I doubt that MS is worried about Laminar Research, but then again I doubt that MS truly cares about flight simulator. If they did and felt it was a real money maker they would never have shut down ACES. If MS retired off flight sim and reallocated however many programmers worked on it to other departments/projects no one @ MS would lose any sleep...As their quarterlies show, the real money maker for them is their XBox gaming division, I've posted several here over the last few months proving that point.If anything FLIGHT could end up being just a watered down sim with the XBox crowds in mind, because that's where MS's "game" money truly is...Last quarter XBox and XBox Live gaming profits were up 45% alone... while its PC titles saw a drop in profits.

The management at MS over the Flight project should be wary of what they post. Once it's on the internet, it's there for good. Which means, if they show something that gets cut from the final product, people will be angered it was removed. Maybe they show a FS9 737-400 instead of the FSX 737-800 and people think "oh wow...they're going to deck out their old classic with better systems" or "they're going back to old software to save on money". Now they're stuck. By releasing information only that has been nailed down and will be in the final release for certain, they can ensure they're not lying. Reading between the lines is lying to yourself. You may be right or dead wrong. Unless it is written by them, all is only speculation and conjecture. Assume = Making an &@($* out of U and ME meaning when you assume something you have not been told to be true, you usually will look like an idiot and I will too if I go along with it. My only assumption is that MS will continue to release a product in the manners that they have employed prior.We should look at it this way, too. Be glad they are telling you anything before they have put in a release date. They didn't tell us anything about the upcoming operating systems until they had an idea of their deadlines for release and have a good idea about the features list. It sounds like they've been telling us very little as the drawing board was still being drawn on. Nothing has been finalized except that it will be a next generation Flight Simulator following the FSX product and that it will involve flight as the basis of gameplay. The rest is still being added and finalized.The adventure system of FS2002/FS2004 died due to the advent of the mission system. Maybe they'll can the mission system for a campaign system. Or maybe they'll go back to an adventure system of sorts or kill it off altogether. Until they tell us what they're going to do, don't read into it at all. And we won't know until they figure it out themselves.

Folks have also forgotten that when MS announced FLIGHT it wasn't in some grand fashion... infact it didn't even rate its own press release, it was buried within the press release for Age of Empires Online...And it said, that FLIGHT "will bring a new perspective to the long-standing genre," http://www.joystiq.com/2010/08/17/microsoft-flight-announced-minus-the-simulator/

am i the only person who is sick of all this speculation?

am i the only person who is sick of all this speculation?

you do know that you can skip reading the speculation .....

am i the only person who is sick of all this speculation?

Might as well get used to it because we have a long time to go yet.

you do know that you can skip reading the speculation .....

is there some sort of button that does this?

is there some sort of button that does this?

Yes, click on the FTX's forum one....

is there some sort of button that does this?

Yep, just don't click on any posts in the Flight Forum.

A little birdie said there will be no jets or complex multi-engine aircraft in the initial release of Flight. Flight is about the spirit of aviation: low, slow and with nowhere to go because you just have an LSA license! LOL. Flight add-ons will model the hugely PROFITABLE Apple App Store. Flight will be the first Windows Live game product to utilize Cloud computing. DRM will mandate that you must be connected to a MS cloud server to experience the wonder of online social interaction with other gamers. Microsoft will take Flight with your wallet, but you will enjoy the experience as you stare into the 55" HDTV 3D wonder of virtual aviation.

A little birdie said there will be no jets or complex multi-engine aircraft in the initial release of Flight. Flight is about the spirit of aviation: low, slow and with nowhere to go because you just have an LSA license! LOL. Flight add-ons will model the hugely PROFITABLE Apple App Store. Flight will be the first Windows Live game product to utilize Cloud computing. DRM will mandate that you must be connected to a MS cloud server to experience the wonder of online social interaction with other gamers. Microsoft will take Flight with your wallet, but you will enjoy the experience as you stare into the 55" HDTV 3D wonder of virtual aviation.

OK.

Flight add-ons will model the hugely PROFITABLE Apple App Store.

In which case, I say thanks, but no thanks and Good bye - assuming the Flight base product is not offer as complete a world as prior versions.

All the screenshots so far look like FS9 with a bit of sharpening applied.

You must be clueless as to what FS9 looked like.

As a fan of a comic strip classic Gary Larsen I would love to link one of his classics 'Futile hurtling' ......

I hope you are right !!All of FS9 and FSX's jets have been pure crap.I think they should just work on one plane and try to get it right.Maybe a Cessna 172 that can actually fly properly.At least then, Flight might just be good for something.Real basic stuff for the punters.Surely by now, the programmers can get at least 1 flight model correct.I wouldn't bet on it though.All the screenshots so far look like FS9 with a bit of sharpening applied.

The turbo-prop planes don't have any realistic ground performance to their engines in FS9 or FSX.Though if you look at the available jets available on the market I would have that the jets are no crap at all.And not sure what FS9 you are looking at. Have you looked at any of the FSX vs Flight comparison galleries in this forum?