Can I preorder the NGX? Are you guys going to do that?--I did that with Vertical Reality and Thier F-18 and it was great=paid my money up front, couple of months later got an email that it was out and gave me the download links. It was really easy, convienient and the developer got some money up front. I imagine there were other benefits I was not aware of such as the developer getting some idea of the interest by customers. Would rather pay now (actually my wife because she wants to give it as a gift to me--doll!) than worry about it later (after the post Christmas I'm broke settles in).What ya think?

----------- :( ------------===>[sorry for this]<===

Can I preorder the NGX? Are you guys going to do that?--I did that with Vertical Reality and Thier F-18 and it was great=paid my money up front, couple of months later got an email that it was out and gave me the download links. It was really easy, convienient and the developer got some money up front. I imagine there were other benefits I was not aware of such as the developer getting some idea of the interest by customers. Would rather pay now (actually my wife because she wants to give it as a gift to me--doll!) than worry about it later (after the post Christmas I'm broke settles in).What ya think?

I can pretty much categorically say this is a big NO. As soon as people pay for something they then have a say in when they release etc...as they've put cash up front for it. PMDG will not do such a thing, I can pretty much promise, they don't need cash up front so no advantage there, it'd only cause problems! Another Airbus developer tried this, just look at their forums to see the result!This will be discussed to death I'm sure, it pretty much already hasRegards.

I can pretty much categorically say this is a big NO. As soon as people pay for something they then have a say in when they release etc...as they've put cash up front for it. PMDG will not do such a thing, I can pretty much promise, they don't need cash up front so no advantage there, it'd only cause problems! Another Airbus developer tried this, just look at their forums to see the result!This will be discussed to death I'm sure, it pretty much already hasRegards.

Yeah. You have a point. I agree with you. I was already seeing PMDG saying no but hadn't thought of this. It would bring much more problems than results.PMDG have never done that and all their products are huge success.

Perhaps not a pre-order but what about a PMDG Voucher?I'm guessing it probably won't be released by christmas but a PMDG voucher wouldbe a nice little present under the tree :biggrin:And they wouldn't have to pay the full price of the NGX, just contribute towards it and let thereceiver pick up the balance.

Didn't Ryan say they haven't decided on a price yet?

Yeah, no price as far as we know yet,A PMDG voucher would be a very viable idea I guess??

Taking people's money for unreleased products is not something we're ever going to do here. The whole concept of preorders really applies more to a situation where there's limited supply of a product - for example, you preorder a boxed game like a World of Warcraft expansion because you know there's gonna be millions of people trying to get those boxes at the same time the day it's released. The preorder is in exchange for reserving you a guaranteed copy on release day. There's no such thing as limited supply with a download product like the NGX, so a preorder doesn't even make sense.Many developers who've done paid betas and preorders are actually funding their business with them - again, that's not something we're ever going to do. It's a form of debt financing, essentially getting a no-interest loan from your customers. One only needs to look at a couple of recent examples to see what a disaster that can be.

Taking people's money for unreleased products is not something we're ever going to do here. The whole concept of preorders really applies more to a situation where there's limited supply of a product - for example, you preorder a boxed game like a World of Warcraft expansion because you know there's gonna be millions of people trying to get those boxes at the same time the day it's released. The preorder is in exchange for reserving you a guaranteed copy on release day. There's no such thing as limited supply with a download product like the NGX, so a preorder doesn't even make sense.Many developers who've done paid betas and preorders are actually funding their business with them - again, that's not something we're ever going to do. It's a form of debt financing, essentially getting a no-interest loan from your customers. One only needs to look at a couple of recent examples to see what a disaster that can be.

Ok Ryan--makes sense--Thanks

Would you perhaps sell beta access?

Having a pre-order doesn't make sense if you are just going to get the product on the same day like everyone else. It seems like years ago there were limited copies of items and it was worth pre-ordering. I know that as of late buying something like say a really big Xbox release, you are pretty much guaranteed to get it on the day it comes out because giant retailers like Bestbuy, who order so many in order to cover demand. It seems more like a marketing ploy to me. However, a company like ORBX/FTX offer some incentive by offering the product to pre-paid customers 24 hours before the "official" release. I have bought many of their products this way mainly because of financial budgeting rather than getting it a day early. There is always the possibility of the server not being able to keep up with the demand of general release. I have only seen this a couple of times. One was with the Queen years ago. I know that PMDG has made upgrades to their system to lessen the inevitably of this happening. I guess we will see how it handles with the release of the NGX. I can tell you one thing, I will be at my computer the moment it comes out hitting the buy button so as to avoid any delays. :(

Would you perhaps sell beta access?

You mean like some kind of Extended Team, interesting concept

Considering how well that turned out for the company that did it, I'm gonna go with no...

Having a pre-order doesn't make sense if you are just going to get the product on the same day like everyone else. It seems like years ago there were limited copies of items and it was worth pre-ordering. I know that as of late buying something like say a really big Xbox release, you are pretty much guaranteed to get it on the day it comes out because giant retailers like Bestbuy, who order so many in order to cover demand. It seems more like a marketing ploy to me. However, a company like ORBX/FTX offer some incentive by offering the product to pre-paid customers 24 hours before the "official" release. I have bought many of their products this way mainly because of financial budgeting rather than getting it a day early. There is always the possibility of the server not being able to keep up with the demand of general release. I have only seen this a couple of times. One was with the Queen years ago. I know that PMDG has made upgrades to their system to lessen the inevitably of this happening. I guess we will see how it handles with the release of the NGX. I can tell you one thing, I will be at my computer the moment it comes out hitting the buy button so as to avoid any delays. :(

With what you said about Orbx. So many people pre-paid for FTX PNW, FSS couldn't keep up and so many pre-payers had issues they have to delay the General Public Release until the downloads slowed down.. 4TB later. :(

Gents-One of the reasons that we do not announce release dates is because we have found that putting a pin on the calendar induces an artificial pressure to take steps (read: cut corners) in order to make a release date.Now, obviously we discuss release windows internally- but they are always hypothetical and usually in relation to planning some fixed date event unrelated to the current project.We feel that pre-sales would induce the same type of pressure.If we were sitting on your money right now while wrapping up the NGX- there would be tremendous pressure to "just get it out." I don't want that kind of pressure on the team- and I don't think anyone on the team wants to be thinking about your investment in the project if we get faced with a: "okay- to make this work correctly we need to completely rebuild XYZ, and this could take another month" type of decision.We have seen a number of developers (Think: DCS) move toward open beta testing if you pre-purchase your license for the product - and while this is a bit easier to grasp conceptually for us- I think it puts the same type of pressure in play- so I don't see us doing that.