I'll be at CES next week. What questions do you have for MS?

[m_av 0]

What role did X-plane play in abandoning your traditional FS role ?Or what is just PURE GREED ?

[Jayskits 0]

Or what is just PURE GREED ?

Greed? You sound like a spolied brat whose father won't let him have his favorite toy. What you incorrectly label as 'greed' is actually corporate profit. You're probably not aware of it, but profits are the mother's milk of corporate success. Companies that make the right decisions to nurture profits are successful and stay in business. Those that make the wrong decisions vanish. Part of the prime directive of any successful company is to anticipate future markets and adjust to them. Apple is an excellent example of this. Companies that cannot percieve what is coming fail - not matter how big they are. Kodak is a great example. This giant invented digital imaging in 1975 and failed to see that it would become the de facto standard for picture taking in the future. They stayed with emulsion based silver nitrate films. The Japanese came in with digital cameras and ate Kodak's lunch. Kodak will be filing for bankrupcy soon.The real mission of companies, regardless of whether they make pork bellies, gerbil food, or swizzle sticks, is not to make a product, but to make money (i.e., profit). Every commercial enterprise can chart their course into the future as they see fit. And in percieving how to do that, they have no obligation to any consumer segment to continue making a product which they deem does not make them enough money and/or has no future.And in our case, it hurts. MS, after supporting the flight simulator franchise for 15 years through what - half a dozen versions of FS, has decided that FS does not meet the criteria stated in the previous paragraph. They have determinde that we (the FS enthusiast group) are an insignificant niche group on which they cannot justify the costs to maintain a dedicated studio to continue the franchise. We can argue whether they smart or dumb for their perception, but it does not change the reality of where it leaves us. And the disappointment we all feel.But, my friend, 'greed' has nothing to do with it.

[mbucholski 9]

Why would you want to make any profit if not of pure greed? MS is not struggling to survive financially, they want to suck more and more money out of their costumers. Profit - what a nice euphemism.This topic is great. It's a form of our psychological redemption. Trying to keep our mouths shut will do no good.

Edited January 7, 2012 by mbucholski

[n4gix 4,949]

Why would you want to make any profit if not of pure greed? MS is not struggling to survive financially, they want to suck more and more money out of their costumers. Profit - what a nice euphemism..

1. Would you buy stock in a company that never paid any dividends?
2. Would you put your money in a savings account that paid no interest?
3. Would buy any bonds that would never be redeemed for more than what you paid?

• If you answered no to the first two questions, you should now understand what "profits" are.
• If you answered no the the third question, you should now know basic economics enough to understand the concept of the time value of money, as well as the affects of inflation.

"Greed" is possibly the most abused word in any language.At its most simple:Profit is 4% to 9% compound interest on a loan from a bank, credit union, etc.Greed is 500% compound interest on a loan from a loan-shark or politician.

[FSMP 95]

If you want an answer that will make you feel better about Flight Simulator, and it's future, there is really only one question you need ask them."Where is the Lockheed Prepar3D Booth" ?

[mbucholski 9]

@n4gix - I guess Flight won't make 1% of MS income this year, yet the series pretty much changed our lives. Ballmer's monthly salary would be enough to create a fantastic FS (I don't care how would that look in the stock holders' bulletin). Where's the profit?The greatest discoveries were not made with profit in mind. Funny how the modern monetary system made us forget that. We're not going anywhere nice with MS attitude.

Edited January 7, 2012 by mbucholski

[FSMP 95]

My hope is that GOOGLE "might" consider developing a decent realistic Flight simulator, and leverage their Google Map technology in it.Start from scratch.. modern design, taking advantage of modern computer technology.Like most others, who have been brought up with the evolving MS FS franchise, I think that FLIGHT is nothing more than a "Arcade Type Computer Game", with little to appeal to anyone with a serious interest in aviation.If there is a Market for a decent Flight Simulator, someone will produce one, especially as Microsoft now clearly does not seem to be in the consumer "Flight SIMULATOR" business anymore.

[Guest jahman]

Greed? You sound like a spolied brat whose father won't let him have his favorite toy. What you incorrectly label as 'greed' is actually corporate profit. You're probably not aware of it, but profits are the mother's milk of corporate success. Companies that make the right decisions to nurture profits are successful and stay in business. Those that make the wrong decisions vanish. Part of the prime directive of any successful company is to anticipate future markets and adjust to them. Apple is an excellent example of this. Companies that cannot percieve what is coming fail - not matter how big they are. Kodak is a great example. This giant invented digital imaging in 1975 and failed to see that it would become the de facto standard for picture taking in the future. They stayed with emulsion based silver nitrate films. The Japanese came in with digital cameras and ate Kodak's lunch. Kodak will be filing for bankrupcy soon.The real mission of companies, regardless of whether they make pork bellies, gerbil food, or swizzle sticks, is not to make a product, but to make money (i.e., profit).Every commercial enterprise can chart their course into the future as they see fit. And in percieving how to do that, they have no obligation to any consumer segment to continue making a product which they deem does not make them enough money and/or has no future.And in our case, it hurts. MS, after supporting the flight simulator franchise for 15 years through what - half a dozen versions of FS, has decided that FS does not meet the criteria stated in the previous paragraph. They have determinde that we (the FS enthusiast group) are an insignificant niche group on which they cannot justify the costs to maintain a dedicated studio to continue the franchise. We can argue whether they smart or dumb for their perception, but it does not change the reality of where it leaves us. And the disappointment we all feel.But, my friend, 'greed' has nothing to do with it.

