Though I have no input of the price, the scenery looks INCREDIBLE! :-eek :-eek :-eek

Ahhh Janey my Dear, I thought that was you. Looks like we'll have some really great Swiss movies now..Clay

"Who is smarter? The person concentrating on getting a small area that he visits all the tim (however, small is relative) perfect or another trying to get a huge area where he comes once in a while a little bit over standard at the same price?"Well, since FS allows me to fly anywhere I want to, and because I enjoy exploring different parts of the world, if I had this scenery I'd be spending many many hours flying around Switzerland!David

A couple of thoughts on pricing:1. A product is only worth what someone will pay for it - no matter how much work went into it. 2. The fact that we have not seen a big drop in real image scenery prices leads me to beleive that a) the images are expensive, and :( the market relatively small, and c) that the market is sufficient to support this niche in our hobby. 3. I am guessing that a much larger market exists for much more conservatively priced products - what we don't know is whether the image use rules and pricing makes a strategy of lower price + higher volume viable for this product. 3. I am guessing that the price reflects a fairly conservative break even analysis as to expected sales and a return on the man hours invested. I really doubt anyone is getting rich on this project.4. The point about the data above is germaine. That's a hard cost - money out of pocket - that must be recouped. This makes projects like this different from aircraft modelling where hard costs are usually limited to obtaining aircraft performance data, perhaps a photo shoot and some software. 5. Putting this price in perspective, it is far less than the newer graphics cards people are installing, it is less than a P4 3.2 processor and it is far less expensive than high quality controls. Everybody has their priorities on what they will spend money on.

>the Swiss scenery isn't>actually bad value, if it includes full seasons, night>testures, autogen and custom airports accurate to the max. "IF" - this is a big "IF". I suspect it includes none of the above.Michael J.

This photographic scenery was created by only a few individuals, and IIRC, at a five figure cost. Here is a post from the Author contained in another forum. http://www.visualflight.co.uk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1134Hi all,As author of Switzerland Professional, i am very pleased to see your interest in this scenery.First, to explain the long time since the announcement in october, i have to admit that the most of the work has been done by myself alone. Another scenery designer, Kurt Stoeckli, have helped to integrate the airports and made the installation procedures.I have encountered some difficulties in the rendering of the borders of the scenery, where no aerial photos were available. This was the case for some objects of particular interest like the lake of Geneva or the Rhine river making the frontier at the north of the country.Additionally, i was able to integrate SRTM Elevation data available since November to better render the relief outside the country. The elevation inside the country area is still based on a true 20m surface model.Now the scenery is finished and will be released in the first days of January 2004. Unfortunately , we didn't complete it soon enough to send it for Christmas.Please visit my hompage at http://mypage.bluewin.ch/thwantz forsome technical explanations in three langages ( incuding english ) and a couple of screenshots.Jean-Pierre

Thanks for the links. I don't mind not having multiple seasons but not having night textures is a huge drawback for me. I will then pas ...Michael J.

