I would like to suggest that the demise of FSX and Flight is primarily the fault of us, the consumer and that the solution rest with us as well.

 

Consider the situation with FSX. There appears to be tens of thousands of third party add-ons and products on sale to the flight sim community none of which would be possible if it were not for the base program, Microsoft FSX. A great many of these third party add-ons sell for more than what Microsoft FSX itself sold far and the industry seems to be successful.

 

Microsoft is a public company. This means that the true owners of Microsoft are not the employees, management or the CEO. The true owners are the shareholders. And shareholders buy a company’s stock (i.e. the company itself) for one reason and one reason alone, to make money. This is NOT an evil thing. It is the reality of capitalism.

 

So the owners see a piddling revenue stream coming from their FSX product while this product supports a vast industry of third party-add ons. The revenue stream from the product that makes all of this even possible has essentially dried up and is likely not sufficient to pay for the personnel required for continuing development and improvement. I know what I would do as an owner of Microsoft. I would expect that the people that I hired to run the company (the CEO on down) do something about this and to do it NOW. This is what happened to FSX. The people hired to run the company did then try to do something about this via a closed product, Flight. But they missed the mark and it failed.

 

Now imagine if the owners of Microsoft could see a revenue stream coming in from all of the third party add-ons, perhaps in the way of a modest royalty fee paid by the third party developers and passed on to the consumer…say just a few more dollars per product sale. Wouldn’t that make sense. Wouldn’t it make sense that the industry created by the existence of the base product should help support the base product. Seems like a great solution to me. Perhaps as AVSIM, as a community of the very people that really make it all happen (by buying the products) we could promote this idea. Microsoft could see a continuing revenue stream coming into the company that could support continuing development of FSX. Is this too far fetched?

Now imagine if the owners of Microsoft could see a revenue stream coming in from all of the third party add-ons

 

You make a good point Ron. This option was available to Microsoft, and they have actively chosen NOT to pursue it.

 

The decision to discontinue Flight! clearly takes into account its revenue to date (DLC sales) and projected revenue ... as well as opportunity cost (where could their money be more profitably spent?)

 

Assuming Microsoft had some idea of the potential market, I take this to mean there was not enough interest (purchase) for them to pursue the project any further.

 

It is also possible that they have just done a strategic "about-face".

 

Their business, their call. As consumers we can only support (purchase) or not.

Being a Flight Simulator fan from the late 1980's, I have seen many developers come and go, Many developers made sub par products and their products failed, the few developers such as PMDG and others are making great add ons for FSX, I am not sure how they are doing it, when there is no growth in the FSX platform....Many developers of FSX add-on developers have second jobs because this sector of the market is relatively small compared to the large game franchises.... Those programmers that are top in their game of programming are working for companies that make games for XBOX, PSP and WII platforms. This makes it very hard for FSX third party developers and XPlane developers compete to get the best talant in the industry to develop a new Platform that us FSX users will quickly migrate too and grow the hobby.

 

However, from a investors stand point of view, I would be hard pressed to invest in a product or idea were software piracy is so rampant. I would love to invest monies into a new flight sim project that had the ability to take advantage of todays technoligies, BUT why? Everytime I look at torrents that provide gamers to stealing developers profits why would I invest money in a sector that can't control it. Sure Developers like ORBX, PMDG try hard to produce great products hoping that many of us users will buy the product and alot of us do, but as of today the were 64 torrents on one site alone....letting people steal products from developers. Bottom line to all this, it keeps investors like me from wanting to invest in this hobby.when I know that my return on my money is being raped by piracy..Don't get me wrong I have supported many companies like aerosoft and Flight1 by buying their products over the years, but simply buying a product is not good enough,....the market must grow and attract new customers. FSX platform growth is flat if not negative, that alone has scared many investors away....With Microsoft closing down Flight so quickly is concerning.

 

For now, I will continue to support those developers that make great products for FSX, but in the long run, it does't look good. As more developers make products for the xplane platform I will make the jump but in tell then....FSX is still my main Flight sim... Trust me if there was money to be made investors would come running, but in reality its just not there...To many of todays investors want a quick return on their money, just look at Microsoft and Flight it didn't even make it six months....I agree with others it might take 2 to 5 years before we see a serious new Flight simulation platform that meets the requirements of us hard core FSX flight simulation fans..

 

Personally I hope the people at Xplane prove me wrong soon, and I will have Xplane on my system, to replace FSX......

The end of the virtual world isn`t at hand, as a developer, simmer and volunteer here at Avsim I have borne witness to the rise & fall of FSX, only to see a resurrection at the release of flight, expectations it would be the successor to FSX removed folks got back to programming their FMC`s and barely noticed the blip on the radar come and go.

 

 

Subsequently X-Plane 10 and a host of top class FSX add-on aircraft migrated to the platform to take off and land at new Scenery produced for it. DSC starts adding the world and more FSX producers ship product to satisfy their platforms devotee`s. AeroflyFS gets to work with Europe, they too are adding to the base package with more planes and further terrain.

 

Back to FSX & P3D, there are more ways to juice up these packages than can be kept up with.

