I was heart broken when I heard that Microsoft canned the ACES team back during the last recession / crash of 2008. While I'm happy that FLIGHT is basically more or less a reincarnation and successor... I have mixed feelings about this. It seems that the general bigger picture trend is that PC gaming is dying and giving way to consoles (xbox, ps3, wii, etc), and casual gaming on the tablet (ipad, kindle fire, etc) and small form factor gaming on mobiles and smart phones (what the heck is X-Plane doing making an ipad / iphone/ apple version of their supposedly ultra-realistic flight simulator? ) ... its just a shame really... I've always been a desktop type of guy and never really even liked playing games on laptops... Now I hear all this talk about a FLIGHT 2012. You know its gotta be bad when Microsoft drops the "Simulator" out of the name to appeal to the massess... its not like FS9/FSX was "hardcore" to begin with anyway... it was always the third party addons like PMDG et al that made Flight Simulator what it was really meant to be... Microsoft Flight Simulator was always the "addon" while the PMDG 747 etc was the "real package". But PMDG and other payware companies are structurally constrained by the underlying platform.. I have both FS9 and FSX, and I seldom fly the "stock/default" planes. I also have PMDG 744 for both version. Recently I was playing around with both of them back and forth (some other unrelated test I was doing) and realized the flight dynamics is in many way more "realistic" in FS9 compared to FSX. This seemed to be true in both the stock and payware addons. It is hard to exactly quantify but definitely there is a significant different to the way a stock/default Cessna flies in FSX compared to FS9. In terms of not only aerodynamics up in the air but also motion on the ground. The PMDG 747 for FS9 also flies more realistic than the FSX version and it almost seems like the FSX version is more fake/ watered down/ archade-ish.... I remember reading some articles/forums on here a while back when PMDG admitted that for their FS9 747 port to FSX that the 747 FSX flight dynamics had to get significantly tweaked to become "real" again compared to the FS9 version, but when I did a forum search nothing came up so I can't reference that article... Does anyone else realize this or has everyone just forgotten FS9 already? Will this trend continue into Flight 2012? What if eventually for business reasons PMDG is compelled to switch over to the FLIGHT 2012 platform and all the addons just become faker and faker in terms of actual flight dynamics and realism? Could the handicapps and flight dynamics limitations of FSX be the reason the PMDG737NGX has such a messed up flight dynamics on landing and approach? Maybe the 737NG (new) would be more real had it been coded in FS9? It seems like everything Microsoft does these days are all in the general direction of more and more "dumbed down"... just look at Windows 8 metro interface... and now we have FLIGHT but not simulator... Also in terms of graphics... FS9 has a sort of ambiance about it that is lost in FSX. For some reason the graphics on FSX seem more "glossy" (for lack of better word) and eye-candy (in a bad way... not as in Crysis wow sort of eye-candy) and "fake"... And truth be told, on all but the absolute best hardware, the graphics in FSX actually turns out WORSE than FS9 because FSX was coded so inefficiently that you would have to suffer worse framerates and still have to turn the graphics down so much that you are better off just playing with FS9 with settings all maxed out and on silky smooth frame rates. FSX was coded for high GHz CPU that never came... instead it went the way of multi-core, parallel processors, GPU, 64bit, etc... and FSX cannot take advantage of any of this.So effectively FS9 has better graphics than FSX and better flight dynamics. And in that case, what is the point of switching? I don't want to pay and go into the trouble for the privilege downgrading to a worse experience! I fear that FLIGHT 2012 will be another step in the wrong direction and we will all have to live with the pain. The point is... FLIGHT 2012 is definitely going in the wrong direction. Yes I know on the website they promised FLIGHT to retain full "fidelity" that we simmers have come to expect.... BUT Microsoft makes promises and breaks them all the time (a la Alan Wake, Intel hyped "multicore" processors to sell this game but eventually Microsoft made it a "VISTA" exclusive and then XBOX exclusive and dropped PC altogether...) It does not bode well that this FLIGHT 2012 is actually coded for the XBOX console and then simply ported over to the PC (look at GTAIV for example, the port was so inefficient that even on the highest PC hardware the graphics and framerates are WORSE than on the lowly xbox360!) Everyone is selling out even Crytek and Crysis once it was on multiply platforms just lost the "feel" it had when it was PC exclusive... its hard to describe but there was definitely a notable difference in the many subtle ways the game performed. Even the legendary John Carmack sold out and traded a mouse and keyboard for an xbox controller. In my opinion, its ironic and sad at the same time... a bittersweet reminder of the bygone PC gaming era. This FLIGHT 2012 is going to be meant to be played with XBOX360 controller and xbox kinetic. Basically that means to me its geared towards the watered down living room entertainment system. People who get bored of watching Netflix and then swap over to flapping their arms to fly some airplane to get some exercise... You know its no good when its "GAMES FOR WINDOWS LIVE"... and you get badges and awards for "playing" a FLIGHT (ex-simulator).. Anyone else feels like FLIGHT 2012 is a slap in the face to simulator fans and worse than not having it in the first place? Remember the good old days of PC fight simulator when you could simulate 99% of the Boeing 747-400 on a MS-DOS computer running Aerowinx that installed only takes up a couple of megabytes on the harddrive? It seems we are asked for more and more but getting less and less. I just have the general feeling that something is definitely not right and it could and should be so much better than this and that something has definitely gone very wrong. It feels like the simulator industry took a wrong turn somewhere and never got its groove back.