How about the Exchange rate discrepency...From yahoo, it shows the Dollar pegged at $1.00 and the Euro pegged at $1.254.Rates Here:http://finance.yahoo.com/m3?uSo why is it that the Product costs 129 Euro's, and US Dollars $139.00???Here are the Comparisons from: (I always use this site before buying something where an exchange rate comes into play.)http://www.xe.com/ucc/ **A) 129.00 EUREuro = 161.698 USDUnited States Dollars1 EUR = 1.25348 USD1 USD = 0.797782 EUR**:( 139.00 USDUnited States Dollars = 110.900 EUREuro1 USD = 0.797845 EUR1 EUR = 1.25338 USD Certainly makes one wonder why such a large discrepency?So why the upcharge, anyway you slice the Math, it don't add up.One other thing. For Security Purposes, I would highly caution anyone form entering their Credit card Numbers through a website that does not use SSL. IE: Secure Sockets Layer. Look for the padlock. *************************/Begin edit:If you use the link the Original Author used, it will not use SSL, however, I have discovered if you go here:http://www.flylogicsoftware.com/site/frameset_en.htmThen, RIGHT CLICK on the Order Link, and choose open in new Window, you will see a SSl Secured order Form, however it still goes to an email address.NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT OPEN THE LINK OUTSIDE OF THE FRAME, YOU WILL NOT SEE THE PADLOCK, IT ONLY APPEARS AFTER YOU OPEN THE ORDER LINK IN A NEW WINDOW. If you use view source in the framed it will also show it is a SSL frame, even though no padlock Appears due to framing. *************************It is NOT there when you go to their order page, and the Credit Card Info goes to an email address. (simply go to the order page, choose View Source, and you will see it there.)Now if you feel that is secure enough, go ahead, take the risk. Your Info, your security, your money. :-)1 Strike = Price $139.00 No way, not from my wallet. I don't care how good it is. That is simply Way Too Much, IMHO.2 Strikes = Order process NOT Secure Enough, IMHO.3 Strikes = Dollar Euro Conversion DiscrepencySorry, 3 strikes and you are out in my book. (baseball term)Of course, all of this is my opinion, so as always BUYER BEWARE.$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Let's see, $139 per country, at About 192 nations, so $139 X 192 = $26,688 for the Whole World. Yeppers, if anyone sold each country at this price, the Whole World only costs $26,688. What A Deal..... Where do I sign... Some of you defending this pricing strategy should really think about that.Yeah nice gig if you can get it. Microsoft Sold me the whole world for $39. That meets my expectations. This does Not, and neither do ANY OF THE other Payware Scenery packages out There.$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$As for the pics, I just flew with default and I could see where for VFR, some may find the package useful, so as always it is up to the buyer's expectations, and it simply does not meet my expectations for what I am looking for in scenery.The Best I have used, IMHO, is still the FlyII SoCal Scenery that was 100% FREEWARE, which I use from time to time.There is my nickel, spend it wisely.Regards,Joe http://aboutpolitics.net/images/bannerav.gif.About Politics.net - FORUMShttp://pub162.ezboard.com/baboutpolitics.Contribute to the Richard Harvey Scholarship Fund.http://www.avsim.com/pages/scholarship.shtml

Well, I was waiting for the packaged version anyhow ;)PS: price discrepancies between the US and Europe is nothing new - although it becomes more apparent now that we all have internet...

$139 is really not that much considering. Way back in another life I worked for the Environment Ministry. The pricing for GIS data at that kind of quality levels was in the millions of dollars range. To get it, you either have to rent sattelite time or pay for aircraft to overfly the area. The number of days during a year where this can be done to produce quality shots is limited so you also have to pay for the crappy shots to.All in all, that price for photographic level detail of a coutry with such interesting terrain is pretty cheap. People tend to forget that the level of Detail in FS9 is only really nice for a very few select cities in the USA.I'd be far more worried about system performance then price.

>**A) 129.00 EUR>Euro = 161.698 USD>United States Dollars>1 EUR = 1.25348 USD>1 USD = 0.797782 EUR>>**:( 139.00 USD>United States Dollars = 110.900 EUR>Euro>1 USD = 0.797845 EUR>1 EUR = 1.25338 USD >>Certainly makes one wonder why such a large discrepency?>>So why the upcharge, anyway you slice the Math, it don't add up.Its really not unusual to discount the price in dollars considering how bad the dollar is doing against the Euro lately. 3 years ago companies were doing it the other way when the Euro wasn't doing so hot against the dollar.If they do a straight Euro/Dollar conversion in the U.S they are paying $160.00, in the U.S they complain they are being charged more because the base price is in Euro's.Of course if they apply such a downgrade to compensate its those Europe who see it as an 'upcharge' for them.No matter what the vendor does some people on one side of the pond will not be happy.Regards.Ernie.

The difficulty is for the developer to assess how many copies he's going to sell at a certain price level. It might well be that the scenery when sold at half the price would sell four times more copies, which would result in more net income. That would be the case if the price is below a treshold for moderately interested customers to be willing to buy the product. If on the other hand such a drastic price drop would not make the product appealing to a lot more customers, the developer really has no choice but to set a high price. Are you going to base your price on a conservative and prudent low estimate of the sales, or are you going to take the risk to set the price low, which means you'll have to sell a lot more copies to break even? Not an easy choice to make.Paul