There has not been an update on Flight in over a month, until today. Microsoft has revised the news page on the Flight website to be like a little blog. They have answered some of the questions that many people are asking, but still not giving out a release date, or specific information. I am starting to feel relieved that it will for sure, be a simulator. They also appear to want to have better performance on today's hardware. I sure hope this happens!http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/:(

Given the titles of their questions, I'd swear they were following along in this forum.

Given the titles of their questions, I'd swear they were following along in this forum.

Which means they're taking us seriously!

Which means they're taking us seriously!

Exactly! What ever you do, don't look over at the flightsimworld.com MS flight topic like this one. Nothing but negativity.

I am starting to feel relieved that it will for sure, be a simulator.

Personally I never had the feeling that it wouldn't be a simulator, especially once they said sometime ago that "The new “Microsoft Flight” retains the full fidelity simulation longtime fans have come to expect...."However, I can see why you may wonder what it would be considering all the negative things that have been said about it here and on other FS forums. Frankly, sometimes I hate to even browse the Flight forum due the all the negative posts saying that it will be an arcade game or it won't do this or that, its going to be dumbed down for kids, etc. All of that is just pure speculation and guesses since NONE of us know more about it that the few short videos and a small FAQ, and those that DO know cant talk about it.I will remain on the optimistic side until I either have a copy to try myself or MS finally reveals the whole product and I can read some reviews on it. I can never understand why some always take such a negative outlook on something that is so far from release and very few facts have even been shown to us to make an evaluation. I could understand negativity if we knew more about it, but at this stage it seems a little early to be bashing it already in my opinion.

Given the titles of their questions, I'd swear they were following along in this forum.

I was thinking the same thing, especially given how some of it was worded. At least it seems that they are listening to the feedback so far and can see our concerns.

What ever you do, don't look over at the flightsimworld.com MS flight topic like this one. Nothing but negativity.

To be fair there has been plenty of negative stuff posted here about it as well.

Personally I never had the feeling that it wouldn't be a simulator, especially once they said sometime ago that "The new “Microsoft Flight” retains the full fidelity simulation longtime fans have come to expect...."However, I can see why you may wonder what it would be considering all the negative things that have been said about it here and on other FS forums. Frankly, sometimes I hate to even browse the Flight forum due the all the negative posts saying that it will be an arcade game or it won't do this or that, its going to be dumbed down for kids, etc. All of that is just pure speculation and guesses since NONE of us know more about it that the few short videos and a small FAQ, and those that DO know cant talk about it.I will remain on the optimistic side until I either have a copy to try myself or MS finally reveals the whole product and I can read some reviews on it. I can never understand why some always take such a negative outlook on something that is so far from release and very few facts have even been shown to us to make an evaluation. I could understand negativity if we knew more about it, but at this stage it seems a little early to be bashing it already in my opinion.I was thinking the same thing, especially given how some of it was worded. At least it seems that they are listening to the feedback so far and can see our concerns.To be fair there has been plenty of negative stuff posted here about it as well.

The whole time, I thought it was going to be a simulator, but the comments on the forums just made me slightly unsure. Not anymore! :smile:It is great that they seem to be listening to us! That's really important if they are going to make a great product.There are negative things on here, I agree. But so far, all the replies on this topic have been positive. Over at flightsimworld.com, in the same type of topic, it's nothing but hatred towards Flight. :(

What's not to be positive about. It's like when a band announces they're going to do another album. Instead of hyping the album we seem to be trashing it before we even listen to it.

Well it seems like they're listening and I think Flight is going to turn out awesome. Better GUI and a performance tune-up? Sounds good to me.

The best news contained in the News Page:For starters, we’re still some time away from launching the product — far enough out that we are currently unable to provide any details, such as the launch date.This sounds like it will be essentially a totally new product not just FSX sp3!!Regards, Mike Mann

As we said in the introduction, we’re still early in the development cycle, so the fact that you comment on the similarity to FSX is great! This comment alone should ease some of the arcade concerns. Please follow along with our progress as we continue to release more webisodes, screenshots, and additional information. In the end, we hope that you’ll have a great time looking back at these early samples and being part of the evolutionThe videos aren't in game!