I was heart broken when I heard that Microsoft canned the ACES team back during the last recession/ crash of 2008. While I'm happy that FLIGHT is basically more or less a reincarnation and successor... I have mixed feelings about this. It seems that the general bigger picture trend is that PC gaming is dying and giving way to consoles (xbox, ps3, wii, etc), and casual gaming on the tablet (ipad, kindle fire, etc) and small form factor gaming on mobiles and smart phones (what the heck is X-Plane doing making an ipad / iphone/ apple version of their supposedly ultra-realistic flight simulator? ) ... its just a shame really... I've always been a desktop type of guy and never really even liked playing games on laptops... Now I hear all this talk about a FLIGHT 2012. You know its gotta be bad when Microsoft drops the "Simulator" out of the name to appeal to the massess... its not like FS9/FSX was "hardcore" to begin with anyway... it was always the third party addons like PMDG et al that made Flight Simulator what it was really meant to be... Microsoft Flight Simulator was always the "addon" while the PMDG 747 etc was the "real package". But PMDG and other payware companies are structurally constrained by the underlying platform.. I have both FS9 and FSX, and I seldom fly the "stock/default" planes. I also have PMDG 744 for both version. Recently I was playing around with both of them back and forth (some other unrelated test I was doing) and realized the flight dynamics is in many way more "realistic" in FS9 compared to FSX. This seemed to be true in both the stock and payware addons. It is hard to exactly quantify but definitely there is a significant different to the way a stock/default Cessna flies in FSX compared to FS9. In terms of not only aerodynamics up in the air but also motion on the ground. The PMDG 747 for FS9 also flies more realistic than the FSX version and it almost seems like the FSX version is more fake/ watered down/ archade-ish.... I remember reading some articles/forums on here a while back when PMDG admitted that for their FS9 747 port to FSX that the 747 FSX flight dynamics had to get significantly tweaked to become "real" again compared to the FS9 version, but when I did a forum search nothing came up so I can't reference that article... Does anyone else realize this or has everyone just forgotten FS9 already? Will this trend continue into Flight 2012? What if eventually for business reasons PMDG is compelled to switch over to the FLIGHT 2012 platform and all the addons just become faker and faker in terms of actual flight dynamics and realism? Could the handicapps and flight dynamics limitations of FSX be the reason the PMDG737NGX has such a messed up flight dynamics on landing and approach? Maybe the 737NG (new) would be more real had it been coded in FS9? It seems like everything Microsoft does these days are all in the general direction of more and more "dumbed down"... just look at Windows 8 metro interface... and now we have FLIGHT but not simulator... The point is... FLIGHT 2012 is definitely going in the wrong direction. Yes I know on the website they promised FLIGHT to retain full "fidelity" that we simmers have come to expect.... BUT Microsoft makes promises and breaks them all the time (a la Alan Wake, Intel hyped "multicore" processors to sell this game but eventually Microsoft made it a "VISTA" exclusive and then XBOX exclusive and dropped PC altogether...) It does not bode well that this FLIGHT 2012 is actually coded for the XBOX console and then simply ported over to the PC (look at GTAIV for example, the port was so inefficient that even on the highest PC hardware the graphics and framerates are WORSE than on the lowly xbox360!) Everyone is selling out even Crytek and Crysis once it was on multiply platforms just lost the "feel" it had when it was PC exclusive... its hard to describe but there was definitely a notable difference in the many subtle ways the game performed. Even the legendary John Carmack sold out and traded a mouse and keyboard for an xbox controller. In my opinion, its ironic and sad at the same time... a bittersweet reminder of the bygone PC gaming era. This FLIGHT 2012 is going to be meant to be played with XBOX360 controller and xbox kinetic. Basically that means to me its geared towards the watered down living room entertainment system. People who get bored of watching Netflix and then swap over to flapping their arms to fly some airplane to get some exercise... You know its no good when its "GAMES FOR WINDOWS LIVE"... and you get badges and awards for "playing" a FLIGHT (ex-simulator).. Anyone else feels like FLIGHT 2012 is a slap in the face to simulator fans and worse than not having it in the first place?

