This feels like a newly minted MBA came up with itColin

YOU hit the nail on the head with that one.Not the first time I've seen this and watched a given companies valuable and hard earned reputation with customers and employees be damaged beyond repair bacause some "wonderboy" came in and sold the execs something other than what their customers wanted. All for the promise of an extra dollar.

This feels like a newly minted MBA came up with it - I'm sure the charts and powerpoint slides were pretty but whoever said that most gamers will be bored with Flight in about 10 minutes hit the nail on the head.

Here's the golden boy...http://www.linkedin.com/in/mrjoshuahoward

Edited January 5, 201214 yr by bojote

Here's the golden boy...http://www.linkedin..../mrjoshuahoward

Add him as a friend and then tell him off for the P.O.S. that he is rolling out to us.

Add him as a friend and then tell him off for the P.O.S. that he is rolling out to us.

You really think they care? ;) Prepar3D all the way my friend! MS Flight Simulator as you know it is DEAD.

Edited January 5, 201214 yr by bojote

You really think they care? ;) Prepar3D all the way my friend! MS Flight Simulator as you know it is DEAD.

ehh... No. FSX is totally alive. best addons ever etc.P3D needs a while before is matures into a stage where FSX is right now. We also need a cheaper price model. 120 bucks a year is absurd.

ehh... No. FSX is totally alive. best addons ever etc.P3D needs a while before is matures into a stage where FSX is right now. We also need a cheaper price model. 120 bucks a year is absurd.

I meant Prepar3D v2 ;)

I meant Prepar3D v2 ;)

Of course... rumor has it that it will have DX11!!

All good things must end and today we have witnessed the passing of a good friend.I wanted to eulogize the MS line of flight sims with some of my dearest memories of them.

• My first exposure to MSFS was at the age of 12 at a friend's house. I tried to fly a blue and white striped C172 out of Megis with a keyboard and then a mouse...I was hooked. Since then I have likely spent the cost of a car feeding my simulation habit.
• I remember once (with the help of PMDGs 737ng for FS9) jumping into a 737 level-d sim at Pan Am academy and being able to keep up with a 737 training Captain (as his pretend FO) on an approach to Toncontin...a cool once in a lifetime experience, and in subsequent visits making LOFT-like trips on that sim from KMIA to KMCO and KATL in the left seat from push to engine shutdown. I miss those visits to Pan Am Academy and the 737-400 and -800 sims. MSFS made that happen.
• I remember jumping into a real C172 G1000 and knowing the panel almost cold from start up to shut down. This saved me thousands of those dollars spent on familiarization in getting my real world certificate. MSFS made that happen.
• I remember coming home during instrument training and running the very same approaches and procedures I practiced at almost $200/hr for FREE. MSFS made that happen.
• I remember prepping for long flights far from my home airport obsessively by simulating them so I could make my wife more comfortable. A great day was on a flight from Naples to Sebring then back to KFXE where a 6 month pregnant (and usually paranoid )wife thought so much of my flying that she actually just fell asleep. Still have the pic of her with the belly lump standing next to the prop in Sebring before we had lunch at the field with her family. MSFS made that flight smooth because I ran that flight over and over and over and over and it was realistic enough in sim to be smooth in life.

Today it seems MS told me that my needs are better served by Lockheed Martin and that is OK. I have enjoyed LM's flight service briefings for some years and they have helped me keep the shiny side up by giving me good briefings (full and abbreviated). Thanks for 19 years of love MSFS and good bye. You will be missed.Hello P3D, it seems we just met.

Nice eulogy, Dan. FSX isn't completely dead yet. At least neither it nor FS9 has suddenly stopped running just because they are sharing hard drive space with a 2 day old, very smelly baby. :(

Who wants to bet there'll be some PR sap at the CES booth, with not a single developer in sight...

Who wants to bet there'll be some PR sap at the CES booth, with not a single developer in sight...

After reading some of the comments on this forum, I wouldn't be surprised if he's getting Danger Pay, wearing a bullet proof vest, and getting a police escort to and from the convention center :(

All good things must end and today we have witnessed the passing of a good friend.I wanted to eulogize the MS line of flight sims with some of my dearest memories of them....

Terrifically put...I *totally* relate!Because of a free [rl] flight coupon that came in the box with FS98, I thought "What the hey, I can spare a little time for this, why not?!" The next weekend, I went for a ride at my local airport. I never expected the CFI to let me handle the yoke, let alone fly the airplane! lol. Yet, before we flew, he actually had me preflight/walkaround the airplane (C172)! As we were rolling down the runway, he said "OK take us up..." I said "Me?!!!....You want *me* to take off?!!" From the very moment that I felt the sensation of flying at the instant that the wheels departed the asphalt, I was hooked. The rest is history; eleven months later, I had my Private Pilot Cert.Before any flight I made in rl, I first made the same flight in FS; I still do if I have not been there before. I too have felt the exceptional compliment of a passenger falling asleep (on rides home from Block Island...). There are fewer finer compliments to a fairly new PP than an even newer [to small aircraft] passenger falling asleep during a flight home in a Piper Archer after having flown with me only two or three times previously. My wife was a real trooper during our first time out after I had been certified. Although I had researched the weather thoroughly, and although we had a nice ride out to Martha's Vineyard from KDXR, the ride back became a bit bumpy, and naturally she was apprehensive. Of course, this abated and disappeared with time...but there was, and always is, a first time...a first bumpy flight.I would like to say with certainty that I would have eventually taken the same, or similar, path had it not been for the 3"x4" paper [rl] free flight coupon in the box with FS98, but I can't. While aviation has always fascinated me, and while I have fond memories of my dad taking me to KHPN (when it was much smaller and less frequented by "big iron") as a kid where I would watch the planes coming and going for hours, I suspect that the little piece of paper in the box was indeed the catalyst that finally opened up the blue skies to me...to us, and that let me realize the dreams that I always had, but had perhaps forgotten.As Father Bill put it, much more eloquently than I though ;), We'll see about MS Flight but, in the meantime, FS9 & FSX aren't going anywhere soon!Regards, Rusty