We hope the freebee Flight works for MS as an introductory platform until they finally realize their mistake. They, then, will reopen the gates of global scenery for around $ or even $100 first adding 100 top airports (FSX last was 40 so they repent themselve to us by adding 60 more new ones) for free (meaning: included on the price). They get it finally and start selling Airports and Aircrafts top of the line made on Windows Live. Third party developers go nuts and happy like MS just reinvented the wheel by adding the projects into the mix. We all play along and pretend we are happily surprised.End of fairy tale,MAB

We hope the freebee Flight works for MS as an introductory platform until they finally realize their mistake. They, then, will reopen the gates of global scenery...They get it finally and start selling Airports and Aircrafts top of the line made on Windows Live. Third party developers go nuts and happy like MS just reinvented the wheel by adding the projects into the mix. We all play along and pretend we are happily surprised.End of fairy tale,

This is a good prediction, I agree. It is more of a financial tweak to the business model than structural change, so it will be the first thing they try when nobody buys their DLC in appreciable numbers, but they might wait too long (Flight generates too much bad will and becomes a notorious failure).

I am sure that no 3rd dev will be interested about this joke anymore even if they released SDK and give third party support which I doubt, and still M$ would need to develop whole world to Flight as they are not planning to do it now.Nah, I think that M$ will not understand and Flight will die quickly.

In that you are wrong. I honestly couldn't give a tinker's damn who buys my products, as long as they sell. If I (and other developers) can gain a profit, we will produce content. If not, then FS9 and FSX development is still a viable market.

If not, then FS9 and FSX development is still a viable market.

For a while Bill, for a while.

In that you are wrong. I honestly couldn't give a tinker's damn who buys my products, as long as they sell. If I (and other developers) can gain a profit, we will produce content. If not, then FS9 and FSX development is still a viable market.

But I doubt that you like when MS takes big part of income that you would get from your product?And anyway not having public dev kit would kill all freeware too, and probably most users who buy payware do also have many freeware sceneries and aircrafts, so I doubt that many people will buy simulator that does not support third party freeware at all.

Edited January 4, 201214 yr by pvjinflight

But I doubt that you like when MS takes big part of income that you would get from your product?

Since MS haven't made any information available to current developers (aside from the ONE who was invited a few weeks ago), I have no basis on which to make any objective decision. However, it currently costs ~50% of gross sales in overhead, as long as MS doesn't take more than that it may still be attractive enough.

However, it currently costs ~50% of gross sales in overhead, as long as MS doesn't take more than that it may still be attractive enough.

Could you imagine a scenario, in which the financial losses of that overhead (as compared to not having to sell through MS) could be in part, or even entirely, be compensated for by a higher exposure to potential customers? What if MS actually succeeds in drawing new folks in, and somehow accidentally manages to get the shop right?

Could you imagine a scenario, in which the financial losses of that overhead (as compared to not having to sell through MS) could be in part, or even entirely, be compensated for by a higher exposure to potential customers? What if MS actually succeeds in drawing new folks in, and somehow accidentally manages to get the shop right?

Of course.! In fact that would be the major deciding factor for me. Even if I only received $2 per transaction, if as many as 100,000 sales were consummated in a years time, net-net would be more than than I currently get...In fact, I wrote about this several years ago in an article that examines the "Opacity of the Flightsim Marketplace" and compared it to the similar market opacity of the book market for authors.

We hope the freebee Flight works for MS as an introductory platform until they finally realize their mistake. They, then, will reopen the gates of global scenery for around $ or even $100..........MAB

They realized their mistake shortly after selling the platform to Lockheed.This is their last struggle to regain something out of it all.Fred.

Edited January 4, 201214 yr by RYR738

Thank you for the answer.

Of course.! In fact that would be the major deciding factor for me.

If a large amount of other developers see this in essentially the same way, than it follows that this would also be "the" major deciding factor for Flight to be appealing to the "seriously-simming" user base.Only Hawaii and one or two weird planes? Who cares, I thought MS' planes are bad and their default scenery ugly? Well, IF we can put in third-party content like we could with the FS titles, nobody needs to care if MS only ever did Hawaii....