LOL Talk about a rant.... --Just chill out and wait for Flight.. It's gonna be nice

LOL Talk about a rant.... --Just chill out and wait for Flight.. It's gonna be nice

Ammmmaaaazing! Many folks still love FS9 and with the newer machines and addons FSX is better than ever! We have Flight and X-10 in developement and if that is not enough, we have PrePar3D being improved every day by old FSX developers who know where are the bodies are buried in the code. I can't remember a time when the future looked brighter for True flight simmers yet we seem to all be using way to much Prozac!! We as a community have to learn to accept that some days are sunny and warm! Get over it. You can not have all dark and stormy weather everyday, alt least not on this planet. Take off the tinfoil hats and enjoy good news for a change!!

I was heart broken when I heard that Microsoft canned the ACES team back during the last recession/ crash of 2008.

If that broke your heart what will happen when something serious happens to you?

It does not bode well that this FLIGHT 2012 is actually coded for the XBOX console and then simply ported over to the PC (look at GTAIV for example, the port was so inefficient that even on the highest PC hardware the graphics and framerates are WORSE than on the lowly xbox360!)

Mate what are you talking about? Flight 2012? coded for Xbox? PC port? By the way GTA 4 ran just as smoothly on a decent PC using the same settings as seen on the console version, not to mention that it still had frame rate issues on Xbox. The issues with poor comparable performance only came apparent when you cranked up the graphic, traffic and AI settings and even then it ran fairly well on high end hardware.The rest of your post I think has been done to death already.

I wasn't going to invest any time responding to this thread, until I read the two locked threads the OP instigated in the FS9 and FSX forums. While the screed is impressively written, well-structured and articulate, it is completely absent any credible factual statements. The most egregious of which is the claim regarding the flight dynamics. The simple fact is that the flight dynamics really haven't changed significantly from what they were in FS2002. Which is honestly a real pity, because it is this one area -truly the heart of any flight simulator- which should have received the lion's share of past development efforts...

Microsoft is putting emphasis in all the wrong places... which is what is so worrying to me.

And that statement really sums up all the problems a flight sim developer faces. For me the scenery is by a large margin the most important part of the sim. A developer simpely can't please everybody.

I personnaly feel that if he said one right thing, it was the way the aircraft behave. I think they're inferior to FS9 (vs FSX). The default LJ45 is definitely different from the FS9 version. Everything else; taken with a grain of salt.

I personnaly feel that if he said one right thing, it was the way the aircraft behave. I think they're inferior to FS9 (vs FSX). The default LJ45 is definitely different from the FS9 version. Everything else; taken with a grain of salt.

Cup of tea...that's what the guys are drinking here, as for me I'll stick with beers.

