Very interesting indeed. My current install of FSX is looking better and better as every day passes.

Maybe I've missed an episode or a post or something but who ever said that Flight will be just for Hawaii? I didn't see any declaration on the official site stating that was the case. Also, 10GB minimum install is sufficient for the entire world as in FSX with basic terrain, autogen and airports. Clearly not for the level of detail we're seeing on the screenshots.Is this Hawaii only just speculation derived from the fact that so far we've only seen screenshots from Hawaii or have I really missed something more substantial?

If you think about the success of custom scenerys and planes like orbx and carenado do and keep in mind that a lot of simmers and "gamers" take that quality as "state-of-the art" and regard everything else as retarded, it is a quite reasonable approach to focus on smaller areas and a few planes and build them "high quality". A world-sim with 20 default planes would always be a disappointment in visuals and details nowadays. And I´m fine with that.

There is no acceptable excuse for Microsoft not to make the whole world look pretty good. When small third party developers can make generic scenery upgrades such as FS Global, FS Genesis, Ultimate Terrain, Ground Environment etc.MIcrosoft should at least be able to match that kind of quality. Most of the ORBX scenery is generic scenery as well, and apart from their airport addons, most ORBX areas don't compare well to their real world counterparts. But hey, they are ten times better than the default FSX scenery.I wouldn't mind at all if Flight is limited to one continent, as long as it was done in very high quality and you could buy more continents down the road. I also rather have a very limited selection of quality aircraft, than a large collection of unusable aircraft. But reality is, noone can make a good whole world simulator unless easy scenery creation tools are made available to a worldwide community of enthusiasts. Just look at how long ORBX has spent making Australia, NZ and a few ares of the USA and Canada, and still the gap betwwen the real world and the sim is huge.

Why should they need an excuse?We´re still on a level of educated guesses of course, but I think the point is, MS may not be willing to spend the money for developing FSX+FS Flobal+REX+UTX+GEX worldwide and some additional ORBX-quality stuff and sell it for 70 bucks, which is about the limit for a game. The "small" 3PDs aren´t that small. I think some of them employ up to 100 people.I guess MS stepped back a little from spending a huge amount of money for a PC-game-dino. The business model defines the developement approach and I think they changed it and so did the developement approach. Time will tell where this ends up.@jcmk: 10 GB for the entire world? That would mean they reduced the quality compared to FSX. Can´t think of a reason for that, even if they decited to make it just a basis for later upgrades/addons.

That's quite easy, guys.MF default with Hawaii only - $74.99...add North America + $29.99...add Europe + 29.99...add Asia and Pacific + 49.99OR...the publisher such as Flight Global, Megascenery or UT will take of the rest.

Could be they're taking the "X-Plane Route" and using procedural routines to fill everything in, but still using custom buildings/objects where needed, at least in North America.Pretty sure they could easily do that in 10 gigs.

Maybe I've missed an episode or a post or something but who ever said that Flight will be just for Hawaii? I didn't see any declaration on the official site stating that was the case. Also, 10GB minimum install is sufficient for the entire world as in FSX with basic terrain, autogen and airports. Clearly not for the level of detail we're seeing on the screenshots.Is this Hawaii only just speculation derived from the fact that so far we've only seen screenshots from Hawaii or have I really missed something more substantial?

+1 - I must have missed it too...

Why should they need an excuse?

Let's hope they'll need none.

We´re still on a level of educated guesses of course, but I think the point is, MS may not be willing to spend the money for developing FSX+FS Flobal+REX+UTX+GEX worldwide and some additional ORBX-quality stuff and sell it for 70 bucks, which is about the limit for a game. The "small" 3PDs aren´t that small. I think some of them employ up to 100 people.I guess MS stepped back a little from spending a huge amount of money for a PC-game-dino. The business model defines the developement approach and I think they changed it and so did the developement approach. Time will tell where this ends up.

It is likely that they are not willing, but in theory, if 3PDs can employ and pay 100s of people, why couldn't Microsoft do it? If they have learned anything from FS2004 and FSX it is that there is a substantial number of people willing to spend serious money on addons, so tapping into that market would make perfect business sense.

Could be they're taking the "X-Plane Route" and using procedural routines to fill everything in, but still using custom buildings/objects where needed, at least in North America.Pretty sure they could easily do that in 10 gigs.

They could, but not in high quality. X-Plane 10 ships on 8 dual layer DVDs!

*Cough*The space OS 10.6 takes is 5 GB, which is a quite substantial reduction comparing to what OS 10.5 used to take up. Does it mean that OS 10.6 has half the features of 10.5? No. It means everything is compressed better and that they found a more intelligent way of storing and saving files.

*Cough*The space OS 10.6 takes is 5 GB, which is a quite substantial reduction comparing to what OS 10.5 used to take up. Does it mean that OS 10.6 has half the features of 10.5? No. It means everything is compressed better and that they found a more intelligent way of storing and saving files.

I'd sure like to have that documented, because that would mean a storage revolution from Apple! Same features, half the space, WOW!

If Microsoft has found a more intelligent way of storing and saving files they should be using it for their operating system:Windows XP - At least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available space on the hard diskWindows 7 - 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

It is likely that they are not willing, but in theory, if 3PDs can employ and pay 100s of people, why couldn't Microsoft do it? If they have learned anything from FS2004 and FSX it is that there is a substantial number of people willing to spend serious money on addons, so tapping into that market would make perfect business sense.

Never said otherwise. Would make sense in many ways. But is it possible? One point is, that MS laid the basis for the 3PDs to build on and expand according to demand. MS made the foundations for a complex, expandable sim. Most Addon just improve/change what MS built on top of those.Not sure if MS will do it this time because it means to burn a lot of cash before you know about the commercial success. And I´m not sure if it is possible to expand a sim step by step if the foundations are not there right in the beginning.Looking to XP10 for a while now I know that they have every feature in it right from the start, even a lot of them aren´t fully unlocked, exploited, optimized etc.But I´m no dev. myself so I might be wrong...

Virtual world?

If Microsoft has found a more intelligent way of storing and saving files they should be using it for their operating system:Windows XP - At least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available space on the hard diskWindows 7 - 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

a graphic file (that is the most of files in a game) is different from a .dll or an .exe so don't compare apple with oranges. About Hawaii only, I don't believe for a second about it, you guys are so easy to jump on conclusions based only on some screenshots. When Microsoft will tell it then I'll believe...

I'd sure like to have that documented, because that would mean a storage revolution from Apple! Same features, half the space, WOW!

It was listed as one of the grand features of OS 10.6 back when the product page was about 10.6 and not 10.7. As to what they did to make the footprint of the OS smaller, I have no idea. Note that I'm not saying that they came up with a new technology, merely that they evidently found a way to make the footprint of the OS smaller.