The following two job openings have come to my attention. I choose at this time not to speculate on what they might portend for the future, but thought others here might wish to do so... :( The first opening is with Microsoft Canada, Aces Game Studio...http://www.microsoft-entertainment-jobs.co...al)-Job/693676/The second opening is with Microsoft USA, Microsoft Games Studio, Flight Live teamhttp://www.microsoft-entertainment-jobs.co...MGS-Job/653341/

Hmmm...Now that is very interesting, very interesting indeed...Stephen

:(

Wow...

The following two job openings have come to my attention. I choose at this time not to speculate on what they might portend for the future, but thought others here might wish to do so... :( The first opening is with Microsoft Canada, Aces Game Studio...http://www.microsoft-entertainment-jobs.co...al)-Job/693676/The second opening is with Microsoft USA, Microsoft Games Studio, Flight Live teamhttp://www.microsoft-entertainment-jobs.co...MGS-Job/653341/

The first position is for a working team lead supervising 2-3 developers. I'll speculate that this amounts to "See if you can make anything from the old FS code base" -- a low-cost low-commitment experiment.The second is for an Xbox-based online service -- golly gee whillikers, a game rather than a simulation.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxIt's over, folks. Get used to it. Except for addons, what you own is what you get. Elvis has not left the building, he is dead.

The first position is for a working team lead supervising 2-3 developers. I'll speculate that this amounts to "See if you can make anything from the old FS code base" -- a low-cost low-commitment experiment.The second is for an Xbox-based online service -- golly gee whillikers, a game rather than a simulation.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxIt's over, folks. Get used to it. Except for addons, what you own is what you get. Elvis has not left the building, he is dead.

Let me clarify ...1 - It's a near certainty that they're going to build something in the online aircraft-related game area, and that this does in fact involve some of the people who had been on the FS team. They may even salvage some of the FS code for this effort.2 - The chances of your being interested in the result are very low. If you were going to be interested, you'd be spending your time on the gaming boards instead of the simulation boards.Thus spake Mikeythustra.

The Vancouver location is really intriguing.MS only recently opened a studio in Vancouver.It must be less than 2 years old; but, I haven

The Vancouver location is really intriguing.

Danny, it's the one I'm keeping an eye on. I really think that in fairness MS should add something like the following to all their job announcements..."Must be quick and agile enough to recover quickly from the vissicitudes of these positions and the indecision of senior management. Hint: don't buy a house...":(

Danny, it's the one I'm keeping an eye on. I really think that in fairness MS should add something like the following to all their job announcements..."Must be quick and agile enough to recover quickly from the vissicitudes of these positions and the indecision of senior management. Hint: don't buy a house...":(

I have a gut feeling this has more to do with ESP than MSFS. I could be wrong however.

hmm..well, there are a few discrepancies in the two listings.I did considered they may not be for the same title.But, still IMO both listings are for the FlightLive project...just written by different managers.It makes no sense to have a tech director 100 miles away...there must be a good reason.We do know, ACES had folks that worked remotely.It may just come down to someone

hmm..well, there are a few discrepancies in the two listings.I did considered they may not be for the same title.But, still IMO both listings are for the FlightLive project...just written by different managers.It makes no sense to have a tech director 100 miles away...there must be a good reason.We do know, ACES had folks that worked remotely.It may just come down to someone

I guess :) ?My impression is licenses don

They NEVER walked away from Halo, they now have Halo Wars, Halo ODST, and the upcoming Halo Reach... they haven't walked away from halo, they have just put Master Chief on hold...

They NEVER walked away from Halo, they now have Halo Wars, Halo ODST, and the upcoming Halo Reach... they haven't walked away from halo, they have just put Master Chief on hold...

Speaking of the Master Chief, from reading the novella "Halo," it's very clear that the author knows absolutely nothing about the military, especially rank courtesies...In one scene he has naval officers saluting the "Master Chief," calling him "Sir," and him bossing them around for crying out loud!

Instead of talking about Microsoft not developing games to be played on PCs, but live gaming, and game consoles, lets talk about Coca-Cola.Anyone remember Coke Classic? If you were not living then, then listen up. If you were around back then, let me refresh your memory and take you behind the scenes. You see, Coke, make that "Coca-Cola" once apon a time was losing market share big time to Pepsi-Cola who was riding on a wave of success from a massive "taste comparison" advertising campaign that was really gaining traction and taking a big bite out of them. It seems to me that one of the slogans, or at least an unwritten subtext of Pepsi's campaign was "Coke once was the real thing." So here is Coke, losing out to Pepsi and all they could say over and over again is "Coke is The Real Thing, Coke is the Real thing, Coke is the Real Thing." The more they chanted it, the more it sounded desparate, and the more Pepsi grew. The press began to notice and Coca-Cola began to take on an odor of fear and failure.Meanwhile, back at the ranch Coke went to work in its labs to do something they swore they would never do, change their formula. They knew that if they dared anything of the sort, they would no longer even have a slogan. They developed a cola that beat Pepsi in the taste tests but the executives were paralysed with indecision. Finally someone flew all caution to the wind and convinced the board to make the change and bite the bullet. The old saying goes "the best defence is an offense, and Coca-Cola likes old sayings. They put together a huge glitzey marketing campaign designed to out razzle dazzle Pepsi and even beat back 7-up, the un-cola upstart. They gambled the entire company one one role of the dice, without a backup plan, that people would opt for the new Coke that was an even better tasting than "Pepsi." It was called Coca-Cola, the real thing, but with a new and improved taste. It was a carefully kept secret until launch day...it was huge, the talk of every town and countryand it backfired, bigtime!In fact it is one of the greatest backfires in business history, corporate suicide. Pepsi-Cola quickly moved to mock Coke, and Coke drinkers for the most part did'nt like the new taste of Coke, thinking it to be too sweet. Thinks got worse daily. Pepsi had won and Coke had lost, while everyone was watching. Then someone got really really smart, or lucky (The smart usually get lucky). Coke announced that they would bottle both the new Coke and COKE CLASSIC, so Coke drinkers would have a choice. The rest is history, Coke took all of its market share back as well as a good slice of Pepsi's. Eventually they quietly took the new Coke off the market. Hardly anyone noticed. A surprise complete reverse can catch competition entirely by surprise. There is my little business lecture for today. It is up to you to draw possible parralels between Microsoft Computer games being shut down in favor of game consols and/or live gaming, too much competition in game consols, impending failure because of flooded console markets, an absence of games in millions of new computers just as the capacity of computers leapfrog upward, a depression, a recession, a great new operating program for PCs and you have the makings of a massive Microsoft opportunity to do a reverse spin and take back what they lost.Get it?Shock and AweQuite possibleStay tuned.Stephen