Let's close the deal - POLL -

[JSkorna 137]

He loves pictures on the computer though.

[magnetite 38]

The FSX Beta was MUCH longer than that.

I guess some software needs more testing than others. After all they are completely different. RPG vs simulation.

[fvapres 7]

I don't understand how anyone believes that just because you only see Hawaii, that is all Microsoft is spending it's time on and nothing else. That would be foolish for them to change their methods now. FS has been and always will be a world-based simulator. It has to as communities that have kept it alive all these years are based all over the world. Flight inside the sim is conducted as it is in reality, all over the world. They could not abandon that attitude or they would create a product doomed to fail. The people at MS may be stubborn, elitist, secretive and elusive, but they ARE NOT stupid. They know that to make the next generation simulator, they have to take the weaknesses of the predecessor and build on it.FSX was supposed to build and eliminate FS9, but due to issues with the rendering engine being CPU limited, it killed performance and made people jump off the boat and sank their hopes of making a helluva profit from FSX. This is what they're doing with Flight. They improved the standards of the sim to support current tech (instead of a new next-gen tech that isn't achievable on current hardware - DX11 is current - DX10 was only in passing current - most games have been DX9 or DX11 with only a few existing during the DX10 hype which was short-lived), the improved the rendering pipeline to balance the CPU/GPU aspect which brought down the processing necessity of the CPU (allowing slower, older CPUs to be utilized) and improved the graphics artwork to go along with current tech.They would not slit their own throats and throw out 3rd party capability, but I would surmise that they're witholding the SDK as they aren't even sure what will be in the final version or how a 3rd party developer would interface with it. SimConnect will surely still be their method of choice, but they may have expanded its capability and the beta may make it apparent that certain aspects of simconnect will need to be dropped until a patch can make it work again. Without 3rd party aircraft, any modern simulator is doomed to fail. You cannot make in-house all the aircraft that will satisfy a user-base the FS franchise has accumulated to the fidelity and complexity that user base has come to expect a-la PMDG/LevelD/Carenado/etc. They will still have to have 3rd party capability in order to sate the needs of the user base, but they may be trying to keep backward compatibility with FSX aircraft in the process, which would add a level of complexity for the sim as it would have to be able to internally convert the FSX flight model into a Flight flight model to get it to work with the next gen. They made a lot of people angry when you could not import your FS9 aircraft into FSX without major modifications. This was something that you could do with 2000/2002 aircraft into 2004/FS9, but the new FSX broke that and you had to go through a long process and the results were sketchy most of the time. They may be looking to rectify that issue to allow any of the FSX addons to be forward compatible with Flight, which it would start a new life with a HUGE 3rd party addon-base. Then from there, whatever other things they're doing different with Flight flight models would allow aircraft to be updated to use the new features and you'd see aircraft developed for Flight only with the new features (maybe more doors, ejection seats, types of lights, proper electrical/hydraulic systems whatever).If I can think of it, I know someone that is in the business of making a successful moneymaking software title has thought of it. They may have a different opinion on cost versus benefit as me, but if leaving out a feature would kill its user base, they would not dare slit their own throats. That is why MS is still around to this day. They know how to compromise without alienating too many users. Not everyone will be happy, but then again, with change, that is always a guarantee that someone will not be happy with the changes. As long as there are more happy people than unhappy, the product will be successful. There are also those users that are unhappy, but buy the product anyway as they'll put up with the unpleasantries in most cases as long as the rest of the product is up to their expectations.