:( You'r so right on this one....these company will be supporting Flight but NO backward compatibility.

FS is a software ecosystem and there's no better way to distroy value in an ecosystem (Metcalfe's Law) than to be incompatible with previous versions, especially when it's technically unwarranted (and being 100% incompatible with FSX is).With the explosion of scenery add-ons available for FSX, it is easy to spend thousands on scenery. MS knows this and respects this (and always has for all of its products!), for there is no wrath worse than that of a disenfranchised software customer.If Flight is a continuation (with an extension) of the FS franchise, and to me at least it is according to my interpretation of the press releases so far, hell will freeze over before MS makes us simmers chuck all our scenery add-ons out the window. Compatibility with aircraft add-ons "might" be another story, not for the 3D models per se as for the .dll extensions to the flight dynamics engine. But quite possibly restoring compatibility for these complex aircraft from the likes of PMDG, A2A and others, while not trivial, will likely not require a complete re-write either and thus could (should!) be offered by vendors at a modest price as an update.Well, that's as far as I got until my crystal ball battery ran out. Dang!Cheers,- jahman.

What will make me buy Flight....DX10. Already in FSXSLI bound and less CPU.Add-ons available online only. Most addons already available online in FSXA new level of connectivity to virtual flight. What? by satellite?Content is updated virtually. Content is updated virtually in FSXCreating an ubiquitous virtual world. The ubiquitous virtual world is in FSXYou can fly solo or join an entire global flight community online. Already in FSXPay as you go. Using today's hardware, SLI, 4GB memory, hyperthreading, 4 + core, if not it's yesterday's hardwares.You can easily connect with and facilitate flight experiences with your friends.New game play elements and enhanced scenery and terrain to new aircraft and integrated content marketplace.Settimgs the stage for all your virtual flight needs while connecting you to a global base of users.

FS is a software ecosystem and there's no better way to distroy value in an ecosystem (Metcalfe's Law) than to be incompatible with previous versions, especially when it's technically unwarranted (and being 100% incompatible with FSX is).With the explosion of scenery add-ons available for FSX, it is easy to spend thousands on scenery. MS knows this and respects this (and always has for all of its products!), for there is no wrath worse than that of a disenfranchised software customer.If Flight is a continuation (with an extension) of the FS franchise, and to me at least it is according to my interpretation of the press releases so far, hell will freeze over before MS makes us simmers chuck all our scenery add-ons out the window. Compatibility with aircraft add-ons "might" be another story, not for the 3D models per se as for the .dll extensions to the flight dynamics engine. But quite possibly restoring compatibility for these complex aircraft from the likes of PMDG, A2A and others, while not trivial, will likely not require a complete re-write either and thus could (should!) be offered by vendors at a modest price as an update.Well, that's as far as I got until my crystal ball battery ran out. Dang!Cheers,- jahman.

Hear me out here, compatibility from FSX to Flight will kill FSX and also kill the Flight store, as you can understand if I can get Flight running with 60FPS min. where ever I fly (just saying)using my FSX addons..well..the heck with Flight addons....trust me on this one FSX addons won't work with Flight.

Hear me out here, compatibility from FSX to Flight will kill FSX and also kill the Flight store, as you can understand if I can get Flight running with 60FPS min. where ever I fly (just saying)using my FSX addons..well..the heck with Flight addons....trust me on this one FSX addons won't work with Flight.

I completely agree. Plus, there has probably been too much changes been made to the shaders anyway, so they may not likely work. Jamie ♥

FS is a software ecosystem and there's no better way to distroy value in an ecosystem (Metcalfe's Law) than to be incompatible with previous versions, especially when it's technically unwarranted (and being 100% incompatible with FSX is).With the explosion of scenery add-ons available for FSX, it is easy to spend thousands on scenery. MS knows this and respects this (and always has for all of its products!), for there is no wrath worse than that of a disenfranchised software customer.If Flight is a continuation (with an extension) of the FS franchise, and to me at least it is according to my interpretation of the press releases so far, hell will freeze over before MS makes us simmers chuck all our scenery add-ons out the window. Compatibility with aircraft add-ons "might" be another story, not for the 3D models per se as for the .dll extensions to the flight dynamics engine. But quite possibly restoring compatibility for these complex aircraft from the likes of PMDG, A2A and others, while not trivial, will likely not require a complete re-write either and thus could (should!) be offered by vendors at a modest price as an update.Well, that's as far as I got until my crystal ball battery ran out. Dang!Cheers,- jahman.

In this case .. if the lack of backward compatibility improves performance. you statement will be false. Also, even if performance was no better in Flight vs. FSX .. that change would not kill it at all. It would only put a very small speck of a dent (if any) in sales. The largest segment of the Flight Sim market has few if any addons and the true enthusiast will by it even if they lose backward compatibility.

