Easy to say this now.Regards.Ernie.

Indeed. Knowing myself rather well, it is usually increadibly easy for me to say what I will or will not do. Whilst sober.However, if Flight changes in some way into some product that is of interest to me (in any shape or form), then none of the above will apply, and I'll be pushing to the front of the queue to download. As it is, I promise you, I'm not going to download it. OK?

Thing is, MS is not going to spend that kind of money to develop an addon like that for Flight.

It's not a matter of money, because an FSX addon doesn't cost that much to develop. Its a matter of return on investment. For FSX the market is too small to sink a lot of money into development, that's why most FS addon devs are part timers, and why it takes 2 to 3 years to produce an high quality FS addon aircraft. But 'Flight' is a different model. Anyone with an internet connection can download MS Flight, and relatively easily find a dev's app. The potential market means more devs can have full-time staff, and put out high quality products in several months instead of years.If this MS Flight thing were to be successfull , the potential return on investment could be easily 10 times larger than any return an FSX addon could bring in. Even MS would get in on some of that action. Theyhave produced addons before (remember MS Japan ? MS New York ?).That would bring in a quite a bit more talent that we see for FSX addons.Instead of one or two products like the NGX, you could have 15 like it, and only be paying $15 each for them.Obviously this is a big experiment, the risk for MS is significant, it could fail big time. But there is a potential winfall here, not just for MS, but for the average FlightSimmer.Regards.Ernie.

That would bring in a quite a bit more talent that we see for FSX addons.Instead of one or two products like the NGX, you could have 15 like it, and only be paying $15 each for them.

Oh, the potential is certainly there, Ernie! The question of course becomes one of quality. We could as easily wind up with a bunch of 'ABACUS' quality addons...

We could as easily wind up with a bunch of 'ABACUS' quality addons...

Bill, you're becoming such a "glass half empty" kind of guy. Wonder what happen to keeping the faith?I'm just guessing a bit, but IMO there's a slew of stuff (pun intended!) that could be ported over from FSX to Flight. I'm not so sure that there isn't some things already showing in the preview pictures and videos? Some developers will buy inot the concept and others won't. It's just a matter of playing the waiting game.

The point I was trying to make is, do you really think that a developer (who ever he is) will work under a NDA with MS to exchange idea, telling MS what is wrong with the FSX engine so they can fix the major bugs, showing their work to MS, understanding how MS market store work and more to make addons just for Hawaii only.....and all of that happened in September of 2011, what I'm saying is none of the dev. knew how MS does business...give me a break here.Again, is Flight beta the full game, looking at the spec. requirements.....should I take a guess?Edit: One of the first thing Tom did on 01/04/2010 when he released the info is to put a poll up asking us (hardcore) questions about addons....what for? When is the show again?....

You know when a small company sells its product in real volume? When a massive company like walmart sells it. The point here is if a Dev. were to say build a plane for flight,chances are the DEv. would sell millions compared to a few thousand if they would sell on there own. I do remember that poll...Must not have been to many hardcore simmers reply.

I'm just guessing a bit, but IMO there's a slew of stuff (pun intended!) that could be ported over from FSX to Flight.

That's a bit unlikely unless there's a way to invisibly jailbreak the DRM. It appears to me that a lot of time and thought has been invested in the DRM aspects of this title.

One would need to see the game in action. The beta testers are the lucky ones, especially if they remain or become impartial and not let the worries and concerns in the fora cloud their judgement. It's a game. The free release is going to be nothing more than the FSX demo was to FSX - or has the community forgotten the FSX demo?If you browse, you can see some NDA breakers have been in action - both pro and contra the game.Personally, I can't see much interest from the kiddies in flying as a game - no dragons to kill, no pseudo ##### or gremlins or aliens to kill. Not even a Mario figure to chase around the platforms and ladders. But then again, at my age and being a four-fold grandfather already, I may not be reading the younger generation right. Except that they are all iPads and iPhones now - and chatting, snapping, skyping on these super-mini PC replacements ;) and speaking with my 32 year old twins and their peers, I really do fear for the MS judgement. Games have to be addictive and simple - see Bejewelled Blitz on facebook, and it's kind. Or all the free games on the iThingies. And then notice that there are so many free games that are really mind numbingly addictive...They are free because they carry advertising by the way.The youngsters seem top want a lot of variety for free. They will buy serious eye-candy games like Fallout, Skyrim, CoD and the like, but bursting balloons, buying 100$ Burgers and actually still having to LEARN new talents (even as a game, you have to learn to fly, and even in the game it takes hours!)I fear that despite the good stuff, the GAME will be too much for newbies just wanting to play and not enough for simulator fans who want systems, weather, the real world and all that. The coin hunt challenges (25 before the clock runs out) are hard enough for an experienced simmer. A gamer is going to get frustrated and go back to Lara and the gang.I could be wrong. I hope I am.

