We have here a start of something new that can evolve in many ways. What should we do to most likely get what we each want? Surely much of the progress will be independent of us, but there is something we can do. My thoughts:1. We (simmers) each want somewhat different things, but there are many shared wishes also. Our likelihood to get what we want will increase if Flight is success for MS. Likelihood of Success will increase if new gamers feel welcome here and elsewhere. Sure, it's possible to think other plans, like "let's make them fail with gamers, so they have to work with simmers", but that won't work. No one would work with someone who has actively sabotaged their efforts! I don't personally believe in X-Plane or P3D either, but that's just me. 2. ANGRY/EMOTIONAL reviews and comments just make it more likely that MS concentrates on gamers. They have already selected their target audience and knowingly excluded certain features from Flight. They surely know what's missing and won't listen to someone shouting at them. (YOU wouldn't listen someone screaming at you...) 3. Putting more information on the table helps people understand each other. MS may already know quite a lot about what we need, but telling the whole story might help them see the picture even better. Personally I need some things to happen before I will spend any money on Flight because at the moment FSX is for me the platform with most of what I want. My treshold for switching gets higher with every add-on I buy. Spending my limited budget on two platforms is something I would like to avoid. I have told them what I need to switch and my reasons. Now it's up to them to decide whether they want my money or not. 4. Helping them see that there are options to get us what we want and also get them what they want at the same time will help all. For example TrackIR support should be pretty simple to implement and would probably help in calming down forums and so maybe help them succeed with gamers. Another example would be 3rd party add-ons/dlc. I am sure gamers will want many same add-ons simmers want. MS and 3rd party developers just need to find a solution that works for all. I am pretty sure there is motivation on both sides as "Flight & pure MS dlc + FSX & 3rd party add-ons" will be bad for both (FSX add-on sales will likely go down and MS would benefit from free slice of every dlc sales + this could make many simmers switch to Flight and buy dlc created by MS). 5. I am pretty sure many Gamers follow other ("more knowledgeable") gamers and some of the high influence gamers will be following what simmers say (shen they say something worth listening). Find a way to sell MS that reasoning and we will get what we want... 6. In case someone from MS is reading this: You could be more open with your communication. There is no fear of serious competition and more info would help you gain world dominance faster and more easily: many simmers would likely start supporting Flight as soon as we know some missing stuff will be there within a year or so. I understand negotiations with 3rd parties might be ongoing, but I believe more info would help us get pretty soon into situation where no one questions what will be THE platform of the future. (Even LM might want to reconsider P3D platform as there might not be that many new FSX/P3D add-ons in the future... not that LM would depend on add-ons, but many of their customers might question their arguments when schoolboys have "higher end" stuff they have for a lot less money). Just my two hours of typing ;-) threedee BTW: Not all simmers frequent forums, but extraordinary situations demand extraordinary solutions :-P

None of this really matters because we are not the target market for Flight. So wait for MS to decide what they are going to do and enjoy what you have.

6. In case someone from MS is reading this: You could be more open with your communication. There is no fear of serious competition and more info would help you gain world dominance faster and more easily: many simmers would likely start supporting Flight as soon as we know some missing stuff will be there within a year or so. I understand negotiations with 3rd parties might be ongoing, but I believe more info would help us get pretty soon into situation where no one questions what will be THE platform of the future.

You summarized exactly what I have in mind :why Microsoft is so closed on its communication, whereas they have probably the platform of the future in their hands ... They have nothing to fear.

None of this really matters because we are not the target market for Flight.

That's exactly why I think this matters :-)We can either enjoy the show and take what is given or we can become players and maybe get more. Angry attacks can cause negative impact, so what might cause something positive?Gamers will try Flight independent of us, but I bet many will do some searching at some point before buying dlc or if they get really interested. What they find will have some effect on their buying decisions. Many will only play games smart people say are worth it and in this case simmers will have a lot to say about anything related to simulation of flight. Ignoring simmers might be a big mistake for MS...

Two thoughts. Support it, success in the way it is and it stays the way it is. Don't support, bad sales, and MS will have to rethink the concept? Who knows.

The 'gamers' won't take to FLIGHT. Its too dull for them. WIthout guns, power slides & intestines flying across the room they'll go back to BF3 within 10 mins.FLIGHTs ageing gfx also deter kids from even trying it. We are accustomed to gfx engines that push what is possible, visually. FLIGHT is still using a badly ageing FS98-FSX engine.I don't know why a flight sim can't be a vital showcase for Gfx technology companys like ATI & Nvidia. Like Grand Turismo is for PS3.Imagine a Flight Sim that looks as good as the best modern games. Busy Airport ramps rendered with a state of the art engine. a la Frostbyte.I think Microsoft has held back this hobby since post FS9. Its now 2012 & after looking at FLIGHT, it looks old already. Some of you old timers need to wake up & see realize how far we have fallen behind. Supporting MS just makes them think they can sell us more of the same old junk. FLIGHT's strategy is just the shortest route for Microsoft to make a quick bux.

