All-Hands Internal MS Meeting Turns into a Disaster... (Truth to dissension rumors inside MS?)

[Fsau 0]

HelloThe hard reality is that the computing landscape has changed, The desktop/tower PC is a legacy item now and Microsoft is changing to meet that reality.

Until portable devices can be even remotely powerful when compared to desktop PCs I would hardly call them legacy. Whether MS decided to give up on PC entertainment has nothing to do with the state of PC gaming as a whole, have a look at steam for example, the community is massive. This article is an interesting read while we are speculating on the subject; http://www.extremete...ertake-consoles

[HoratioWondersocks 4]

Us flight simmers are about to become dinosaurs... But if Flight isn't the dream come true that we all hope for, then there is Prepar3D and X-Palne 10 to take us into the future. And let's not forget that it is still possible to have som decent fun in FSX.

And some most excellent fun in FS9.A

[deetee 164]

Rumours concerning the death of the PC have been around for years. When the 360 came out people thought deskop gaming was dead too, well here's the surprise: it's still here and it ain't going away! The PC is a machine that doesn't stand still for 10 years, itks constantly evolving and is still the platform for leading-edge graphics. There will always be a core market for those who want the best available. Simulators are still a popular pasttime and are simply unsuitable for consoles due to the sophistication of their controls or the modding and customization that the genre encourages. The fact that every office has a PC on each desk means OSs like Windows will not go away in a hurry either, with most companies being tied in to Microsoft software. Never underestimate the power of the PC - it may not be the most popular platform for regular gaming but it will never disappear as long as the demand for PC software and games titles is there.

[ubersu 78]

Rumours concerning the death of the PC have been around for years. When the 360 came out people thought deskop gaming was dead too, well here's the surprise: it's still here and it ain't going away! The PC is a machine that doesn't stand still for 10 years, itks constantly evolving and is still the platform for leading-edge graphics. There will always be a core market for those who want the best available. Simulators are still a popular pasttime and are simply unsuitable for consoles due to the sophistication of their controls or the modding and customization that the genre encourages. The fact that every office has a PC on each desk means OSs like Windows will not go away in a hurry either, with most companies being tied in to Microsoft software. Never underestimate the power of the PC - it may not be the most popular platform for regular gaming but it will never disappear as long as the demand for PC software and games titles is there.

I think the essence of the problem can be summed up in your comment "There will always be a core market for those who want the best available". In general, the big guys aren't interested in the core market - they're interested in ROI and quarterly profits. The core market is too small to be of interest to the marketing and accounting departments. MS dropped most, if not quite all, of their PC based games for that reason and put the money into the XBox market because it's much, much, bigger and more profitable. DJ

[ahuimanu 50]

I think you are spot-on in referencing this article. It is (and has been) pre-mature to pronounce PCs and PC gaming dead. What is the case is that many who didn't need a PC now have tablets, etc. They are not those who are playing PC games anyhow. For many genres, nothing will beat the PC. However, it remains to be seen if Microsoft will continue to service this need. They are generally a rudder-less company right now and are chasing the "me too" line too vigorously. If Sony (or someone else, Apple perhaps) comes out with a better console, then their (let's rest our hats on the fickle console market) strategy will backfire. In any case, PCs will not go extinct - they are way too versatile for that fate. As someone noted, until some breakthrough in physics happens, you'll always need a desktop/tower PC to get real power moving.

Until portable devices can be even remotely powerful when compared to desktop PCs I would hardly call them legacy. Whether MS decided to give up on PC entertainment has nothing to do with the state of PC gaming as a whole, have a look at steam for example, the community is massive. This article is an interesting read while we are speculating on the subject; http://www.extremete...ertake-consoles

[Jacoba 56]

Until portable devices can be even remotely powerful when compared to desktop PCs I would hardly call them legacy. Whether MS decided to give up on PC entertainment has nothing to do with the state of PC gaming as a whole, have a look at steam for example, the community is massive. This article is an interesting read while we are speculating on the subject; http://www.extremete...ertake-consoles

Have a look at MS quarterly financial reports... I've posted many here over the past month. ALL of them show significant declines in PC sales and PC gaming sales while showing an increase this year alone of 45% in console gaming sales... You can call PC gaming whatever you like, but they are legacy and the day is drawing to a close... I'd guess everything will be Cloud computing and console based gaming within 5 years.

Rumours concerning the death of the PC have been around for years. When the 360 came out people thought deskop gaming was dead too, well here's the surprise: it's still here and it ain't going away!

MS quarterly financial's say otherwise my friend... PC sales are dropping while console gaming profits are up 45% this year alone.

I think the essence of the problem can be summed up in your comment "There will always be a core market for those who want the best available". In general, the big guys aren't interested in the core market - they're interested in ROI and quarterly profits. The core market is too small to be of interest to the marketing and accounting departments. MS dropped most, if not quite all, of their PC based games for that reason and put the money into the XBox market because it's much, much, bigger and more profitable. DJ

EXACTLY!!!

