@quadraspleen, FaireI do really understand that. I for sure will pay, even for the possibility to see how is the MS Flight growing. I just do not understand the idea of doing a DLC and after that giving us next DLCs to that one. Flight is a semi-sim and quite revolutionary and I fully agree. But please tell me - is it a fair game? We are the core of the fying family we are creating. Not the people who fly with the mouse for two hours. They won't be rich if they propose a strategy like this. For non simmer, it is ok with one stearman and one island. They do not need the active checklist (I love this in MS Flight), not even saying about the active weather, charts and flight planning. They do not need load plans, fuel planning and performance calculations. They do not need FMS and jets at all. I do even understand and love the idea of "let;s say", PPL-flying sub simulator and that's great.What I do not understand is the close conception of MS-Flight. We and only we are taking quite large money for one plane, one island, in the future one landing gear, one tyre, one wing, one cloud,one building....I do not understand of thinking of us - the people who treat sim-flying like our real-world airspace, the machine not only for hard-core flying but just flying, the only opportunity to feel the flight and learn flying before our ppl and next levels of the real career. I'm sure it;s better for the MS to keep us with them than against them or at least just sitting on the runway bench.Of course, there is a Mercedes SLS and there is, let's say ford ka.There is Skyrim and there is some second-hand RPG.Another way, there is Forza4 and there are DLCs for Forza4. But Forza4 is not a DLC.And lastly, there is a DLC like 737NGX or FS Global and there is a DLC like Hawaii and Maule.Semper Fi to the core-sim, not only to the hard one ;)

What I do not understand is the close conception of MS-Flight. We and only we are taking quite large money for one plane, one island, in the future one landing gear, one tyre, one wing, one cloud,one building....

For what it's worth, nor do I..I think this is a bad idea for them...They need to keep it varied, cheap and interesting

I'm not interested in missions and coconut bras

I'm wearing one now :D But I do like the missions, I just wish they were not all about length and weight and sometimes more about difficulty and testing flyingbestjake

IMHO, all the shortcomings of Flight can be remedied very quickly by 3rd party devs IF they ever decide to publish an SDK.If this happens in the next few years, then Flight may well become a viable option for everyone.If not, then many of us will have to stick with FSX or look elsewhere.

Good interview indeed, the right questions were asked. I'm reading his comments as a former journalist with 15 years of experience in top level media.It is MS' right to position Flight where they think it should be, just as it is the sim community's right to judge that positioning as it sees fit. Howard's complaining about pre-occupied simmers and their negative stance towards Flight should be rejected with contempt: why should simmers not have the right to say that Flight is not offering them what they want? It is MS' prerogative to do with that criticism as they please. However, consumers have the right to decide whether they'll go along with MS. Criticising simmers will just alienate them further and doesn't impress me at all, to the contrary. With the content update frequency he has in mind, I doubt whether his model will succeed in holding on to its customers. Updates 3/4 times a year is not enough for gamers.From his answers, it is clear to me that Flight will remain a game and will not move on to sim level. He is diplomatically vague and clearly non-committal about all sim level subjects, which tells me that MS is not pursuing this at all at this point, and is unlikely to do so in the future, unless Flight flops and moves up a gear or two for survival. Question is whether they'll be granted that time by MS.He claims that Flight has been downloaded more than originally anticipated, but does not give facts and figures. Unless the stats are not really good, why would he hide them? In other words, he's trying to create the perception that Flight is running well, and does not present facts to lift that perception to reality.His comments on third party developers were very clear. From a strategic point of view, it was important for MS to gain complete control over Flight - hence the requirement to create a MS owned ID and to offer content via the download platform (which MS controls). They noticed that third party developers were making more money out of FS than MS itself, the creator. Compare the amount of money simmers spend on the simulator itself vs addons, and you'll see what I mean. They were not going to make the same mistake, and curtailing third party developers' acccess to clients is part of that strategy. Flight's current lack of idea where it is heading to confirms to me that obtaining user data information is more important to them than making money. Flight is a minor operation to MS.This interview is great news for sim developers such as Lockheed and X-Plane: MS is pushing simmers in their direction and whoever offers the best alternative, can increase his market share. Likewise, it is interesting to see how third party developers are shifting their attention away from FS to other sim platforms. The sim world is a small community - too small for MS, but large enough for niche players.