@ tierborn"Add-ons available online only. Most addons already available online in FSX" I should have said: Downloaded directly from the store to your virtual Flight.You are right when you said that we can already find most of what I've wrote in FSX cause as I said before they will be using the same (to start with) engine and make it bugs free as much as possible, after Flight is released bugs or problems (if they have some) will be fixed with patches downloaded to your Flight the same way it's done with other games, take Crysis for example, they released a big DX11 high def. patch couple of weeks ago, my system is doing good so far but some of my friend's PC's are on their knees without SLI...

The thing is that while many people who read this forum may buy the game on day one, what will they do with it exactly?They won't have their add-on planes and very likely no FSUIPC. So if they used this software to program controllers, problem one is to find a replacement.So, now they have a joystick and they can fly one of the MS default planes over FS default scenery. I am sure this will be entertaining for a few hours, check out Hawaii - although we already know it pretty well - play a few missions and then what?The game will be shelved until at least a few Quality add-on planes come out. Then we'll find out that these planes are ported over from FS9 and FSX and will have problems that the FSX planes no longer have. So the game will be shelved until a few SPs come out to make the Flight experience at least equal to that of FSX.Yes, the forums will be abuzz with all kinds of stuff when Flight comes out, but the question is just how much actual flying will be done.To answer the OP, I don't think it will be logical to buy Flight on day one, but if one wants to know what everybody will be discussing on the forums for the next two years, one should probably get a copy at some point - and keep flying FSX for a good while.

It just needs to come out. :(

In this case .. if the lack of backward compatibility improves performance. you statement will be false. Also, even if performance was no better in Flight vs. FSX .. that change would not kill it at all. It would only put a very small speck of a dent (if any) in sales. The largest segment of the Flight Sim market has few if any addons and the true enthusiast will by it even if they lose backward compatibility.

The false dichotomy is that a certain degree of backwards compatibility with FSX will slow Flight down. It could, but not necessarily.Take scenery, for example: Scenery could be directly compatible or, if not, you could be required to install the FSX scenery and then run a utility to convert the files automatically into the new format. You might even get a discount coupon for a vacation in Hawaii while your PC chugs along for a week converting the scenery (similarly like you today can convert all your aircraft bitmaps to the more advanced .dds format if you so desire).What I disagree with is the idea that it's either performance or compatibility.Also, like the FS9 to FSX transition that "broke" scenery because FS moved from a flat simworld to a round on, well, my hunch is the simworld will continue to be round in Flight. Another source of compatibility problems, this time for aircraft, was the addition of an alpha channel. But that's been done, so it's no longer a problem for porting aircraft to Flight. OK, so your FS aircraft will only have 4096-bit textures instead of new fancy 64K textures in Flight: Then if you're not satisfied with the "FSX look" of your aircraft, you will eventually be able to purchase an upgrade for Flight.Cheers,- jahman.

The thing is that while many people who read this forum may buy the game on day one, what will they do with it exactly?

Fly.

They won't have their add-on planes and very likely no FSUIPC. So if they used this software to program controllers, problem one is to find a replacement.

Something tells me the default aircraft will be a bit more advanced that previously were.

So, now they have a joystick and they can fly one of the MS default planes over FS default scenery. I am sure this will be entertaining for a few hours, check out Hawaii - although we already know it pretty well - play a few missions and then what?

And then you go fly where ever else you choose. (and I know someone will say this, so don't even..."you have to pay to fly somewhere else")

The game will be shelved until at least a few Quality add-on planes come out. Then we'll find out that these planes are ported over from FS9 and FSX and will have problems that the FSX planes no longer have. So the game will be shelved until a few SPs come out to make the Flight experience at least equal to that of FSX.

FS9 planes are guaranteed to not work and FSX aircraft may not even seeing the advancements made in visuals. And the overall improvement of the default sim should be enough to keep a user exploring for a while. I think we can say that just looking at it.

To answer the OP, I don't think it will be logical to buy Flight on day one, but if one wants to know what everybody will be discussing on the forums for the next two years, one should probably get a copy at some point - and keep flying FSX for a good while.

Any real flight sim enthusiast that runs FSX should buy Flight from day one and at least give it a go. People spend 100s of dollars to make FSX look as good as Flight when they can get a new sim that looks just as good for what.....about $50? Seems like many simmers will at least want to give Flight a try.

Any half decent alternative to FSX is enough reason in itself.

I think it would be interesting to hear people's thoughts on the following question:What features and/or attributes would MS Flight have to have in order for you to switch from your current sim (FSX, FS9, or other) to MS Flight?