Yep, their fiduciary responsibility is to the shareholders and their investment in the company. I wouldn't be surprised to see Flight get cancelled or even turned into a console game if it means that they will make more money on it. It certainly wouldn't be the first or last time a product has been changed or cancelled at the last moment, regardless of what they have said, if a business decision needs to be made that can effect the profitabliity of a product. Nothing is ever safe in the corporate world. Point being, regardless of what MS says about Flight, until it's actually released and in your hand, nothing is a done deal and Flight could very well be canned at a moments notice if MS deems that it wont make them enough money.

Yes, indeed. Too many here think MS is building this SIM for the hardcore types who live on Avsim... when the reality couldn't farther front he truth. MS has killed off far bigger projects before that were farther along in development than Flight in the name of profits.

Well, MS cancelled Train Simulator, so they can cancel Flight as well. CEOs have a different mindset than enthisiasts like us. Let's hope they don't cancel, or downsize the Flight team. But I keep in the back of my mind that we live in turbulent economic times and hard choices will had to be made by many companies.

Another spot on observation.

[dmaher 0]

I figure as long as there are desks we’ll want desk computers.What that looks like 10 yrs from now...could be very different.But it'll still be at a desk, with a chair, and an appropriate display.

[Jacoba 56]

I figure as long as there are desks we’ll want desk computers.What that looks like 10 yrs from now...could be very different.But it'll still be at a desk, with a chair, and an appropriate display.

Okay.... I'll give you that. But I think 10 years from now "desk top" computers will look more like really fancy iMac's (basically just a monitor) that operate via Cloud or iCloud. You'll have no local HD per se. It'll all be held en cloud and you'll be able to access your Cloud HD via your "desk top", iPad or whatever and your smart phone. But yes, I feel that traditional PC's are slowly going the way of the dodo bird as the next step in the evolutionary march of the machines arrives.

[bandman 12]

Monitor proliferation wil help maintain the importance of desktops. I have a co-worker who has 8 monitors and every time I go by his office he seems to add another one. I have two and many other of my colleagues have 3.

[JoeD 0]

As I said in another thread, any decisions about going forward with Flight will be made by accountants.Corporate accounts have no connections to reality other than next week's black ink!

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

MS sells the rights to FS to Lockheed Martin and we get P3D... MS wants to stay int he FS gaming business, the lions share of their gaming profits are in Xbox, so they build Flight to be primarily a console based "limited" FS... which is why we've only seen shots of Hawaii for so long now?

I want to make sure that everyone has the facts here, and not jump to false conclusions. MS sold licenses to ESP to more than LMOC. They sold it to a number of companies, including the one I work for (which will remain nameless). LMOC took the ball and ran with it much faster and much more publically than any of the others. What most are missing, it seems, is that ESP is not just a flight simulator, and was not necessarily sold as that, although LMOC seems to have used it for it's first simulation genre' in that way. Just to give you a wide cross section of potential applications that ESP could be used for; ship bridge simulators, SAR training and simulation, UAV flight modeling and pre-mission fam sessions, ground force positioning and expoitation, armor distribution and circles of fire simulations, ranging simulations to model CEP of first rounds on target... to name just a few of thousands of appications that ESP could be used for. So, please do not jump to any conclusions regarding LMOC's first entry as being either a monopoly or limited to flight simulation.

[ubersu 78]

I want to make sure that everyone has the facts here, and not jump to false conclusions. MS sold licenses to ESP to more than LMOC. They sold it to a number of companies, including the one I work for (which will remain nameless). LMOC took the ball and ran with it much faster and much more publically than any of the others. What most are missing, it seems, is that ESP is not just a flight simulator, and was not necessarily sold as that, although LMOC seems to have used it for it's first simulation genre' in that way. Just to give you a wide cross section of potential applications that ESP could be used for; ship bridge simulators, SAR training and simulation, UAV flight modeling and pre-mission fam sessions, ground force positioning and expoitation, armor distribution and circles of fire simulations, ranging simulations to model CEP of first rounds on target... to name just a few of thousands of appications that ESP could be used for. So, please do not jump to any conclusions regarding LMOC's first entry as being either a monopoly or limited to flight simulation.

As I recall, the intent was the development of a networked combined arms training simulation so that all aspects of air-land-sea warfare could be excercised and trained. DJ

[Rocky_53 1,594]

Yet another topic full of inconclusive theories and speculation...

[mmann 72]

As a variation of the infinite monkey theorem, I propose that an infinite number of posts being posted on The Microsoft Flight Forum will eventually nail down all the features of Microsoft Flight!

[JoeD 0]

Yet another topic full of inconclusive theories and speculation...

The fact that accounts now get an ever increaseing voice in their company's projects is not speculation.II also a given that MS is evolving and is io longer the MS of old..