Like most I think I was most surprised by PMDG's recent announcement of the DC-6 in development. It had me thinking - it would seem to me at least that more and more payware developers are creating and releasing the same types of aircraft. A few examples:DC-6 - PMDG & Just Flight.737NG - PMDG & iFly.737 Analogue - Captain Sim & Black BoxA320 - PMDG & Flight Sim Labs & Black Box777 - PMDG & Captain Sim757 - Captain Sim & Quality Wings & Level D (has it been cancelled?)767 - Level D & Captain SimMD80 - Cool Sky & LeonardoF-15E - Mil Viz & IrisF-16 - Aerosoft & IrisC182T G1000 - Flight 1 & CarenadoCommander 115 - FSD & CarenadoP-51D - Warbirdsim & A2A & Flight 1Citation X - Wilco & EaglesoftDA42 - Iris & EaglesoftThese are just the ones I can rattle off from the top of my head. How do you feel about this? Is it a good thing to have so much choice? Or are payware developers shooting themselves in the foot by developing the same aircraft over and over?Now I know that most payware devs don't share their plans with one another so there is bound to be some duplication of effort, but I can't help feel that the duplication of effort is ultimately counter productive for the hobby as a whole.

Edited February 7, 201214 yr by EngineRoom

In our case our Citation X came long before the competitor and our DA42 was published as "In Progress" long before the competitor.A bit of understanding is needed on this subject since no 3PD can prevent others from "duplicating the effort".

A bit of understanding is needed on this subject since no 3PD can prevent others from "duplicating the effort".

I appreciate that developers don't share their release plans with eachother.However, it can't be good when two developers have publically stated they have the same aircraft in development. Surely it's going to split an already fairly small market.How many people didn't buy the iFly 737NG because they knew PMDG were doing one? How many people will now not buy the Just Flight DC-6 because they know PMDG are doing one? I wonder how far Mil Viz and Iris damaged their own bottom line by releasing two F-15Es within a couple of months of eachother? I wonder how many C182T G1000s Carenado expect to sell given the presence of the Flight 1 product?

In our case our Citation X came long before the competitor

If I recall correctly, your original CX for FS9 was released long before the Wilco one. However, your CX V2 which was rebuilt from the ground up was released quite a while after Wilco's FSX version of their CX.

The more, the better. As in every other business, companies will follow the demand. And the more competition among companies, the better it is for us. So bring it on. A wider selection of aircraft would be nice but it doesn't do a company much good to develop one, if there there's little demand for it. It's wasted time, effort, and money for the developer.Rich

A320 - PMDG & Flight Sim Labs & Black Box

PMDG??? Did I miss something?Apart from that: competition is good! Even in a small market. Plus, many of the addons published serve different needs for different users (price point, system depth, hardware requirements, sim platform). It would be awful to have only one choice for any given plane.

Although often many developpers release the same aircraft, they do so with a few years time difference, meaning the second release is often a lot better than the first release.So overlapping aircraft releases aren't necessarily a bad thing.Cheers,- jahman.

If I recall correctly, your original CX for FS9 was released long before the Wilco one. However, your CX V2 which was rebuilt from the ground up was released quite a while after Wilco's FSX version of their CX.

While you are correct about our CX2.0 Avsim Bravo Zulu Award winner we wished to keep it short and sweet as opposed to a long history...

In other words: Duplicate aircraft, but not duplicate quality.