After having been in this hobby since basically the beginning and finally getting to just about what I want out of a sim with FSX I will say the following. I jumped into FSX a little early from the stand point of there not being a lot of addons available for it yet, namely airports. Although I didn't have FS9 loaded down as much as I do with FSX now, there were a lot of places and airports I liked to fly to in FS9 that had yet to be developed for FSX, as well as a/c like the PMDG 737 which is just now comming online soon. So basically I was limited to a few a/c and a handful of airports while I patiently waited for more to come. I considered going back to FS9 but just couldn't take the graphics after using FSX.Having said that, I will not make the same mistake with Flight. This time, even if it takes 2 or 3 years after the launch, I am not going to move over to a new platform until I have a substantial amount of addon airports to choose from and at least 2 or 3 of my favorite a/c to fly ie. PMDG or LDS. So for me personally I am just going to have to sit back and wait to see what Flight offers aside from what we have seen so far. If my favorite developers like PMDG, LDS, FSDT, FlyTampa, and a few of the others come forward and say that they will be easily able to port their FSX sceneries to work in FSX, either for free or at a substantial discount, and in a short time frame, then I will most likely be moving to Flight if performance is indeed better than FSX. However, if the situations with the addons doesn't materialize like that and I need to wait out a 2 to 3 year developement cycle to get to where I am with FSX, then I will just have to sit tight until that point comes.If I was a very casual simmer and was happy with default a/c and default airports then I would probably get Flight the day it's released and give it a shot, but I am not a casual simmer and rely on my addons to make simming as enjoyable as I find it now in FSX. I will say that from what I have seen so far Flight looks like its shaping up to be a great looking sim from a visual standpoint, but now I just need to wait from the developers to break their silence when the NDA is lifted and be able to say what they can do with it and how long it is going to take. At that point I will know which direction I am headed, but I will not be buying and installing Flight just to do it and try it out.

It boggles my mind that people on this board will pay 50 bucks for an airport scenery like it's nothing but then debate whether they'll buy Flight, a full featured product, for the same price if it doesn't mean every little demand they have.

I could say that it boggles my mind that people can stand flying into plain looking default airports, but the beauty of being an individual, a consumer, and a flight simmer, is that we can each make the choice of what we want or dont want in our simulators and how detailed or complex we want to make them.I'm not so sure there is any one airport scenery that cost 50 bucks in USD anyways, but yes, I have no hesitations to spend $20 to $35 on well made airports like those made by FSDT or FlyTampa. In the end I supposed it just comes down to what level of detail your interested in, hence the reason you can fly either the stock a/c or you can buy stuff from PMDG or A2A. When it comes down to starting or ending a flight I much prefer to do it at an airport that resembles the real world version as much as possible, period. For those of us who travel a lot, some of us find joy and happiness in being able to recreate a flight we did in real life between two large hubs and even in the same model a/c we flew on in the actual real flight. For me, living in the Dallas area I really enjoy doing flights between KDFW and Ft. Lauderdale KFLL, which is a flight I do often in real life for vacation. I am lucky because these two airports are done by FSDT and I can enjoy landing and taking off from each one, in what is a great rendiditon of what each airport looks like in real life. Prior to those two airports being released, I did flights between them, but it was no where near as enjoyable, in fact, I would say that I have gotten more pleasure from my KDFW addon airport than I have just about any other scenery I own.

As long as it plays good on new hardware, and looks as good as the screenshots, I know I will be playing it. End of story. I DONT want FSX 2.0. I want a NEW flight sim, and if I have to sacrifice backwards compatibility, good! Because the only way you can get backwards compatibility in Flight, due to the VERY COMPLEX nature of aircraft, is to just put lipstick on FSX and call it new. I dont want that! Also, supporting old add-on's will kill profits for 3rd party dev's. It would also open the door to massive piracy! A problem thats killing dev's right now. So 3rd party dev's would have no incentive to make new aircraft using new technology. Then, Flight's store would have nothing to sell. Without a store full of products too sell, you entire store is USELESS. So you want as many 3rd party dev's to be working on this since you can only do so much internal. Henry Ford said it best when he said "I would rather have 1% of 100 people's efforts, then 100% of my own".

Finally planting their feet in the ground and truly moving on to the newer era in computers and related hardware.Bob (Las Cruces, NM)

...This time, even if it takes 2 or 3 years after the launch, I am not going to move over to a new platform until I have a substantial amount of addon airports to choose from and at least 2 or 3 of my favorite a/c to fly ie. PMDG or LDS.

This of course is exactly the reason why Flight will for the most part be backwards-compatbile with FSX.The situation is quite similar to launching a new OS: How would the adoption rate for the new OS fare if no Apps are available from the start? This is why OS versions need to be backwards compatible. TAnd the need for backwards compatibility is not just something Microsoft knows, it's the Bible they go by.Cheers,- jahman.