Has anyone heard from Microsoft lately???

[Guest allcott]

`The consumer` in THIS forum obviously expects and even demands a SDK. But would 98.9% of customers for this product even know a SDK from a TDK, much less care? There are a handful - maybe a hatful - of developers who `expect` the SDK, but I don't see anything in the box I bought FS9 in to say MS promised one, nor when it might be expected. MS are not contractually obliged or even under any moral obligation to provide one, just because they did for previous versions.Oh, and once again the myth is perpetuated that FS9 is a DX9 game! For the last time: FS9 is NOT, NOT, NOT a DirectX9 game! There are NO DX9 games at this point. Where do people get their ideas from? Anyone who has done their research before posting in this forum knows that. The SDK comes when it comes, or not at all, and no-one here has a single ounce of right to complain. If that causes developers or simmers to lose heart and leave the hobby well, Bye.:-wave Others will wait and see the job done right.Allcott

[Guest Elrond]

"The SDK comes when it comes, or not at all, and no-one here has a single ounce of right to complain."I find that a wholly ridiculous claim, Allcott. What world do we live in today? One where SDKs and post-release support for end-user developers for the multi-billion dollar gaming industry is the *absolute* norm in game development.Just because *Microsoft* has such a horrid policy in this regard makes you claim that, "no one here has a single ounce of right to complain"? Bull whack.This attitude/topic is making me so angry. Why don't people support the developers they claim to care about so much when it actually counts? This includes freeware *and* payware developers alike - every developer is in the same deficient boat when it comes to the SDKs! Why isn't there a stampede of *users* of these addons rallying to the cause of developers who *are* feeling some pain due to MS's flippant attitude?MS Flight Sim almost single handedly *created* the concept of aftermarket game addons years ago. Now, they are so far behind in that support that its a glaring deficiency and point of needless frustration compared to the rest of the industry.And *thats encouraged* by you?Elrond

[tf51d 284]

In fact there are hardly any SDK's that are supported by Microsoft. However as an MCSE, I know that if you call Microsoft, they will always answer questions related to SDK's such as MS Office, MDAC, LDAP, Exchange, SQL, and many others.Your talking about software costing hundreds of dollars vs $50 for FS. In fact they even charge more for the developers version of these other packages.

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Colin,"It's easy to forget that the "enthusiast" segment for the game (i.e. add-on buyers, developers, AVSIM regulars) comprise a fairly small segment of the market. How many AVSIM members are there? Between 7,000 and 10,000 if I remember. A proverbial drop in the bucket for a title like fs." .....Yes, but it is that 'drop in the bucket' that stimulates this market. I wonder how many have been encouraged to buy the sim having been fired by our enthusiasm? How many of those involved in the simulator's development team treat their job as a vocation in the certain knowledge that there are guys like us who can really appreciate the work that they do?This, I am afraid, is what MS is risking. The apparent policy of ignoring the life blood of the Flight Simulator series could ultimately destroy the project and THAT would be both tragic and unforgivable in my book.Mike

[Guest Douglas K]

>I really don't understand your rational here! A car warranty is to fix problems that come up in a time period. Not to add enhancements to the vehicle. (Unless during a safety recall) When was the last time they enhanced your engine or radio etc... under warranty?

[Guest Douglas K]

>Anyway, I'm going away to fly my sim. Say anything around here, and people start throwing stones, it seems. That's OK ... I never question the word of experts in their own field.

[rickalty 0]

Colin:"It's easy to forget that the "enthusiast" segment for the game (i.e. add-on buyers, developers, AVSIM regulars) comprise a fairly small segment of the market. How many AVSIM members are there? Between 7,000 and 10,000 if I remember. A proverbial drop in the bucket for a title like fs." Mike:".....Yes, but it is that 'drop in the bucket' that stimulates this market. I wonder how many have been encouraged to buy the sim having been fired by our enthusiasm? How many of those involved in the simulator's development team treat their job as a vocation in the certain knowledge that there are guys like us who can really appreciate the work that they do?" While I too am waiting for the SDK, I would point out that the market that you're talking about is NOT Microsofts market. MSFS can be expected to sell a million copies. I doubt if more than 1% or 2% of those people will ever buy a commercial add-on. Most will buy the game, or get it as a gift, install it, and play it once in a while using a joystick and no rudder pedals. THOSE are where MS' bread and butter comes from, and they will make far, far more money selling FS2006 to those people than from increased sales to us 'nutters' who build our own cockpits and buy heaps of add-ons. Do Elite and X-Plane support third party developers better than MS? Of course they do - but I'd suggest that the 'typical' X-Plane buyer is a far more serious simmer than the typical FS buyer, and that third-party driven sales are a much more important segment of their market than they are for MS.Just my $0.02Richard

[Dark Moment 0]