I am gonna revisit this statement of facts in a month or so.

At this point in time it might be better to just sit back and relax. MS will probably base their future strategy on the number of downloads each DLC pack gets. I'm sure they've gotten plenty feedack allready from the beta testers and website feedback channel.

The 'gamers' won't take to FLIGHT. Its too dull for them. WIthout guns, power slides & intestines flying across the room they'll go back to BF3 within 10 mins.FLIGHTs ageing gfx also deter kids from even trying it. We are accustomed to gfx engines that push what is possible, visually. FLIGHT is still using a badly ageing FS98-FSX engine.I don't know why a flight sim can't be a vital showcase for Gfx technology companys like ATI & Nvidia. Like Grand Turismo is for PS3.Imagine a Flight Sim that looks as good as the best modern games. Busy Airport ramps rendered with a state of the art engine. a la Frostbyte.I think Microsoft has held back this hobby since post FS9. Its now 2012 & after looking at FLIGHT, it looks old already. Some of you old timers need to wake up & see realize how far we have fallen behind. Supporting MS just makes them think they can sell us more of the same old junk. FLIGHT's strategy is just the shortest route for Microsoft to make a quick bux.

During my time in BETA I often wondered this as well. I just don't understand why they are using DX9. I can only assume that trying to compute an accurate dynamic flight model, round earth, etc is too much?

The 'gamers' won't take to FLIGHT. Its too dull for them. WIthout guns, power slides & intestines flying across the room they'll go back to BF3 within 10 mins.FLIGHTs ageing gfx also deter kids from even trying it. We are accustomed to gfx engines that push what is possible, visually. FLIGHT is still using a badly ageing FS98-FSX engine.

I am a gamer and am enjoying Flight immensely. I have also been a Flight simmer for 14 years and again...I am enjoying Flight immensely. Ive put more hours into Flight this last two days than I would have any other previous MS release in the first month - probably because apart from one very obvious issue I am having, it works reliably and well out of the box, is relaitvely polished for a first public release and there is little to no tweaking to distract me.Comments you have made, however, such as the game being too immature for kids and references to FPs games strikes me as an attempt to be inflammatory rather than an attempt to engage in respective and reasoned debate.I do not consider Flight's graphics to be ageing for the most part. Whilst not the very best looking flight sim out there, it is amongst the best and the improvement over FSX is significant in a number of area in my opinion. The shading and lighting are far better than FSX (just try flying at dawn and dusk, for example), the geometry, layout and plausibility of the autogen is vastly improved, the coastlines are much improved and of course the stock scenery as a whole is far higher in quality than that shipped with FSX. The fact that the graphics have improved considerably whilst also improving performance (quite dramatically at a given level of scenery complexity) is testament to the amount of tuning and refinement carried out over the last three years.There are clearly aspects that have not realy improved, such as clouds, the way some textures line up and the way roads can still sometimes implausibly intersect other terrain, however I feel the other improvements more than make up for these (minor in the scheme of things) shortcomings. In any event, I would much rather have a game engine based on tried and proven DNA than a bright shiny cutting edge game that may come with many problems. Some may argue that this is what happened with Cliffs of Dover, for example.

Just a thought...how long did it take FSX to get to where it is now? 25+ years of MS development and 10 or so years of 3PD dev.? Right now, Flight is on day 2. Just sayin....

During my time in BETA I often wondered this as well. I just don't understand why they are using DX9. I can only assume that trying to compute an accurate dynamic flight model, round earth, etc is too much?

Personally I think the capabilities DX9 are under-rated. I recently bought an FPS game (Hard Reset) and it is an excellent game. The visuals and performance are superb, it was only released late in 2011 and it is DX9 only. My feeling is that MS chose the DX9 route as it is more compatible with the typical mass-user hardware platforms that are being targetted. Perhaps they felt that attempting to produce a game that worked well under both DX9 and DX11 would consume more resources at their end than they were willing or able to spare - and again, if the target is a mass audience rather than hardcore simmers then DX9 would be the sensible way to go. I know from being involved in beta testing of applications designed to work under both APIs that this adds a lot of work and testing (and thus resources) to the overall process, and in the end, despite the arguably better efficiencies inherent in DX11, the real world performance is generally lower, at least in my experience.

