Just because Flight is out on the market doesn't mean that all of a sudden everything we've come to know and revere about FlightSim is suddenly going to vanish and disappear.As long as there is interest in the existing crop of FS products there will be designers out there creating add ons for those products.

Howdy Viper --- I agree with you, as many others have already that are actually in the sim add-on business. There is still much life in FSX and maybe much more in XP if they choose to ramp their efforts to expand scenery and stabilize the simulator a bit. These are the staples of the sim hobby and are not going anywhere for a long time and I feel the third-party market support will remain. Presently, the add-on market has no other place to go....I am very optimistic about the future.Cheers / Regards --- Bob :(

IMHO... I think this is a case of 'making a mountain out of a molehill'.Just because Flight is out on the market doesn't mean that all of a sudden everything we've come to know and revere about FlightSim is suddenly going to vanish and disappear. [...]It's up to us as a community to keep our hobby thriving as best we can. What's it going to be...Sitting in the dark, pouting and whining that Flight is a disaster, FS as we know it is dead, doom to all who promote Flight?Or...Welcoming the newcomers to our hobby, being civil and courteous, answering their questions, and promoting our side of the deal?Your move.

Time will show and proof will be in the pudding and all that...Yes I agree. FSX isn't going to disappear over night. With a couple of million copies sold I guess most FSX users that didn't become hardcore fans have uninstalled it a long time ago. And new fans are to be found among those who have picked up the more recent gold edition.Flight might not be the disaster some think it will be. If Flight draws people in and make them demand a more realistic and heavy simulator platform I'm stoked. We'll have to wait and see.What makes me pessimistic though is that no FSX replacement is in development. Lack of development and innovation is rarely good news. I'm still young (relatively) and want to see this hobby grow and evolve for many years to come! What history has thought me is that people often go for new, not necessarily improved.

Flight might not be the disaster some think it will be. If Flight draws people in and make them demand a more realistic and heavy simulator platform I'm stoked. We'll have to wait and see.What makes me pessimistic though is that no FSX replacement is in development. Lack of development and innovation is rarely good news. I'm still young (relatively) and want to see this hobby grow and evolve for many years to come! What history has thought me is that people often go for new, not necessarily improved.

I'm pretty sure that MS will ensure that they have something in reserve - should Flight not become successful.I am also confident that those really serious 'would be' simmers will realise that FSX still has promise - and once they have seen what can be done by PMDG and others, then we will have a continuing core of members to this hobby.MS have to create income. History has shown that pricing & availability wins. Too expensive, and it dies. I'm pretty sure that MS will come to adjust.Can you imagine MS tempting us with a freebie similar to the NGX ? I bet they will - if it is necessary. Buy these enhancements, and get an NGX look alike for free ! I'd fall for that, certainly. Only this time their 'minimum hardware requirements may be a little more realistic...Look what PMDG have done - by replacing or reprogramming those parts of FSX that have caused us lots of problems, and have come up with a product which would have been beyond belief just a couple of years ago. If you had told me when I started with FSX, with its slideshow, blurries and whatever, that I'd be flying a 737, in FSX, with so much pleasure, and with so much realism - everything going fine even on my 'Low-end' PC, then I wouldn't have believed it.I am full of admiration for MS. Almost every version was way ahead of its time, hardware-wise.PMDG have shown that some of FSX's limitations can be overcome. I'm very hopeful that this hobby will continue for many years to come. More people are flying than ever before. That must encourage many would-be virtual pilots, young and old, to try this hobby.I agree with Viperpilot. I am very optimistic.

Can you imagine MS tempting us with a freebie similar to the NGX ? I bet they will

HelloI will take that bet with you$100 to a charity of Toms choosing if MS produce an airliner to the complexity of the NGX and release it for free, never going to happen

Haven't read the whole thread but my two cents here:Flight will be the same market success as every previous iteration of MS flying sims. At it's early days, it will attract casual simmers, gamers etc. When days goes on (read - two, three years IMO), there will be more and more add-ons making finally FSX obsolete. The engine looks similar to FSX (which looks similar to FS2004, which looks similar to... Well, You have my point), so present 3rd party dev teams do not need to start from scratch. When MS will meet the profit goal, they will loosen the politics involved here meaning green light for developers.At that time gamer-style PC users will move to never simulators (plenty of them actually and more to go in the future), simmmer-style PC users will stick with FSXI and leave FSX behind - exactly as FSX vs FS2004 looks now. FS2004 is still a good sim, and if You do not want to invest few thousand bucks into modern gaming PC, You stick with FS9 and are happy with it.At least this would be the best story for us...