No offence taken whatsoever, Douglas, and I hope not on your part either. I shouldn't make posts so early in the morning, myself, if all I can come up with is my three-year-old's war cry.I just always see a glass as half full rather than half empty, I think, and find it hard to criticise after-sales development in a product that doesn't proclaim to provide any; the SDKs are a convenience, not something that you pay for. I can understand why people are frustrated not to have their SDK in timely fashion, but I cannot share the view that we - this chatty little community of hobbyist and commercial developers piggy-backing on the MS product - are as important to MS as some would like to think we are.Flight Simulator is the biggest selling game ever. Period. That's big bucks, world wide, although I haven't a clue how many. What I do know is that the add-on payware business is probably worth somewhere between $10-20 million in total, which is absolute peanuts compared to the MS revenues. Although it is fair to argue that some of these add-ons drive the sale of the product itself and therefore it makes sense for MS to support them, I still think they're a drop in the MS ocean. But then what do I know. I'm just a two-bit (or should that be 24-bit?) freeware developer, so I don't worry, I just be happy.Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

[Guest Douglas K]

>No offence taken whatsoever, Douglas, and I hope not on your part either. I shouldn't make posts so early in the morning, myself, if all I can come up with is my three-year-old's war cry.so I don't worry, I just be happy.

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Richard,"Most will buy the game, or get it as a gift, install it, and play it once in a while using a joystick and no rudder pedals. THOSE are where MS' bread and butter comes from, and they will make far, far more money selling FS2006 to those people than from increased sales to us 'nutters' who build our own cockpits and buy heaps of add-ons."...which is precisely my point. Much of what you say is, of course, true but you must counter this by asking yourself why the developers of Flight Simulator still seem as enthusiastic about the project as ever they were, perhaps even moreso nowadays? I doubt they would invest as much time and hardwon skill if they were simply aiming the sim solely at the casual user. Clearly this is MS's intent, to keep the accountants happy, but I venture to suggest that the reality lies with end users like ourselves who really appreciate what those on the development team are trying to do. All I am saying is that the current sophistication of Flight Simulator grew out of the knowledge that there are folk out there who understand and empathize with the enormous efforts made to great a simulator that affords people like ourselves such enjoyment and satisfaction. As a hobby it takes a lot of beating, I'm sure you will agree. MS's somewhat stubborn attitude towards the provision of decent support now threatens to undermine all that has been achieved, and that would be a shame.It seems clear that nothing is likely to change unless pressure from folk like ourselves becomes unrelenting. We do want to see further real ongoing development, don't we?Mike

[Guest Lizardo]

For whatever it's worth, the latest sales flyer from Micro-Center (national puter store) has FS9 for $39.

[Guest catalinaflyer]

I don't want to play devil's advocate here but do the math. There are 7950 registered users here at Avsim (the undisputed leader in MS Flight Sim discussion groups). Now figure that if MS has ONLY sold 5,000,000 copies of ACOF then the percentage of enthusiasts is something on the order of 00.159%. Looking at the whole MS FS thing from a business prospective, we really don't make a difference even though we as a group probably make more noise than every other purchaser put together.Yes, the FS development team does do this as a labor of love, they still have to answer to the CFO who writes their paychecks and authorizes their collective expense budget for each development. I

[Guest JeanLuc_]

Sounds like good math. However, if this community was so non important for FS marketing, how would then these sites be listed in a dedicated section in here:http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/community.aspI wonder...

[Guest catalinaflyer]

Please don't misunderstand me, I never ever indicated that any community wasn't important to the development team. In fact, that's exactly the opposite, we are very important to them as they use our interaction for development of the next version.I wasn

[Guest Elrond]

Trying to use actual statistics is a good way of attempting to quantify the importance of 3rd party addons (freeware and payware), and thus the importance of 3rd party developers. However, there are too many holes in the math you quoted above.For instance, while there are seven thousand plus registered users here at AVSIM, you don't need to be registered here to read the threads or, much more important, download any of the 40,000 plus files in the library. Also, there are many, many FS related sites on the net, complete with their own libraries of software (and their own anonymous and registered users).I'd think a much more reliable statistic to try and gauge the "importance" of the aftermarket addons to FS's success would be the bandwidth used and number of downloads made here at AVSIM and elsewhere for the actual files.AVSIM keeps stats on this stuff available from this link:http://library.avsim.net/viewstats.phpLooks like at AVSIM alone, there are between thirty thousand to ninety thousand downloads, each and every day (yesterday there were 68,707). Add those averages together and divide in half, then multiply by 365 days and you have a rough estimate of twenty two million (21,900,000) file downloads in the last year. Some of that is for other sims of course, but the vast majority of the library is for FS related files (72% to be precise). Thats 15,768,000 estimated downloads for FS in the past year alone.Thats a staggering (rough) statistic and shows much better the value of 3rd party downloads to FS's success. And of course, that doesn't count any payware from anywhere or freeware from any other FS site on the net.Take care,Elrond