I've been out of the game for a number of years due to my employment obligations. When I left, MS was, as far as we knew still chugging along with FS and talk of ACES going away was no where on the radar screen. I returned just recently and found that, well evidentially I had missed alot.Not wanting to turn this into another ACES is gone thread, lets just speculate about what the future holds in general for our wonderful hobby.We have FSX in its present form which is a wonderful sim, its still available to purchase through various vendors and no one can say there is a lack of quality add ons either.We have X-Plane which just released 9.40 and it has a small but loyal following that seems to be growing everyday. So what shall we expect from here on out?Will a new company come out of nowhere and astonish us with a new and improved flight sim that will knock our socks off and leave MSFS in the dust? Will it have a very user friendly SDK for the army of add on developers and will it have a familiar feel to it so those same developers will be able to hit the ground running and continue creating those wonderful additions that hold our virtual aviation attention so well?Will X-Plane slowly morph into a more user friendly and developer friendly package and draw more of a following and dedicated developers who will begin to produce quality add ons similar to those we are willing to buy for MSFS?Or will we just hold where we are now, using FSX and some of the hardcore developers will continue to put out software, tweak and squeeze every last bit of creative juice out of FS for a loyal diehard band of followers as slowly others will migrate to X-Plane as the only other viable option, accepting it for what it is and what it won't be?Or will this hobby just go the way of the old Falcon 4.0 and melt into a very small but dedicated band of followers who you don't hear much about anymore?Just something to ponder and discuss.

I see a bit of a power vacuum left in the wake of the demise of ACES.The bear in me expects to see the flight sim community fractured as people over the long term gravitate away from FSX and pursue the other flightsim's coming other from other companies.Hope I'm wrong and ACES steps back up to the plate.

There is the (pretty high though not confirmed) possibility of Aerosoft developing their own flight sim around 2012 which would be full DX11 and multi-core capable, not to mention that it would retain a lot of compatability with existing modern FSX addons. So that is pretty exciting.X-Plane? It is hard to say where this will end up given that for every $1 sold on Mac/PC they sell $4 for the iPhone. Priorities here could be questionable and of course there is the ever present issue of X-Plane changing a couple of times a year which is not something any serious addon developer would put up with. Perhaps in a couple of years time...Considering what some developers (like FTX down under, PMDG, and a few others) are doing with FSX addons as we speak they seem to be building FS11 all by themselves so chances are there are a good few years yet before FSX becomes outdated. Who needs ACES anyway?And what about this Global Foundry/ex ACES dev studio? Who knows, they are all about cryptic press releases at present so best not to hold your breath...

To be honest with all myflight simming community members. I have the feeling that now, the wonderful FSX product will be able to be used to its maximum potential. Why? Because as people move into newer PCs the power of their machines will be able to handle FSX better. It always seemed that a new FS would come out and the majority of simmers found themselves tweakin ini files and running on lower settings to get a smoother experience. This is the positive I take out of not getting a new MSFS, everyone will have a better crack at maxing our FSX. With all the add-ons, my goodness it seems like it will never die out.I think we are fine for a long while to come.

Will a new company come out of nowhere and astonish us with a new and improved flight sim that will knock our socks off and leave MSFS in the dust? Will it have a very user friendly SDK for the army of add on developers and will it have a familiar feel to it so those same developers will be able to hit the ground running and continue creating those wonderful additions that hold our virtual aviation attention so well?

Just to bring you up to speed on the two promising developments I'm aware of, here are some links:Aerosoft FS 2012 (working title)http://www.forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?showforum=278Cascade Game Foundryhttp://www.cascadegamefoundry.com/So far there's no evidence that the latter group (which is made up of ex-ACES folk) is working on a flight simulator, but if not I still look forward to seeing what they do come up with.Colin

Wasn't Mathijs Kok and Aerosoft the one's who took up the reigns of "ATP-Airline Simulator" which was the creation of SubLogic?

Not wanting to turn this into another ACES is gone thread, lets just speculate about what the future holds in general for our wonderful hobby.