I hope Flight is highly successful for the sake of bringing in new simmers which will benefit our hobby. And frankly I don't mind the direction that MS took with "Flighty". Why? Well they may dole out nice looking areas to fly (and I like to look at nice eye candy), games to play (and I do like to play games), good looking aircraft to fly (who doesn't like a sharp, detailed aircraft), etc., etc., etc., but there is one thing MS Flight can not give you. And that is freedom. Freedom to choose. Freedom of what to fly, where to fly and to some extent... when to fly (ie: in the past, in the future).Where did you first want to fly to the first time the bug caught you? I bet it was your home town. Maybe you even wanted to fly over your own house, or at least hoped that you could. So unless you happen to be lucky enough to live in Hawaii you'll have to wait. Or you'll have to wait until you can fly where you have always dreamed to fly to. Maybe it's a past vacation you took or a place where you used to live. Someplace you will never get to visit in the real world... you get the idea.Looking at Flight's short history, it appears they are releasing one area and couple of planes every three months. First Hawaii, then in the Spring comes Alaska. Sorry if you live in Great Britain or Asia or Australia. You'll have to wait. If we go by what we know that will make eight releases in two years. That is before they open up to 3rd party developers. I'm way too busy flying to wait. So my friends, I do hope that MS Flight is a hit... even if every single simmer dropped FS9 or FSX from the face of the planet, and all the simming websites closed down and all our beloved forums faded away. I still have an entire world I can explore at my choosing, I have enough add-ons that would last me two life times! I have addons from FS2004 that I still never even installed and probably never will, and dozens of FSX purchases that are still wrapped. So I guess I am saying I am ready for the day of rapture to begin. :(

After FS9, Microsoft announced that further development of Flight Simulator would take place on the Vista platform, and that it would not work under previous versions of Windows, which had introduced XP a couple of years earlier. So, users who wanted to move past FS9 would have to buy a new OS, which basically meant replacing the computer to accomodate a larger and more resource-hungry operating system.We know what happened. Vista was a flop. One of the first signs that Microsoft realized it was a dead end was their announcement that they were halting all development work on Flight Simulators. Eventually, they resumed work on the project, but without the Vista restriction.I worry that they will do things with Windows to make it difficult or even impossible to run "legacy" simulators like FS9 or FSX, trying to once again force everyone on to the new platform. When I bought a new system last year, for example, I had to go with XP because Windows 7 does not support Gameport devices, and my old yoke and pedals are Gameport, not USB. Since many of us buy systems with the OS included, how long will it be before someone discovers that the latest bundled version of Windows won't support FS9, then FSX, and the only game in town will be Flight?

I agree with the majority of posters here that think that Flight could be a great introduction to FSX.What many people seem to forget is that FSX has a mission system already, and aside from all of the missions included with FSX and Acceleration, there is a plethora available online for free. Then there are the payware mission packs that take things a step further like Aerosoft's African Adventures.I think if we can point out, in cost, the difference between FSX and Flight we could expand the FSX community and help the third-party market.

Since many of us buy systems with the OS included, how long will it be before someone discovers that the latest bundled version of Windows won't support FS9, then FSX, and the only game in town will be Flight?

Delete the OS that doesn't support your FS programs and install the OS that does. OS/program support is the least of the problems you should be thinking about!

Delete the OS that doesn't support your FS programs and install the OS that does. OS/program support is the least of the problems you should be thinking about!

Dual boot..or just keep an older system exclusively for FS and fully optimised for it. This isn't an insurmountable problem.

I never buy an OS just because its "new". Only if it had features I may be interested in and if it wasnt compatible with my apps. I sure as heck wouldn't buy it! new OS sytems are merely marketing schemes. They made FLIGHT windows XP compatible. As a small business owner, I would rather give my money to the little guy. ma and pop store developer than the mega MS investors.

Which is why I stuck with XP when I built a new machine. And yes, I could do a dual boot if I chose, but as computer-savvy individuals, I'd have to say that most of us here are way above the curve. The average computer user isn't going to do this. He'll just take the OS that comes with the machine and run the programs it supports.Even the venerable XP will become obsolete. Newer processors and peripherals will require things that aren't implemented in older operating systems. The Gameport thing is a perfect example. There was no reason that Microsoft couldn't have put Gameport support into Windows 7, they just didn't want to do it. It's not an issue just now, and FS9 and FSX work on Windows 7, but how long will this condition exist? Suppose they decide they need something "new" to replace DirectX, and that "improvement" is incompatable with our sims?I'm just concerned that "real" simulators like FS9 and FSX will only run on "legacy" systems, and moving forward the only options will be game-like programs rather than serious sims.

Something "new" for DirectX is not going to affect Windows 7. You are safe for 10-15 years.

Something "new" for DirectX is not going to affect Windows 7. You are safe for 10-15 years.

No, probably not. W7 is designed as a replacement for the standard desktop environment, and it's aimed at the corporate market that is still using XP.Windows 8, though, looks radically different. They are targeting the mobile market, and the non-sophisticated user that wants e-mail, communications and those ubiquitous "apps." To some extent, they see the future in the Apple model - totally portable machines that only plug in for power, lacking even CD drives and Ethernet ports. That paradigm, as they love to say, is "cloud based" and the computers are merely portals, returning us again to the days of dumb terminals and mainframes.

So how long do you think Win 7 will be supported for? Remember, that right now XP is into year 11.