The videos aren't in game!

If by "in game" you are referring to taking place in Microsoft Flight as opposed to FSX, then I would have to concur.Regards, Mike Mann

My take:

1. Microsoft is reading this list! Thanks for listening and, given past experience, I understand you can't participate actively.
2. Glad to hear Microsoft appreciates our "warm welcome back", but please know most of us "never left you" :-)
3. Yes, we will be patient, what's a few more months waiting for MS Flight, given FSX was launched in 2006 and Sandy Bridge (and perhaps even PCIe 3 at twice the data rate of PCIE 2) will be available to build fantastic PC "gaming engines" for MS Flight when MS Flight is finally available?
4. Fears of Microsoft turning FSX into an arcade game have been officially put to rest.
5. Microsoft wants to appeal to a wide an audience as possible, and this is great news because this will maximize sales revenue and therefore assure maximum available R&D resources by Microsoft to keep developing and improving the simulator. FSX had a much less wider appeal, and as a result R&D dropped to zero (the FSX team was sacked and we are now transiting Year 4 without a new simulator version). Remember, projects and products compete internally amongst each other for corporate resources (R&D, marketing, programmers, etc.) and flight simming software is no exception.
6. A better user interface (most welcome since the legacy GUI merited a citation by Amnesty International for Geneva Convention violations, especially so in non-english versions of FSX when translation effectively randomized the listing order of the monstruously huge hardware configuration dialog box list. But, hey, I got to switch 100% of my FSX config to FSUIPC4 :-)
7. Better performance on today's hardware (and even better on Sandy Bridge!)
8. Persistent experience for frequent flyers (I hope this means automatically returning into the sim where you left off and in the same aircraft as you left off with the same cockpit instrumentation configuration and engines/airframe condition and configuration as you left off, *especially* when flying add-on aircraft that model complex aircraft systems/engines with extra DLLs!).
9. Freedom to sim as you wish (as in FSX), so bogie-man fears relating to LiveID are also put to rest.
10. Group flying/simming to be strenghtened.
11. MS Flight Webisodes are done in MS Flight (by implication form "the fact that you comment on the similarity to FSX is great").
12. Please do make sure you keep Pete Dawson involved so FSUIPC5 can be a great add-on for MS Flight as it has been for FSX and FS9!

Cheers,- jahman.PS: The announcement is important enough to warrant reposting here:QUOTEWednesday, December 8, 2010 — Welcome to News from the Development Team!Welcome! We’ve created this section to provide news and updates direct from the Microsoft Flight development team. We’ve been getting all your emails and comments and are creating this central point of contact to respond to your questions. Currently, we’re still early in the development process, so there are many things not yet ready for detailed discussion. We’ll address what we can for now and will provide more in-depth information over time.Since the very first introduction to Microsoft Flight at Gamescom back in August 2010, we’ve received a tremendous response from both new and longtime Flight Simulator fans. We truly appreciate the warm welcome back. For this inaugural “News from the Development Team” update, we want to give you some context for our new direction. For starters, we’re still some time away from launching the product — far enough out that we are currently unable to provide any details, such as the launch date. We apologize for any frustrations this may cause. We can’t wait, either, to deliver this new experience to all of you! We’re delighted to be able to provide a view into our game at such an early time and to share our progress as we get closer to finalizing the product. We’ve never reached out this early in the development cycle before, so hang in there, and we hope you enjoy the sneak peek.A number of you have asked, “Why did you drop ‘Simulator’ from the title of the game?”In addition to the FAQ on this topic, we want to directly address the concern that by dropping the “Simulator” from the name, we’re dumbing down the experience. Quite the contrary! We’ve developed on the “simulation” aspect for many years and have no intension of losing that legacy. What we’re doing now is improving the total experience while building on this legacy, enhancing the enjoyment for all who share a passion for flight. The more people who join us in the Flight experience, the greater the opportunity we’ll have to do even more.Many of you are concerned that because we want to appeal to a wider audience, we must be building an arcade game.We don’t need to create an arcade game to welcome a wider audience. But we do need to improve the total user experience if we’re to be successful in welcoming new audiences into the experience of Flight. The passion and fascination of flight is powerful, with so many different aspects to aviation and different levels of enjoyment to experience. There is distinct value and strength to be gained by welcoming a wider audience, and we can’t claim to have done the best job of it in the past.What does appealing to a wider audience mean?It means improving the user-interface experience, achieving better performance on today’s hardware, providing more focused challenges for people who aren’t quite sure what to do next, and introducing more persistent experiences for people who return often. It also means keeping alive the freedom to go where you want, when you want, and to do what you want. Regardless of their hardware power, piloting experience, or level of interest, many people have enjoyed the traditional flight-simulation experience as a solitary activity. We see a compelling social aspect to the experience inherent in the fun, and we need to better enable and support this dynamic to strengthen the entire Flight experience for everyone.Based on the previous webisode, we’ve heard, “This doesn’t look any different from FSX!”As we said in the introduction, we’re still early in the development cycle, so the fact that you comment on the similarity to FSX is great! This comment alone should ease some of the arcade concerns. Please follow along with our progress as we continue to release more webisodes, screenshots, and additional information. In the end, we hope that you’ll have a great time looking back at these early samples and being part of the evolution. Thank you for all your enthusiasm and support!If you want to get advanced notice of updates to this section and the website in general, please sign up for our mailing list at http://newsletters.msn.com/Insite.aspx?SNID=2893.Thank you, The Microsoft Flight Development TeamUNQUOTE-0-