I know, here comes the lawyer again, making the business case. As many of you are realizing, MS has made a business decision. Tom will probably bonk me on the head for commenting on the business plan, but the cornerstone of their new two-prong strategy involves attracting the masses by recreating the feeling and experience of flight. They've taken cues from other popular titles as to what will attract a core audience--namely, adventures, visceral thrill rides and achievements. The second prong of their strategy is to create recurring revenue. Years of watching 3rd party developers reap the rewards on top of the FSX platform has taken its toll. I really can't blame MS, being a capitalist at heart. This new strategy will no doubt be more profitable than trying to cater to the small hardcore, technically focused, sim crowd. They've made a good business decision. The ability to recognize such opportunities explains why MS is as successful as it is. Like someone said above, the best we serious technical simmers can do is enjoy what we have. (The entry barriers and capital requirements are far too high for another developer to come in and take the reins, I think.) Thanks to PMDG and the heaven-sent NGX, I'm perfectly fine with that.

I have to say that the comments in this thread seem very well thought out and insightful. From a pure programming perspective, I think the present iteration of Flight as presented is moderately attractive, and that Microsoft did a great job of making a product that runs decently on many different "grades" of hardware, not simply the top-end boxes. Also, I can see they wanted something that could run on XBOX. Being Internet-based from jump, Microsoft is trying to go somewhere that SONY already has, and of course XBOX as well. Those of us who fly with the hope of "As close to real as it gets" are saddened by the missing heavy metal airplanes (thus far) and limited areas we can fly in (thus far).Closing the door to third parties (see behind the scenes posts by Capt. Randazzo of PMDG) is upsetting in and of itself, and leaving PMDG out of the mix, sends a clear message that many of us are not the target audience, as has also been stated by several members here.Given the graphics levels of some non-flight games, it seems lamentable that Flight, while much prettier and higher quality graphics than FSX right out of the box, apparently is not trying to reach the stunning levels of some other games (think Grand Theft Auto, Battlefield3, Formula 1 2010, Dirt3 et cetera). Again, the reason for this seems clear: not every gamer has a bleeding edge gaming PC with a USD $1000 Video card (or even THREE of them), a $400 Power Supply, and so on... if such hardware is necessary to get great frame rates, you are leaving too many potential customers at the roadside, and like any business, it's all about the revenue stream. Disturbing it is (in YodaSpeak) to see Microsoft grab the aftermarket segment that the third party builders make their living from. Avsim member Trevor Moore said it best "They've [Microsoft] made a good business decision. Competition and choice are threatened, however, which I'm not happy about.The underlying engine for Flight does not appear to be radically different from FSX unlike XPlane 10, which while very difficult to actually fly, has some VERY appealing graphics (think close ups of the freeways and airport surrounding scenery) and showed a quantum leap over the prior iteration of XPlane. I will say the frames rate and smoothness of Flight are impressive, and many of the scenery effects are markedly better than FSX comparing both as OEM versions without third-party helper scenery upgrades. Microsoft went for the broadest possible potential market and apparently left the hard-core sim cadre at the roadside. This isn't a crime, but it is a pity. FSX can be both an arcade game and an in-depth simulation game, but it seems they chose the arcade path for Flight and not so much for in-depth real-world sim.The task of creating a world in which all of the wonderful third party add-on software can interoperate is Herculean in terms of programming, because you essentially have to map out the entire planet to some level, and then all of the airports and cities, rivers, yada yada. Not something most companies can accomplish, because of the financial commitment and resources required. Who could compete against Microsoft and make a brand-new world for flight simulation? Google could, but their focus isn't gaming (but what a resource Google Earth could be for photo-realistic scenery!)As a result, it seems to me that FSX will persist for those of us who have already made substantial investment in hardware (think PMDG (and other) planes, MCP panels, throttle quadrants, Glass Cockpit, etc) because we love IVAO and VATSIM ATC, REX weather, AivlaSoft Electronic Flight Bag and so much more.Flight is designed to bring non-pilots into flying, and I think that goal was met. FSX in my view, provides the superior immersive experience, and that's where many of us will likely stay. Quoting Trevor Moore- Thanks to PMDG and the heaven-sent NGX!

Edited March 1, 201214 yr by rsm

During my time in BETA I often wondered this as well. I just don't understand why they are using DX9. I can only assume that trying to compute an accurate dynamic flight model, round earth, etc is too much?

I will suspect because Xbox is dx9, mainly.

During my time in BETA I often wondered this as well. I just don't understand why they are using DX9.

Supporting Windows XP SP3 required using DX9.