that we will all go to Mac? Upon first read of the article I thought the writer a complete idiot. Now I am not so sure. I must say this is an interesting post to read though.

There are some very good points made in these posts...but there are also some examples that bear no truth to the situation at hand either. One of the common ones I see is the continual reference to the "dumbing down" of FS, and the "negative impact" it will have on CURENT users of FS who have invested large amounts of money, time, etc in their FS hobby already. That is a completely irrelevant and meaningless example.If you already have invested "large amounts of time and money" in FS, and FS runs the way you want it to NOW in it's CURRENT state, then even a "dumbed down" future version is NOT a detrimental issue to you. If you don't like a newer version that you consider to be "dumbed down", then just don't BUY it. You will STILL have a flight simulator that works the way you want it with the investments you already made. This is exactly what those choosing to stay with FS9 are doing. They constantly complain "FSX SUCKS!"...which means THEY think it is worse than FS9...so they stay with FS9. No harm...no foul. Their CHOICE.Their is no need to change to a new technology or product if you already like the one you have. But that DOESN'T mean the new technology or product "sucks" EVEN IF IT IS "dumbed down". What "sucks" to one person may not to another. Want to know why I think MS dropped the idea of a "boxed FS11"? Producing a boxed FS11 just didn't make SENSE anymore, based on what the "user base" was doing. Hell, FSX has been out for over two years now, and we STILL see people ######ing about it and posting things like, "I'm staying with FS9. At least I can run it OK now on MY computer!". So our current "user base" is composed of two factions that are in a continual pissing contest with each other...the FS9 "die hards" and the FSX "let's move on" group. Heck, as a developer, the last thing I would expect to "solve" this and UNITE the FS community would be to introduce ANOTHER version of FS...FS11...that would be MORE "complicated" or "demanding" on hardware requirements, user knowledge, etc. Crap...we'd have THREE different divisions in the FS community then. Talk about making a marketing decision that would ensure a respectable return on investment. Addon developers NOW have to produce addons for BOTH FS9 and FSX users, or they get crucified for abandoning the FS9 crowd. I'm sure the current addon developers would just LOVE to have to produce THREE VERSIONS of every addon they make if a boxed FS11 came out. Talk about putting some of the "smaller" addon developers out of business...many of them couldn't stand the development costs associated with that kind of scenario.Rick

If anyone ever shops at REI it is one of the last true co-ops in the world. Where else can you wear a pair of boots for 6 months and take them back and get your money back and they never question you. You can do this with anything you buy in that store yet they make money...

REI is a shell of it's former self, they were a great store ( not stores ) back when it was just one location on Pike ( or was it Pine ? ) on Capitol Hill. They make money because their prices are way to high, if you are lucky the dividend will make the price about the same as any other store. This really proves the point about something going big and getting ruined, once REI started expanding beyond one store they went down the toilet. I miss that old store with the smell of boot wax and all those staples smashed into the wood floor, and the great deals to be found on the basement floor. Look at Eddie Bower, a Northwest institution ruined by the bean counters and east coasters that took it from a place to get quality outdoor gear to some twisted version of the gap.