You have made interesting observations. :( My personal opinion on the matter:1) FS9 - FS9 has enjoyed a much longer life than expected thanks to it being an excellent product and to lack of competition (all of which leading to an incredible amount of add-ons), but also because FSX was/is still "ahead of its times" in terms of needed PC resources. I think FS9 will slowly "die". With the word "die" I mean the percentage of FS community (along with developers) using it as the main sim will be (is) steadily shrinking more and more in the next years. I think only a small part of the community, for various reasons, will still use it in 3-4 years from now.2) FSX - I think FSX will have a much longer life than many people think. After 3 years from release, it can be still brought to its knees even with the most powerful PC, especially with "intensive" add-ons. This is also due to the limited support of multicore CPU's. Despite this, I think it will perform better and better on future PC's, and in the years there will be increasing amounts of add-ons developed for a platform that is ultra-stable and with ever-increasing performance on future PC's. I think FSX has at least another 4-5 years as the leading or co-leading simulator in the community, possibly more.3) X-Plane - I think the development of X-Plane as a "prime time" simulator has been, paradoxically, hindered rather than stimulated by competition with MSFS. X-Plane has been able to survive avoiding a "frontal engagement" and cornering those markets overlooked by MSFS: MAC & Linux support, experimental design (by both gamers and aerospace companies), native support for non-fixed-wing/unusual configurations, PCATD & FTD market, etc.X-Plane developers are already now receiving a lot more pressure to improve on the areas it's needed most, and the pressure will increase more and more as new users try it. The most important thing is giving developers (and users) a stable platform, so their development/update strategy has to change, or they're in for the biggest missed chance ever.So, unless they commit this error, I think X-Plane v10 could possibly gain the co-leading position (along with FSX) during his run, and X-Plane v11 could become the main sim of the community.One big problem I could see with X-Plane is that it's entirely in the hand of two people (main coding for Austin and scenery/graphic engine for Ben). So, if either of the two should for whatever reason quit, the development of the product will go through a prolonged (in the best case) or a definitive (in the worst case) stop.4) Other products? - I don't think Flight Gear has a chance of becoming a mainstream sim, since it's still at FS98/FS2000 level at most.At the moment the only interesting project is the Aerosim flight sim. I hope they succeed in their endeavour, but for now I'm quite pessimistic about it. The time/resources needed to develop a generic flight sim from scratch today are vastly bigger than those needed a decade ago, when new generic flight simulators were blossoming every year (Pro Pilot, Flight Unlimited, Fly!, X-Plane v6, etc.). I think that's one of the reasons we haven't seen any new competitor during the last ten years.Marco

2) FSX - I think FSX will have a much longer life than many people think. After 3 years from release, it can be still brought to its knees even with the most powerful PC, especially with "intensive" add-ons. This is also due to the limited support of multicore CPU's. Despite this, I think it will perform better and better on future PC's, and in the years there will be increasing amounts of add-ons developed for a platform that is ultra-stable and with ever-increasing performance on future PC's. I think FSX has at least another 4-5 years as the leading or co-leading simulator in the community, possibly more.I would love to agree with you, but I am discouraged by the fact that FSX is based on a nearly 10-year-old graphics engine. So sure, we can throw a lot of processor power at it up to a point (already reached?), but clock speeds have largely plateau'd and I am thinking that FSX needs raw clock speed (say, 10gHz) more than anything else. My big wish about the FS franchise is that MS would've killed it AFTER it was updated to more contemporary graphics/processor pipelines.3) X-Plane - I think the development of X-Plane as a "prime time" simulator has been, paradoxically, hindered rather than stimulated by competition with MSFS. X-Plane has been able to survive avoiding a "frontal engagement" and cornering those markets overlooked by MSFS: MAC & Linux support, experimental design (by both gamers and aerospace companies), native support for non-fixed-wing/unusual configurations, PCATD & FTD market, etc.I have, for some reason that at the moment I can't figure out, been buying most new XP releases since v3.something (i.e. for a long long time). IMO it's only gotten worse over time about the things that matter to me. For quite a while now, I've been saying "Austin, please stop spending so much time making the tires smoke Most Kewly on touchdown, and more on the basic flight dynamics" but that't not where the money is, esp. since he had the genius master stroke of porting some part of XP to the iPhone/Touch. I can't blame him, but he goes where the money goes.