Just to clear up some misconceptions, the limitations on Prepar3d are all related to pricing and marketing

Sorry Tim, my fault. I thought I'd read that Microsoft sold esp on that condition. I must have made it up!

Maybe they are going on their well deserved (we'll see!) vacation before the product goes into final or even release.

Which is just another way of saying that the target user is the commercial market.

The FS target was the commercial market, as is any product that isn't freeware. I bet you 90 percent of the users here on Avsim have blown waaaay more than 499 Bucks on FS stuff. It's not as big a barrier as you might think to a reasonably dedicated simmer, I paid approaching that price for Airline Simulator 2 a few years ago, and that was a DOS program and I recall that many people said they would cheerfully pay 200 quid for the PMDG NGX before its price was known. Al

The simple answer: no, they are on vacation. According to the above post by "Poplar" they are on vacation until October 5th, which seems like a pretty long vacation although not nearly as long as the one Microsoft gave the ACES Studio.

Maybe too simple of an answer ;)Lol, it reads like you’re saying the entire Flight team is on vacation…not an individual.Poplar received an auto reply from the individual his request got forwarded to.You can't concule much from that.

Just to clear up some misconceptions, the limitations on Prepar3d are all related to pricing and marketing - ie we can't sell a product at an "entertainment price level" and we can't market it as an entertainment product. But ANYBODY who wants to buy a copy (either a full seat license or a developer subscription) is free to do so (there's no limitation on how you use it, just how we sell it :-> ).

What can a commercial developer do wth Prepar3d? Could such a developer package up a whole range of add-on aircraft, scenery etc together with Prepar3D and put the whole package on the market? If so, what would the developer have to pay LM to do this?

What does it cost ?

What can a commercial developer do wth Prepar3d? Could such a developer package up a whole range of add-on aircraft, scenery etc together with Prepar3D and put the whole package on the market? If so, what would the developer have to pay LM to do this?

Generally, smaller ISV's would probably do things like create a package with custom local sceneries, specific target aircraft, training missions, etc and sell it to say a local flight training school, flying club, FBO, etc. What you would have to pay Lockheed Martin for would be the $499 per seat license fee for each machine you provided as part of your solution. What you charged your customer for the whole package would be up to you. Larger ISV's might also include custom hardware, like the Redbird Simulations folks do with their motion platform and multi-LCD wrap around view (or LM's own MFTA based systems). Or target larger/regional/national flight schools (or maybe type familiarization for an aircraft manufacturer). Another option would be to put together a "timed experience rig" (ie you know, like those motion platforms with the roller coaster sims you see at county fairs), but using Prepar3d to allow a "Fly for x minutes for y bucks" sort of rig you could take to county fairs. In all the above, the only payment to Lockheed Martin would be the $499 for a seat license for each machine in the solution that has Prepar3d installed on it. The SDK is a free download, and the developer network subscription is optional.

I'd pay $500 no problem if it was a meaningful enough upgrade. Thus far however from the website I can't see how Prepar3D is that much different from FSX. Can you give us some more info on it Tim as to what the improvements are or will be? Addendum: never mind I found it here http://www.prepar3d....ient/#landclass. Looks like those spinning 2D clouds are still around.

Yep my wording made it sound like the whole team were on vacation, but I only got this out of office from the one email address. Try it now and see, submit feedback to [email protected] and watch the OOO come back into your email inbox.

So anyone wishing to market something like FSX would have to pay LM $499 for each sale?

$499 for a sim? Well I did pay $200 for Aerowix PS747 simulator went it first came out in 1997

I always said that if Windows took 30 minuts to start, and FS also took 30 minuts, but after that it was amazingly fast I dont care.But we have the oposite, long starts and slow as molasses. FSX for example is just rediculus.Compared to fs9 it just shows a bit better terrain, an a tad better mesh, but at a frame rate hit unseen. Just compare stock fs9 LOWI with FSX. How much more do you see? FSX seems to be broken somehow. So, we hardore simmers like to pay 200USD or more for something good, money isnt the issue. Neither are "features".

Maybe too simple of an answer ;)Lol, it reads like you’re saying the entire Flight team is on vacation…not an individual.

That would explain the MS insider info passed on to 10 Minute Taxi.

Anyway i believe the saying is 'no news is bad news' or something like that...

I wonder. Did the MS Flight team go to Hawaii for their vacation?