Microsoft has a history of abandoning products on a whim without consideration of customer goodwill. Especially with MSFS it would be very easy to cut as it is meaningless for the company as a source of revenue or profit. From a business prospective it’s hard to comprehend why they actually bothered to turn the lights back on. Bill Gates bought the flight sim franchise because he was, to some extent long ago, an enthusiast. However as he is less involved with day to day operations now he isn’t likely to step in to protect it. At least with X-Plane it is run by someone who is an FS enthusiast and X-Plane is (presumably) 100% of the company’s revenues. So Austin et al will be much more dedicated to keeping the franchise alive and relevant. So I think MSFT would actually be doing the hardcore FSers a favor by getting out of the market altogether. As it is they are hampering innovation by hanging this sword of Damocles over everyone that is Flight. I mean look at what it’s like right now. Counter to every modern marketing strategy they have almost zero engagement with the people who are the product’s true brand ambassadors. Is it cancelled? Isn’t it? No one really knows because MSFT is a thoughtless, godless bureaucratic monolith (okay I’m embellishing a bit). I don’t think they could do a better job pissing everyone off if they actually tried. It’s the payware guys that keep MSFS alive. Without them I as well as I’m sure many others would have abandoned MSFS years ago. XP10, or any other future alternative, in and of itself isn’t going to make me switch. What will make me switch is the day the truly innovative developers like Orbx, PMDG or A2A say that there is a better platform and that they will start making add-ons for it.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned in this thread is that Microsoft games for windows, no longer exists. There hasn't been a peep about Flight since that division of Microsoft was closed / moved in with Xbox division. Even the Flight web sight hasn't been changed. You'd think at the very least they'd remove the games for windows tag.

Well, MS also kills off projects all the time for reasons that have nothing to do with money (ie office politics - like how ACES got shutdown in the first place :-< ).

Hi Tim! I stated pretty much the same thing shortly after "The Great Sacking of ACES." Few -if any- listened then, and I suspect that few will hear you now. But, at least it did get said. Again.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned in this thread is that Microsoft games for windows, no longer exists. There hasn't been a peep about Flight since that division of Microsoft was closed / moved in with Xbox division. Even the Flight web sight hasn't been changed. You'd think at the very least they'd remove the games for windows tag.

This still exists http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-US/Live/Pages/AboutLive.aspx

I mean look at what it’s like right now. Counter to every modern marketing strategy they have almost zero engagement with the people who are the product’s true brand ambassadors. Is it cancelled? Isn’t it? No one really knows because MSFT is a thoughtless, godless bureaucratic monolith (okay I’m embellishing a bit). I don’t think they could do a better job pissing everyone off if they actually tried.

Do you think Microsoft care what some dude at "Ten Minute Taxi" has to say? I had never heard of him before this. They may have no idea this rumour is even around.

It’s the payware guys that keep MSFS alive. Without them I as well as I’m sure many others would have abandoned MSFS years ago. XP10, or any other future alternative, in and of itself isn’t going to make me switch. What will make me switch is the day the truly innovative developers like Orbx, PMDG or A2A say that there is a better platform and that they will start making add-ons for it.

No they aren't - there are too few of them. What kept FS alive were the casual buyers..

Mgh, I have ask, why make an SDK then?It's an expensive feature and eliminating it would solve a lot of customer issues.So where's the value?For me - I see tremendous value in it - for them.It solves some extremely expensive problems.I say bandsma is right, and removing the SDK would launch FS into obsqurity.So it's part of a strategy to appeal to casual buyers - by staying relevant.Success is also about these sorts of secondary and tertiary effects.

Everybody stay calme Flight is safe....

No they aren't - there are too few of them. What kept FS alive were the casual buyers..

What I mean is that FSX is alive today as a relevant platform because of the payware upgrades. I doubt Microsoft sold very many copies of FSX this year. The casual buyers were gone long ago. On average there is only a window of about 6 months after a game title is released to take in the lion share of revenues.

Do you think Microsoft care what some dude at "Ten Minute Taxi" has to say? I had never heard of him before this. They may have no idea this rumour is even around.

No I don't but the only reason there are six pages so far on this thread is because we have no information otherwise. This is simply an aftereffect of the cause. Any marketer worth their salary today would be telling a client that they need to engage with those customers who are most enthusiastic about their product: hence the rise of Twitter and Facebook as an advertising platform. The ACES team understood this a lot better. However, thus far with Flight, the MSFT approach is to do almost the exact opposite.

Everybody stay calme Flight is safe....

Okay. Glad you came to settle it.

After reading post # 77 what ever I said about flight....I pulled it out of my a$$

Everybody stay calme Flight is safe....

Just so you know how much validity to extend to his most recent post.

It occurs to the me that the only person in this thread who *might* know that is John Venema from Orbx, and he said "I am sure we will all have a curious play with Flight when the demo is released. " That would suggest to me that it is still a go. I think John chose his words very carefully.

Guilty of speculation just like everyone else :)I *assume* there will be a Flight demo simply because there was an FSX demo. I also assume the Flight demo will be island-based, simply because the FSX demo was, and it kept FPS high. A demo is just logical, especially if Flight is using the Xbox Live infrastructure like we think it is.As for Orbx developing for other platforms, we have already started porting to Prepar3D which with v1.2 due out soon will offer substantial performance improvements over FSX and although I am under NDA the stuff coming up the pipeline for Prepar3D will blow people away. The beauty about P3D is that to us, it is "FS11" particularly when we see fundamental things being fixed and improved. There are a bunch of ex-ACES guys working on P3D.

John, you faked me out again, By your comments I was sure at one point you were going to make Orbx Florida, and now this...

Guilty of speculation just like everyone else :) I *assume* there will be a Flight demo simply because there was an FSX demo. I also assume the Flight demo will be island-based, simply because the FSX demo was, and it kept FPS high. A demo is just logical, especially if Flight is using the Xbox Live infrastructure like we think it is. As for Orbx developing for other platforms, we have already started porting to Prepar3D which with v1.2 due out soon will offer substantial performance improvements over FSX and although I am under NDA the stuff coming up the pipeline for Prepar3D will blow people away. The beauty about P3D is that to us, it is "FS11" particularly when we see fundamental things being fixed and improved. There are a bunch of ex-ACES guys working on P3D.

And there you have it folks, in a nutshell with a ribbon. P3D is probably our sim for the near future! Thaks again John. It would take MS 2 years to release that much information.

Now that I have a PC powerful enough to run FSX relatively smoothly at maximum detail levels in even the most CPU intensive airports and scenery areas that I have installed, Flight is even less interesting to me than it was before.

So a simulator that has far superior graphics and could possibly run even better and look better than FSX doesn't interest you? Makes a lot of sense.