One more review from someone who has been around here for years...

[Guest]

But that will not happen until I see an airplane I like, full ILS support, and an area I want to fly in.

The RV6 and Maule have full ILS support, so that's one problem gone. And maybe you will like Alaska more then Hawaii...?

and others comments of Microsoft being a Money making machine

Every company is a money making machine. Not just MS.

[Murray_CHYZ 1]

Every company is a money making machine. Not just MS.

Well, they "try" to be at least. <wink> Nothing wrong with businesses making money. That's what keeps us all afloat. Edited March 6, 2012 by Murray_CHYZ

[n4gix 4,965]

Paul, thanks for your opinion. Just so you know, I think you completely nailed it. I have pretty much the same opinion like you do.And I'm really disgusted with both their business model AND how they treat(ed) 3rd party developers

Honestly, I've only heard from one side of that situation from two companies. I've never been one to simply base any decision on only one side of a story. Since we'll never, ever actually know what Microsoft Game Studio's side of the story is, I remain less than sanquine about the whole embroglio.What I do know is that as a third-party developer I'm not about to "burn the bridges behind me" so to speak. I will remain neutral until such time as more credible and verifiable information is available. If the time ever comes when there's some opportunity for me, I'll evaluate whether it makes sense and suits my own interests to become involved. What others may have found to not be in their interests may very well not apply in my case. :db:In the meantime, I'll continue with development for FS9 and FSX as long as it remains financially viable, and use Flight as my means of just "having fun" after a day of programming and or modeling frustration, er... work...

[alainneedle1 97]

What I do know is that as a third-party developer I'm not about to "burn the bridges behind me" so to speak. I will remain neutral until such time as more credible and verifiable information is available. If the time ever comes when there's some opportunity for me, I'll evaluate whether it makes sense and suits my own interests to become involved. What others may have found to not be in their interests very well not apply in my case. :db:

+1, ....others already did....

[pmanhart 176]

+1, ....others already did....

Not to try and start an argument, but from what the "others" said, it was really the other way around... :Peace:

[LHookins 3,117]

Good review, Paul.I understand that if you know the people's names and read the credits, you'll find some third party developers in there. They won't talk abut it because of a strict NDA.I'm going to reserve judgement on their pricing model until I see what Alaska is going to cost. As for controlling ALL DLC, I'm perfectly fine with that.I've been flying FSX with almost no addons, just a couple of aircraft, and no additional scenery. I'm happy with it, execpt for the constant crashing. I don't need 3PD scenery to be happy, and I can tweak my own planes if needed. Hopefully, plane tweaking won't be needed in Flight.One of the earliest things I did with FSX was to plan a flight around the world, stopping at all the high definition airports and visiting the hi def cities, and a bunch of major landmarks. I miss being able to do that in Flight, but for now, Hawaii has been pretty good. Alaska will be even better.Hook

[Dillon 2,208]

We are so used to 'needing' 3rd party developers, that we can't imagine we might not need them.I only post this to think about because I know it will be some time (hm, probably never) until we get a PMDG like plane in MS Flight. Still... you never know. But what I said is to help some of you to think out of the box a little. If FSX had been good out of the box, we wouldn't have needed 3rd party developers at all (or either).

Let's not get beside ourselves here. :Whistle: Freeware and Payware developers is what got Flight Simulation where it is today. We need our community and contributors. I personally believe we wouldn't have the visuals in Flight if it weren't for companies like Orbix and FS Dreamteam. Let's not loose site of that. MS Development Studio will never replace our third party developers. The best they could do is include them and Make Flight that much better of an experience.

[newthog 0]

Honestly, I've only heard from one side of that situation from two companies. I've never been one to simply base any decision on only one side of a story. Since we'll never, ever actually know what Microsoft Game Studio's side of the story is, I remain less than sanquine about the whole embroglio.What I do know is that as a third-party developer I'm not about to "burn the bridges behind me" so to speak. I will remain neutral until such time as more credible and verifiable information is available. If the time ever comes when there's some opportunity for me, I'll evaluate whether it makes sense and suits my own interests to become involved. What others may have found to not be in their interests may very well not apply in my case. :db:In the meantime, I'll continue with development for FS9 and FSX as long as it remains financially viable, and use Flight as my means of just "having fun" after a day of programming and or modeling frustration, er... work...

First - Paul, good post - you did a great presentation of how you view the positives and negatives of Flight!Why I quoted Fr Bill, however, is the one point that I find...not disagreement...but a question of "what actually is". From what I've read - and I could be wrong and if so please correct me - wasn't there some sort of "we'll market it, but you'll pay a percentage to us and give us the rights to it" offer? To me that's not turning their backs and locking them out - Microsoft saw the financial potential and made a business decision regarding it. Isn't having a fairly secure and widespread market for a product worth a 30% cut and allowing Microsoft to be sole marketer?As I said, I'm probably wrong - my background is military and animal care, not marketing - and as Fr Bill kind of stated, with the NDAs in place we don't know the whole story...Starting to ramble - I enjoy Flight for what it is, still fire up FS9 to get my whirlybird fix, and enjoy both.

[1mikel151 71]

MS Development Studio will never replace our third party developers.

Seems they think otherwise since I have yet to see any mention of them ever opening up Flight to the community and 3rd party development.I kinda agree with Jeroen, we add so much to FSX and FS9 and then complain about performance and other issues and in most cases these are caused by the addons themselves. How often do we see posts from new members and the first thing they ask is what addon do they need to improve their sim, instead of just enjoying it for what it is, like many of us are doing right now with Flight.I have been spending lots of time wondering around the airports on foot and the one thing i am noticing is the consistency of the 3D models and their added detail.. It got me thinking of how different (ie bad) it could be if 3rd party developers were able to add content since we already see a variety of detail and inconsistency across the board with the many different models for both FS9 and FSX.Personally I would like to just see MS model consistency with the ability to place in game objects for the time being. especially since I can't develop, I am actually spending more time flying, what a concept, LOL..

[n4gix 4,965]

Seems they think otherwise since I have yet to see any mention of them ever opening up Flight to the community and 3rd party development.

The latest interview with Joshua Howard intimated that 3d party dev of some form might come up maybe a year or two down the road......so at least there's some glimmer of hope...

[Peter James 0]

MS will turn off many customers if they price the add-ons $50+ ... remember they are marketing this towards kids, and adults who are not diehard simmers, but beginners and newbies and people that never knew you can fly an airplane on a PC. They already know we (us real simmers and pilots) will but it at any cost - but they are marketing this toward the masses.... a $19.95 ish price point for everything is so common these days for everything from Ginzu knives to the latest fad exercise gizmo.....the next add-on will be...... $19 I truly believe this...size of the area doesn't matter... if they price it towards $50 they will loose all the target they are after... they'll get us and no one else!they don't want that. Maybe in a year or two if this thing sells millions of copies they will up the price of add-ons but I be this is all a test to see what they can bring in... and again, I don't believe they're going to outprice the masses!

[alainneedle1 97]

Not to try and start an argument, but from what the "others" said, it was really the other way around... :Peace:

No argument here, not respecting your NDA burn bridges....as I said before some don't play good with others.