You seem completely unaware of the damage unbridled greed can do to innocent bystanders.Towards the end of 2008 we came close to a financial meltdown (meaning millions out of jobs due to economic depression) due to the likes of AIG and Goldman Sachs betting way more than their companies were worth on Credit Default Swaps and you still think greed is OK? The greed of WorldCom and Enron with thousands of layoffs, are they also good? And what about the greed of BPdrilling past the most elemental safety measures for financial greed while boring into a 7,500 psi natural gas deposit at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico?Heck, you probably never think of what it is to be out on your arse on the street with a family of four and no job because the economy tanked because some morons with more MBAs than ethics blew-up their companies and with them, the economy. What if when you're retired the value of your pension goes to zero becuasse the economy tanks for the actions of a few scoundrels?Mind, it's exactly the kind of short-term "greed is good" view that drives the likes of Microsft Flight Team to needessly tank a whole software ecosystem for the hope of short-term profit.

1. Would you buy stock in a company that never paid any dividends?
2. Would you put your money in a savings account that paid no interest?
3. Would buy any bonds that would never be redeemed for more than what you paid?

1. Yes! Dividends are irrelevant. Microsoft never paid dividends for decades and lots of folks made millions on their stock as the shares appreciated due to retained earnings and the discounted value of future projecte earning. So on some stocks you make money on the dividdends, on others you make money on the price appreciation, and on others you make money on a combination of both.
2. No. The minimum rate I wpuld demand from a savings account is a rate that would pay me 1% after inflation and taxes.
3. Yes! Again it's the same as with stocks: There are even perpetual bonds that never pay back, they only pay interest. Then there are zero-coupon bonds that don't pay any interest at all with only a lump-sum payment at maturity.

Finance and economics are complex subjects, so here's a video explaining the basic concepts: How the Financial Markets Really Work, at only 8 minutes, quite worth your time!Cheers,- jahman.

Edited January 8, 2012 by jahman

[sweetmusic 9]

What would that accomplish? If you could import all the missing sim features from FSX into Flight, what would the result be? FSX !Flight is nothing more than FSX stripped and denuded of any of the important real-sim aspects. So why import them back into Flight only to wind up with what you already have? You're going around in circles. Flight does not contain any envelope-pushing new code, either for graphic rendering or flight dynamics. It breaks no new ground.

I see your point, but I'm not convinced we know all there is to know about Flight at this point. I haven't seen the code. Hope you're wrong.

[spen2 1]

Anyone got any news from CES? How is Flight going down?

[JSkorna 137]

It's 5:45 AM local time right now. What do you think they are doing at the moment? (No, they are not at the craps table)

[Ben Cap 89]

It's 5:45 AM local time right now. What do you think they are doing at the moment? (No, they are not at the craps table)

Probably doing a photoshoot of LAS airport so they can impress people on the demo. :(

[Attila 2]

If there is a Market for a decent Flight Simulator, someone will produce one, especially as Microsoft now clearly does not seem to be in the consumer "Flight SIMULATOR" business anymore.

There is definitely a market.The problem is that there are better markets that produce more profit per $ invested. This is because the market used to be just the people who had PCs and were interested enough to read manuals, tweak boot disks, config files and so on, but now the market has opened up to everyone on the planet and you can sell software to 100,000,000 people for $1.00.It is clear what anyone with business sense would do. The trend is to sell less sophisticated software (not just games) to more people for a lower cost. The competition is great to be first and the result is that there are less and less features in each subsequent release.This is why entire game genres that used to be mainstream have become niche and even so are going the way of the dodo.I see another trend. There seems to be a new Renaissance of game development in some European countries, most notably Germany. Games coming out of there are less flashy, but with more depth than the Hollywood style productions from American companies. Perhaps people there still write games for fun and are not so blinded by the relentless pursuit of profits.

[Guest jahman]

It's 5:45 AM local time right now. What do you think they are doing at the moment? (No, they are not at the craps table)

They can't stop simming gaming with Flight, it's so thrillingly addictive!(Or, there's a bug in the Quit command as implemented in the beta).Cheers,- jahman. Edited January 10, 2012 by jahman

[Manny 1,293]

Anyone here play Ace Combat using PS3 or XBox360?I do. Ace combat was the game that made me go back to MS FSims and then made me get a real flying license.The recent version of Ace Combat is a disaster.... all the previous versions of Ace Combat were awesome. But this time, they realized that COD type game (First shooter games) made lot more money, so they removed the flying component of Ace combat and really dumbed it down and put a gun in front of you so you can shoot oterhs with infinte ammunitions. They too killed the Ace Combat series.Mediocrity currently rules.. Whelp it has always ruled.... At least as per Ayn Rand. Now, I am beginning to believe it:)