Hmmm. I'll have to cajole myself into doing that...

Looks like the only way you will know 100% for sure is to be like the rest of the FS Community, and WAIT FOR THE PRODUCT TO BE RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC!Of course, the alternative is to do what so many others out there are doing; feeding the rumor mill with so much speculation, misinformation and innuendo that in the end, ego bubbles will be bursting all over the FS world.When Flight is finally released and on the shelves... and after many out there have spent the last months fantasizing, posturing and preening about their perception of what Flight is going to be... it's finally loaded on the HDD, up and running, and it turns out NOT what you had expected, dreamed, hoped, begged, cajoled and argued in a public forum about for over a year... THEN WHO'S TO BLAME?Going to run back here, and start blaming every Tom, Dick and Harry that posted in this Forum about why the product wasn't what YOU thought it should be? Well, ZIPPITY DOO DAA! Stand in line, and tell your sad story!Guess all of the speculation and "I know more than you do" attitudes served everyone in the end, didn't it?Anyway, just my humble, insignificant opinion.

Of course, those words replaced what I REALLY wanted to use, but I would be banned from this site had I typed them. In any case they would have been true and appropriate to this conversation.

Looks like the only way you will know 100% for sure is to be like the rest of the FS Community, and WAIT FOR THE PRODUCT TO BE RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC!Of course, the alternative is to do what so many others out there are doing; feeding the rumor mill with so much speculation, misinformation and innuendo that in the end, ego bubbles will be bursting all over the FS world.When Flight is finally released and on the shelves... and after many out there have spent the last months fantasizing, posturing and preening about their perception of what Flight is going to be... it's finally loaded on the HDD, up and running, and it turns out NOT what you had expected, dreamed, hoped, begged, cajoled and argued in a public forum about for over a year... THEN WHO'S TO BLAME?Going to run back here, and start blaming every Tom, Dick and Harry that posted in this Forum about why the product wasn't what YOU thought it should be? Well, ZIPPITY DOO DAA! Stand in line, and tell your sad story!Guess all of the speculation and "I know more than you do" attitudes served everyone in the end, didn't it?Anyway, just my humble, insignificant opinion.

I would love to be your Scrabble partner, I always have problems getting rid of my 'J's. Seriously, you have made some very significant points so in my opinion you have a very significant opinion in my humble, insignificant opinion.

Just curious, but 10GB seems like far more than just Hawaii.

A typical FSX add-on for a single airport and surrounding city can easily top 3GB (Anchorage X, for example). 10GB sounds about right for the Hawaiian islands at the quality we've seen in the various screenshots.

Its full of useless text ...

Unlike, of course, your text?

A typical FSX add-on for a single airport and surrounding city can easily top 3GB (Anchorage X, for example). 10GB sounds about right for the Hawaiian islands at the quality we've seen in the various screenshots.

Exactly, the "whole" world will be available like Hawaii is, but at what price, again look at the hardware needed for Flight (we are not talking about low range hardware here) on high settings and tell me that this hardware is needed just for Hawaii......MS as been working on Flight (reworked FSX) for over two years now (yea!! way before they announced it) for what, just Hawaii in that kind of details?? Like I said a long time ago, Flight will not be business as usual (like FSX was).

• CPU: Intel® Core™ i7 960 @ 3.20GHz, AMD® Phenom™ II X6 1100T 3.3 GHz or better
• GPU: ATI Radeon™ HD 5870, NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560 or better
• HD: 10 GB Hard Drive space
• OS: Windows 7 64-bit
• RAM: 6GB

The specs seem about right for the graphics we've seen in the various screenshots and videos. My guess is that while the Flight engine will be capable of supporting global scenery, the base package will be Hawaii only with the rest of the world available piecemeal through the Flight online store.

Like Alainneedle1 said, Flight will not be business as usual. MS always said they didn't make any significant money with the franchise, and proved it by shuttering the studio and firing the developemnt team. Why? Because, firstly because FS always attempted to be a real simulator with each new version, and was only loved by the small audience population that we real flight enthusiasts are. Secondly, because FS was always a "one & done" sale for MS. Once we bought the package, we went back to them for nothing - all the third party developers got the repeat sales for all the add-ons. I've made multiple purchases from the likes of Fly Tampa, Aerosoft, CLS, et al - I've only made one purchase from MS, and that was a long time ago because I'm still using FS9. This is a terrible business model. And MS knows it.I'm with Mountain Man.

My guess is that while the Flight engine will be capable of supporting global scenery, the base package will be Hawaii only with the rest of the world available piecemeal through the Flight online store.

Flight will not be a simulator (in the sense that we hard-core enthusiasts want it to be), and Flight will not be an arcade game. It will be a hybrid. It will be FSX code, cleaned up, sharpened up, and modified to run well on today's average machines, not requiring cryogenic cooling of your overclocked CPU to get smooth frame rates. In the base package, you have a nicely detailed "world" to fly in, doing careers, missions, etc, and you can do that alone or on-line in the company of other real-world players, just like so many of the highly popular RPG "first person" shooters do. This opens up the target market for Flight to a much wider part of the gaming public.Want an new "arena" (area of the world) to fly in? Buy an expansion pak from MS (another sale for MS), and meet new players who fly in those areas. Add-on aircraft, airport sceneries, and non-airport sceneries will still be developed by the developers we all know and love, but MS will get a cut of the revenue from those sales.No, there may not be any super accurate weather engines, hydraulic systems simulations, ATC of a complexity of a Radar Contact 5, or SIDS and Stars, but aircraft flight dynamics will be accurate (at least as accurate as we have them now). Flight will try to attract thousands of new players who find pure flight "simulation" (with all the complexity we like) boring. And in doing so, it will not be FS 11. MS already knows there is no money in that. And making money is what MS is all about.Just my two cents.