Edited January 10, 201214 yr by stormpup

Just curious, but how much would it cost if all the developers and the community pitched in and bought the source code or a license for ESP/FSX? Then we could continue the development for the consumer base.

Edited January 10, 201214 yr by magnetite

Just curious, but how much would it cost if all the developers and the community pitched in and bought the source code or a license for ESP/FSX? Then we could continue the development for the consumer base.

Prepar3D... same thing.

The source code is not for sale to the developers and the community.

The source code is not for sale to the developers and the community.

What about buying a lease? Kind of like how Lockheed did? Except for us, it'd be for gamers and such.

Lockheed did not buy a 'lease'. They purchased the rights to the source code of ESP, outright.I have no idea where people keep getting the idea that L-M is leasing ESP.As for purchasing the source to ESP for gamers. Can never happen. The singular restriction placed on the sale is that the purchaser can not make a game/entertainment product.

How hard can it be to write an engine from scratch when the likes of OrbiterSim is coded by a single man?MS Flight Simulator was never exactly realistic nor did it ever have accurate flight dynamics, weather, etc to begin with in the first place.

FS is far, far more realistic than you give it credit for.

How hard can it be to write an engine from scratch when the likes of OrbiterSim is coded by a single man?MS Flight Simulator was never exactly realistic nor did it ever have accurate flight dynamics, weather, etc to begin with in the first place.

I once built a "Flight Simulator" in Macromedia flash. 18 KB and about an hour's work... (if you do not believe, go here )Weeelllll OK, it's not exactly a full sim, but it gave a very basic attitude indicator and you can steer around the sky. It was actually a proof of concept because some asked if it was possible to make an instrument panel using Flash.Flying is all Newtonian Math (forget Bernoulli - Bernoulli sucks ;) ) and Newtonian math is easy. But that is another story and you, the reader, will not understand that unless you have seen the lectures and books by the guy from Fermi Labs who explains. The biggest part of the sim is loading up the data needed to make the world and to keep all the loose bits flying around in cohesion. Which is one reason why FS takes so long to load up when you press the "Fly Now" button - and one of the many reasons why FSX bombed with so many of us - MS was thinking single core while the rest of the world said multicore. And even though processors are now hitting eight cores, the speed of the individual cores has not really gone up as much as prior to the development of multi core. In fact my 2006 AMD has a core speed of 3.3 GHz overclocked (I could just tweak it a bit more and fry eggs...) Nowadays? You can maybe push an Intel to 5 GHz now. And you will still have FS slow down over heavy urban areas.I reckon the only way MSF might have improved in performance is if MS have actually taken features away from FSX. So my guess is that despite any apparrent eye candy, MS Flight is probably a highly stripped FSX.So to come back to etheris' question - you are probably right - it's time to start from scratch.[edit]As an afterthought - that goes for most (all?) MS Software that is full of orphaned code.

Edited January 10, 201214 yr by stormpup

That's a bit unlikely unless there's a way to invisibly jailbreak the DRM. It appears to me that a lot of time and thought has been invested in the DRM aspects of this title.

Think "outside the bun", Bill. As the old Taco Bell commercial would say. Developer has XYZ scenery package for FSX and it sells nicely. Now MS says we can convert that and sell it through our store and you get XX% of the returns. Some developers will go with that and some won't. Same might apply with an airplane? Tools can be made to put it into a proper format and Bingo, Bongo! It's now for sale at the store.Any thing is a possibility. Especially if there's money to be made!