We will have to agree to disagree then.Do you honestly think ANY dialogue, constructive or otherwise, would have made ANY difference to the outcome of this 'game title'? The answer is no as you can plainly see from Mr Howards answers. He is more interested in leaderboards and highscores than anything else.

I agree, anyone who thinks the cold/ugly reception Flight received from most simmers is to blame for the lack of sim focus or dialogue from the Flight team is misleading themselves.This is obvious from the way Flight details were not communicated to the simmer community or 3PD until the beta started under NDA and also the number of times that Joshua Howard went out of his way during that interview to point out "simmers aren’t our only customers now".I'm enjoying Flight now (fun and relaxing flying the Maule around Hawaii when not flying FSX) and I remain hopeful for the long term, but it is plain from this interview that my hopes of Flight being enhanced in the next year with the basic features (TrackIR, ATC, AI, cars, ships) needed to make it enjoyable once I complete the existing unique missions, those enhancements are very far away in the future and won't happen, if ever, until Mr. Howards satisfies the higher priority needs of his other "customers who aren't simmers.", of course when I think of a civil aviation flight "experience"; leaderboards are the top of my list for needed features

There's nothing bad with coconut bras :) Flyin' with some hollywood xxx star wearing coconut bra? Fabulous :) I'll buy that one for sure :) And the hollywood DLC :)

It's interesting that Joshua confirmed that they have no desire to work with third party developers today, although he leaves a vague opening for maybe sometime in the future like they have a magic switch to turn third party developers on and off. In other words, if Microsoft Flight doesn't meet long term sales goals, than they expect third party developers to rise up and improve Microsoft profits. Since high-end add-ons take months to years to be ready for market, I'm not sure how fast this magic switch will work.By contrast, X-Plane today is actively recruiting and training the third party developers including the big name FSX developers. They just completed a seminar in Mallorca where X-Plane developers and third party developers traded ideas and development tips for development with X-Plane 10.

There's nothing bad with coconut bras

Personally I wouldn't want to wear one for very long . . . could get VERY uncomfortable.

Sad but true.Probably 90% of the people will appreciate the game as it is, and will buy the videogame-like expansions, so the "gauge" will indicate the direction I wouldn't want.Fortunately it's not a planetary catastrophe, we can survive :-) :-)

I couldn't agree more. No FS11 is not the end of the world. We still have X-Plane 10 for the hardcore simmers, which is a modern, very stable platform that gets better every day. And Austin Meyer is much more open to suggestions from third party developers regarding improvements of the sim platform than MS ever was.We are looking at two great sim products at the moment: Flight and XP10 that serve slightly different purposes. But as I said in many, many posts before:If Flight attracts more people into this hobby, the better for all of us.After almost three years of agony and disorientation that followed the closing of the ACES studios, I couldn't be happier that this hobby has finally gained a new perspective.

Nice questions, straight to the point...I was in the beta team and it was clear how Flight business model is shaped from the first time I played the beta. Unfortunately many other beta testers were building castles in space and dreaming about a release that brings FSX features or future DLCs that makes it FS11....And I could not have any motivation to play and test it beyond the very few short sessions i did. I tried hard but could not find any real appeal in it... Therefore my beta contribution was almost non existent. I was more on FSX during that period...It was clear MS wants to 1) sell Add-ons exclusively and make money beyond the one fee retail box price therefore control and adjust the future of the game 3) reduce the game to narrow regions and limited options to reduce head ache of performance issues FSX had... Hence they removed the whole living world FSX brought in (A.I planes, cars, boats etc)... I never saw a game engine stripped out of its innovative features 6 years later, so the commercial objective was superior to innovation or anything like that...Also at the end of the beta testing days, MS was kind or intelligent enough, or both, to give me the Hawaii expansion with the aircrafts etc saying that I was one of the most active testers... oh well :) I hope that others were also given these little gifts because they might be using them much more than I am... I installed FLight release and the expansions given to me for free, opened it once again and that was it... i do not touch Flight at all...My instinct and my reading between the lines of the answers, drives me to say that MS has a plan B sleeping and might be applied in the future... If Flight fails to meet the business expectations (drawing a wide audience and selling DLC) then MS might simply release a DLC such as patched package of FSX features: ATC, Flight Plans, a rough global world scenery and an SDK to the hard-core old FS fans and try to salvage the fate of Flight with this method. Of course only speculations but the answers give the hint of such possibilities depending on commercial resultsThe present state of Flight is opened to all kind of decisions and MS can change its strategy on the fly as for what will and what will not be Flight...IGN review is the most severe I read to date