Like Alainneedle1 said, Flight will not be business as usual. MS always said they didn't make any significant money with the franchise, and proved it by shuttering the studio and firing the developemnt team. Why? Because, firstly because FS always attempted to be a real simulator with each new version, and was only loved by the small audience population that we real flight enthusiasts are. Secondly, because FS was always a "one & done" sale for MS. Once we bought the package, we went back to them for nothing - all the third party developers got the repeat sales for all the add-ons. I've made multiple purchases from the likes of Fly Tampa, Aerosoft, CLS, et al - I've only made one purchase from MS, and that was a long time ago because I'm still using FS9. This is a terrible business model. And MS knows it.I'm with Mountain Man.Flight will not be a simulator (in the sense that we hard-core enthusiasts want it to be), and Flight will not be an arcade game. It will be a hybrid. It will be FSX code, cleaned up, sharpened up, and modified to run well on today's average machines, not requiring cryogenic cooling of your overclocked CPU to get smooth frame rates. In the base package, you have a nicely detailed "world" to fly in, doing careers, missions, etc, and you can do that alone or on-line in the company of other real-world players, just like so many of the highly popular RPG "first person" shooters do. This opens up the target market for Flight to a much wider part of the gaming public.Want an new "arena" (area of the world) to fly in? Buy an expansion pak from MS (another sale for MS), and meet new players who fly in those areas. Add-on aircraft, airport sceneries, and non-airport sceneries will still be developed by the developers we all know and love, but MS will get a cut of the revenue from those sales.No, there may not be any super accurate weather engines, hydraulic systems simulations, ATC of a complexity of a Radar Contact 5, or SIDS and Stars, but aircraft flight dynamics will be accurate (at least as accurate as we have them now).Flight will try to attract thousands of new players who find pure flight "simulation" (with all the complexity we like) boring. And in doing so, it will not be FS 11. MS already knows there is no money in that. And making money is what MS is all about.Just my two cents.

Not re-quote the whole thing....but I agree with you. As long as It get airliners eventually, ai, decent somewhat worldwide scenery I will be happy. What you say makes perfect sense from a common-sense business model approach, but who knows software development never fails to make me say hmmm...

MS always said they didn't make any significant money with the franchise, and proved it by shuttering the studio and firing the developemnt team.

Any facts to back this up?What would you say to the fact that FSX was the best seller of FS versions of all time?

You cannot know that.

When they just posted job requests for this:

The successful candidate will be responsible for improving and adding features to the C++ software components that simulate aircraft and systems such as avionics, engine, aerodynamics model, auto pilot and other feedback control systems. Other responsibilities will include tuning the data used by the systems to recreate realistic behavior of individual aircraft under various conditions.Qualifications:• Strong math and physics background.• Demonstrable C++ programming skills• Experience mathematically modeling aircraft and aircraft systems behavior. • Passion for aviation• Ability to make progress given ambiguous requirements from multiple sources, working on a multidisciplinary team of programmers, artists, and game designers.• Aeronautical/Aerospace science or engineering degree or equivalent experienceIdeal:• BS in Computer Science or equivalent experience• Games programming experience• Private pilot license

Yeah, he and I can say that.What you can't know is that it's going to be an arcade game. There's zero evidence of that and all evidence is to the contrary.Will it be the most realistic thing ever? Probably not. But will it be an "arcade game." No, it won't be.

As long as It get airliners eventually, ai, decent somewhat worldwide scenery I will be happy.

Scenery? I could see MS offering expansion paks along the lines of "Eastern Seabord USA", "California & Pacific Northwest", or "Western Europe", "Australia" and things like this. I remember SubLogic doing this years ago - I still have those add-on floppies. The quality should be at least as good as the screenshots we have already been shown for Hawaii. Airports? Probably just a re-hash of all the default airport data they already created for FSX, and previous versions. Upgraded airports would still be available from the 3rd party developers. MS coulden't hire enough scenery artists to be researching airports all over the world to make exacting accurate re-creations of them. Let the community of 3rd party developers do what they do best, and MS just be the "selling agent" and get a commission.Airliners? Have you ever known MS to produce a good one? Would you be happy with their defualt ones? Again, the good ones would come from the developers. MS certainly has default jets on the shelf that they could include. For the base pak of the Hawaian Islands, something like 737's or A320's would be enough to let you fly an inter-island service.AI? Not sure. If the game is meant to be played on-line in a community setting, there would be a lot of other real player's aircraft always populating the skies. Maybe the AI would be an option you could have if you're not on-line and flying alone. To have AI, MS would need to include an assortment of aircraft to be used as AI. Could they squeeze that in given the "10GB" limit that has been talked about?

MS always said they didn't make any significant money with the franchise, and proved it by shuttering the studio and firing the developemnt team.

That's not the only reason for shutting down a developer. The Age of Empires franchise was critically and financially successful over three games and at least as many expansion packs, yet Microsoft inexplicably closed the doors of Ensemble Studios anyway

Its full of useless text that does not say it being a simulator anywhere. And honestly its hard to believe that it would be possible to apply for mainstream when still keeping realism so it could be called a simulator. I have seen many game series getting ruined in eyes of original community because of simplifying it too much to make mainstream interested. To me this text sounds like they try to simplify Flight to make it better for mainstream which would make it like arcade game.

Ok, it's an arcade game, you win. No need to argue about it anymore. Bye now :-)

Ok, it's an arcade game, you win. No need to argue about it anymore. Bye now :-)

Nah now I think that its not an arcade game as Microsoft finally stated it clearly.