The Kano model is a marketing concept where a product is favored by the customer due to "delighters" features. These delighters eventually become expected features so that new delighters are needed to continue to drive sales of future product generations. If expected features are omitted from the product this would create negative customer reactions thus driving product sales down.In Flight a new set of delighters have been introduced when compared to the predicate FSX product (faster frame rates for lower end machines, more graphic detail, progressive missions and challenges). At the same time expected features have been taken out (ATC, Track IR integration, third party content, real world weather) - yikes!. This is an interesting and gutsy gamble taken by Microsoft in the hope of driving new sales by redefining the product with a basic new set of delighter features. Flight is indeed enjoyable and attractive but hard core simmers eventually may be driven out if the expected features are not integrated back into the future product updates. Will Microsoft move be successful in redefining the flight sim product concept? Stay tuned...

The Kano model is a marketing concept where a product is favored by the customer due to "delighters" features. These delighters eventually become expected features so that new delighters are needed to continue to drive sales of future product generations. If expected features are omitted from the product this would create negative customer reactions thus driving product sales down.In Flight a new set of delighters have been introduced when compared to the predicate FSX product (faster frame rates for lower end machines, more graphic detail, progressive missions and challenges). At the same time expected features have been taken out (ATC, Track IR integration, third party content, real world weather) - yikes!. This is an interesting and gutsy gamble taken by Microsoft in the hope of driving new sales by redefining the product with a basic new set of delighter features. Flight is indeed enjoyable and attractive but hard core simmers eventually may be driven out if the expected features are not integrated back into the future product updates. Will Microsoft move be successful in redefining the flight sim product concept? Stay tuned...

Thank you. I actually trawled around some of the Marketing journals trying to find some perspective on a product's legacy, and the Kano model does a good job at a perspective. Thanks for sharing this.

I think the point is that the game isn't aimed at us old farts, who expect features like TrackIR and ATC. The newer gamers, who hopefully discover Flight, don't care and will never miss them.

Microsoft is taking a gamble in redefining the game concept and parameters, specially when it comes to us "old farts". However, MS enticed the audience with the "free game" feature to get instant audience recognition. It is like going to the store and trying a sample of food hoping that the customer buys the package. Not a new tactic but nevertheless a gutsy one in today's market.

I'm glad they are trying new marketing - when ACES was effectively "closed" a few years ago, I thought that meant the end of ANYTHING by Microsoft that had "flight" somewhere in the title...

Microsoft's strategy is not really aimed at introducing new delighters for it's previous customers, but more at attracting a completely new (and larger) set of customers who don't have any expected features they expect (yet).

Microsoft's strategy is not really aimed at introducing new delighters for it's previous customers, but more at attracting a completely new (and larger) set of customers who don't have any expected features they expect (yet).

Imho, considering how the Flight Sim market has been dwindling in numbers, basically dying a slow death in that the market has been progressively diminishing to the point we do not see anywhere near the releases or publicity of new flight sims that we used to see, I think that is probably a smart business strategy. If things are continuing to go backwards, at some point someone has to make the decision to take a different path, or it will become obselete.I think there is a lot riding on this strategy and direction MS has taken with Flight. Which is why I continue to say - we the flight sim community, whether we like what they are doing or not - need to get on the bus and support Flight. At least as far as the MSFS franchise is concerned, Flight may be it's last best hope for survival.It certainly has at it's core, the foundation to grow into what many hard core enthusiasts would like to see - and that may take a long time - but the foundation is indeed there, and if it does not succeed out the chute, then well, there you have it.And to take the gamble on hoping the business model and direction fails, thinking that if it does MS will rechange direction and focus on the hard core aspects once again - well that is one huge roll of the dice imho...

Imho, considering how the Flight Sim market has been dwindling in numbers, basically dying a slow death in that the market has been progressively diminishing to the point we do not see anywhere near the releases or publicity of new flight sims that we used to see, I think that is probably a smart business strategy. If things are continuing to go backwards, at some point someone has to make the decision to take a different path, or it will become obselete.

Actually I think it's the opposite. The flight sim market has not gotten smaller, but the price of developing a new game has grown. In the early days of flight sim, it could be programmed by one guy in his bedroom and the break-even point was probably somewhere around 10-20 thousand copies (numbers sucked out of my thumb as we would say in Dutch). A modern AAA game (think Battlefield, or Call of Duty, but an FS11 to have a hope of meeting most hard-core simmers expectations would be the same) has a team of 50-100 people involved. These modern games need to sell well over a milion copies just to break-even. It's not that the sim market has become smaller, it's that the minimum size of the market needed to support the development of a new flight sim has grown.To solve this problem there are a number of options. One is to attempt to grow the flight sim market, which is something many hope Flight will do. I have some doubts about that myself. No doubt Flight will lead some people to the world of hard-core simming, but I don't think needing to read a 100 page tutorial just so you can learn how to use your new plane is something that will ever appeal to a large number of people (relative to the total number of people that own a computer).Another potential solution is to cut back on features and rely on procedural techniques to reduce the amount of development work required, which is more or less what X-Plane is doing with the 'plausible world' and 'let customers build their own local airports' approaches. Aerofly FS and Flight are also following this track.A third option is to jack up the price of your sim. This is the P3D approach, though I don't consider that a fair comparison since it's marketed at businesses. I also think that increasing the cost price of the base sim will further reduce your market size.