My instinct and my reading between the lines of the answers, drives me to say that MS has a plan B sleeping and might be applied in the future... If Flight fails to meet the business expectations (drawing a wide audience and selling DLC) then MS might simply release a DLC such as patched package of FSX features: ATC, Flight Plans, a rough global world scenery and an SDK to the hard-core old FS fans and try to salvage the fate of Flight with this method.

That's exactly what I think and have been saying..Couldn't agree morebestjake

I have mixed feelings over some of the responses but I was emotionally prepared and overall the interview was very positive and I was generally pleased. A few of the statements reinforced what I suspected was already going to be true:

• No current goals to create the rest of the world (although goals can change at any time). Perhaps this won't be as much as a deal breaker as I imagine (after all, I've had a great time flying Hawaii) but I would certainly miss some of the European locations.
• No current 3rd party dev tools but that doesn't mean there will never be in the future. This is very much something to look forward to. Only concern is would MS allow it from a competition/monetizing standpoint. The issue currently is conved as a technical one which I buy, but are there also political motivators which would never let 3rd party involvement see the light of day? We'll have to wait and see.
• One new plane per month, I guess I can cope with that schedule. 2-3 new territory add ons per year - I can probably deal with that schedule as well. For me, Flight is already a victim of its own success as a beautiful flight simulator and I almost cannot get enough of it (which means I need to get into the beta program somehow)
• Overall, great job by the MS Flight team. Very happy MS picked this back up, great and talented development team, very happy overall with the product today, and more than willing to pay for the new DLC (one note on that, planes really need a functional cockpit, no more P51 type releases please). If anyone on the dev team is listening, my immediate wants are ATC and AI.

After 40 hours of Flight, I cannot go back to FSX. I've tried the past few days but FSX looks so old compared to Flight. Scenery and plane rendering leaves a lot to be desired. However, the presence of ATC, GC, and AI in FSX really makes me miss it in Flight.

After 40 hours of Flight, I cannot go back to FSX. I've tried the past few days but FSX looks so old compared to Flight. Scenery and plane rendering leaves a lot to be desired. However, the presence of ATC, GC, and AI in FSX really makes me miss it in Flight.

Really? I find Orbx PNW/NRM with FEX clouds / water / sky and a real weather generator to be far more visually appealing. Sure there are some nice lighting effects in Flight but the scenery is not that fantastic. Compared to a stock FSX, yes, Flight is way better.

The one thing that bothers me is people act like they took FSX away from them. Do not think of this as a game that will replace FSX, think of it as a game that will coincide with it. All your favourite developers are still working with FSX and the great tools it has to offer. If Flight is not your thing, I can understand that. So just stick to FSX. I really do not see the problem here. Would I have liked Flight to be everything FSX was, but better? You bet! But you can still find a lot of joy with what Flight has to offer.

My instinct and my reading between the lines of the answers, drives me to say that MS has a plan B sleeping and might be applied in the future... If Flight fails to meet the business expectations (drawing a wide audience and selling DLC) then MS might simply release a DLC such as patched package of FSX features: ATC, Flight Plans, a rough global world scenery and an SDK to the hard-core old FS fans and try to salvage the fate of Flight with this method. Of course only speculations but the answers give the hint of such possibilities depending on commercial results

Fully agree !!Trying to say more, agree with other peoples saying "they are not stupid".Microsoft marketing staff knows very well their job.They knows that the big videogame public will give a big revenue for a short-medium time.At the end of this time, the hardcore simmers would eventually provide a "second wave" of customers with minor but long-time revenue.Maybe (or better, I hope) they already planned all of this.