What worries me is that Flight will be limited to 1 region and General Aviation Aircraft only.To date the only thing coming out of MS Flight Publicly has been screenshots only in Hawaii and only single engine aircraft. To me it seems they are doing what the Flight Unlimited series did back in the 1990's with a regional based general aviation simulator.Flight Unlimited 1, 2 and 3 was still very good and very innovative for its time but I always went back to MSFS as I prefer global based simulation and the option of flying commercial airliners.Cheers

I guess you too don't quite understand what "the whole world" means so maybe: TWW is easier to understand.

Hi,i read a lot on here and consider things but don't post much...lots of opinions already,but thought i'd give posting a go.I can understand peoples reservations of Flight being dumbed down and for the masses,but this is still speculation at this point.Myself,i hope it isn't...from the screenshots Flight is looking fairly believable as a simulator,i can't see any advantages of taking features out to make it less "real" other than your pc doesn't have to work as hard thinking about advanced systems and such.I may be setting myself up for disappointment in that i'm hoping for a believable atmosphere,better enviromental sounds where you can hear 747's the way they sound when living near an airport...Lastly,if it is limited to specific regions,i am looking on the positive side of quality over quantity,to even have the opportunity of tailoring your sim to fly with well produced,life like locations of your choice is a bonus for me :)It is similar with the upcoming X-Plane 10,i can't see the whole world being that well realised,but the opportunity is there to make it happen.I'm looking forward to it :)

Looking into my Crystal Ball (had to find it first & dust it off)Lets see, connecting, connecting - OK here we go;No real MS info passed out, requires SliverLight to preview what little info is released,Pro Developers not talkingForum treads closedEnter Lockheed Martin's Prepar3DThe Chrystal Ball predicts Microsoft Flight will be a dummied down Ipod version of Windows Live Games genre requiring a live connect to MS Virtual Earth,heavily Dependant on SilverLight, no open SDK, official addon portal, not compatible with FSX addons.HEY, what the .... SilverLight is automatically downloading and installing now on the Chrystal Ball.WOW - here's a new update from MS, Flight will be like the greatest experience ever and like everyone will love it and they will finish it like really soon.Whew, I feel much better now.my 2 cents worth_w-b

I guess you too don't quite understand what "the whole world" means so maybe: TWW is easier to understand.

Yes JSkorna you've expressed your POV many times on here. This was just my POVWhat is seriously flawed about FSX is that they've released a product that sells for about $80 or $90, and that only makes up for a fraction of its end user spending. Consider I've invested well over $2000 in FSX Third Party Development software since it's release, therefore Microsoft has only received a small percentage of my total spending.Compare that to the business model of XBox and no wonder the execs at Microsoft pulled the plug on the franchise. Why would they continue with it the way it was.JSkorna I don't believe for a second you have any inside information on what MS Flight will be however I can speculate that your days as third party development just might end with FSX...Unless MS Flight is on the Games For Windows Live and you have to sell your products on their network and give them a percentage.....But that is a big 'IF'- they would have to create some sort of partnership with guys like you. Maybe that is coming...Maybe not.But the freedom of the Third party Developer for MSFS is most likely over.I've used other Flight Sims over the years and what always brought me back to MSFS and now FSX is that it is global and no shortage of additional products from guys like you.....This is why users like me are expressing frustration on forums like this. We just like it they way things have been and would like to see the franchise improved and not overhauled....OH WELLRemember what EA did to our beloved Sim City Franchise....That is what happens when you re-invent the wheelCheers.

Looking into my Crystal Ball (had to find it first & dust it off)Lets see, connecting, connecting - OK here we go;No real MS info passed out, requires SliverLight to preview what little info is released,Pro Developers not talkingForum treads closedEnter Lockheed Martin's Prepar3DThe Chrystal Ball predicts Microsoft Flight will be a dummied down Ipod version of Windows Live Games genre requiring a live connect to MS Virtual Earth,heavily Dependant on SilverLight, no open SDK, official addon portal, not compatible with FSX addons.

Those are some really bold conclusions to make this early.