I wonder if Microsoft could hire a person who could answer a question directly so as to make the answer totally transparent?For example this question and answer from the Microsoft News Page:QUOTEA number of you have asked, “Why did you drop ‘Simulator’ from the title of the game?”In addition to the FAQ on this topic, we want to directly address the concern that by dropping the “Simulator” from the name, we’re dumbing down the experience. Quite the contrary! We’ve developed on the “simulation” aspect for many years and have no intension of losing that legacy. What we’re doing now is improving the total experience while building on this legacy, enhancing the enjoyment for all who share a passion for flight. The more people who join us in the Flight experience, the greater the opportunity we’ll have to do even more.UNQUOTEThey may have given assurances that the name change will not impinged on the simulation aspect of their simulator but in no way do they answer the question they posed in the first place: “Why did you drop ‘Simulator’ from the title of the game?”Regards, Mike Mann

-----------They may have given assurances that the name change will not impinged on the simulation aspect of their simulator but in no way do they answer the question they posed in the first place: “Why did you drop ‘Simulator’ from the title of the game?”Regards, Mike Mann

My guess is that dropping 'Simulator' was simply part of the deal with Lockheed Martin- the latter to have the exclusive right to market their version as a Simulator and MS to make no pretension in that context.Not an unusual marketing strategy when you are selling certain product rights for further development and resale by another company.Alex Reid

I wonder if Microsoft could hire a person who could answer a question directly so as to make the answer totally transparent?For example this question and answer from the Microsoft News Page:QUOTEA number of you have asked, “Why did you drop ‘Simulator’ from the title of the game?”In addition to the FAQ on this topic, we want to directly address the concern that by dropping the “Simulator” from the name, we’re dumbing down the experience. Quite the contrary! We’ve developed on the “simulation” aspect for many years and have no intension of losing that legacy. What we’re doing now is improving the total experience while building on this legacy, enhancing the enjoyment for all who share a passion for flight. The more people who join us in the Flight experience, the greater the opportunity we’ll have to do even more.UNQUOTEThey may have given assurances that the name change will not impinged on the simulation aspect of their simulator but in no way do they answer the question they posed in the first place: “Why did you drop ‘Simulator’ from the title of the game?”Regards, Mike Mann

Mike I think you answered your own question in that last statement. The default software, whether FSX or FS9 is a game when compared to someone using it with payware aircraft, Radar Contact or Vatsim etc. as well as the miriad of scenery and controls available to purchase.Its a case of whatever floats your boat, or in this case Aircraft, really.Mick