 

Between the Rex, ORBX, PMDG, Active Sky, 25,000 airports and over one hundred first rate add-on aircraft from 3Pd`s one would be hard pressed to have nothing new to play with.

 

Sending donations to MS isn’t going to represent a significant increase in available product, picking up any of the tools, EFB`s, sceneries, aircraft, Freeware or Payware WILL directly motivate the people who do create these to make more.

 

There is no great need of an Immediate successor to FSX, what comes with the base program is just that, where you get started, what you end up with is your choice. Same with X-Plane and soon DCS and AeroflyFS.

 

Will MS figure out how to leverage the ``Evergreen Franchise`` if I may quote them is unanswered, I prognosticate their return, flights codebase is an asset, corporations leave few of those untapped or traded, time will tell but one thing we don’t lack is choice.

Think nowdays any improvement over FSX will be not so much on the graphics and eye candy it will be on the coding side of it anyways. Futhermore, 3rd most times does better job filling the void where MSFS will not. X-Plane is the future and its improvements are incrementatal and conversative in nature that fine as FSX was designed for computers in 2010 instead of 2006 lead to hardware arms race.

What enhancements to FSX would people like, and how would each enhance FSX's saleability to the wider market, as opposed to the limited market of "hard-core" enthusiasts?

What enhancements to FSX would people like, and how would each enhance FSX's saleability to the wider market, as opposed to the limited market of "hard-core" enthusiasts?

 

Personally the only thing I'd love to see is the ability to leverage new technology such as DX11 etc. FSX still has a lot of life but could use some performance based enhancements. Eye candy is still pretty good and getting better.

Dang I missed all the news. And the threads in the flight subforum are locked. So just my thoughts here.

Sorry about the developers who lost their jobs with the closure of Flight in Vancouver. Microsoft has a history for caring for it's employees so it seems their human resources dept. will be helpful.

 

But I'm not really sad to see Flight move on. It wasn't what simmers really wanted. Not even the veterans of the previous versions of Flight Simulator 2 through 10 . I never tried their trial. I felt it was going wrong the whole way. Actually PMDG got my business within the last year instead with the NGX with both the NGX and the NGX 600-700. And no sticky stipulations for further DLC to get more of what I wanted..

 

The best way for Flight Simulator for the PC's (or rather tablets) to move on, is some other big corporation with massive resources to take over.

 

Just as MS took over SubLogic after they cornered the IBM PC OS market in the early 80's. Now is the time for some other corporation that takes sim technology seriously. Maybe it's Lockheed Martin and v2 of Prepar3D. Or Laminar Research if they get big enough.

 

Though , why not Apple? The driver of the markets these days.

What enhancements to FSX would people like

 

Well, I can't answer your question about making FSX more appealing to a wider market, but I will say that the one aspect of the FSX code that I would like to see upgraded would be "addressable RAM". If FSX could use more than 4GB RAM, then my OOMs when running lots of high detail addons at high detail levels would presumably be relegated to a small footnote in the history books...

I have had some conversations recently that drove home just how enormous the gap between the instrument oriented Simmers and pretty much everyone else is. The hobby seems increasingly dominated by a procedure/detail driven style of simulation that's very micro-specialized; so much so, that I'm not certain how much common ground remains between this niche and the wider world, or even if that interchange is really desired.

I think MS tried to bridge this gap with FLIGHT, but it didn't go well. I'm not sure any enhancement to FSX would make it appeal to a wider audience. I hate to say it, but I actually thought MS was on to something when they tried to make FLIGHT "more accessable to the casual user" by simplifying (dumbing down) the sim.

 

For the record, after my initial disappointment with FLIGHT's format, I came to like it. The low and slow GA style of flying is what I enjoy most in my FS9.

 

For the record, after my initial disappointment with FLIGHT's format, I came to like it. The low and slow GA style of flying is what I enjoy most in my FS9.

 

Fly low and slow in hd3d monitor and its fun on any flight sim actually. Procedure base flying is harder and it becomes a 2nd job not interested in since I deal with procedures and policies all day long at a office. Want to come home hop in Cub plane or Cessna and fly after work not 737 or DC-11 IFR and STIARs, FMC that work.

I have to ask one question:

 

If Microsoft's internal numbers and financials were the driving force behind the termination of MS Flight, and the decision to '86 further development was the decision of the MS Board, why on Earth would they even consider resurrecting Flight, or even FSX? In the Board's mind both Flight and FSX are recent history; a segment of their total revenue that isn't even large enough to cover the electric bills in Redmond for a month.

 

Believing that a massive outcry from the "FS Community" will cause some quantum shift at Microsoft and have the Board reconsider their decision about either of these titles is a pipe dream at best; I would not be surprised at all if even utterance of the term "Flight Simulation" in and around Mt. Redmond gets you an automatic administrative reprimand and probation for 30 days by your superiors.

 

And... don't be surprised if, in the near future, Lockheed Martin drops the hammer on all of the supposed 'non entertainment' users of Prepar3D due to untruthful declarations about usage; in all honesty, if you don't currently hold a PPL, ATP, or have a commercial concern in the Aviation Industry you should NOT be using it.

 

Bottom line? Quit whining, make what you have work with the resources you have, and MOVE ON. Microsoft has, and without a pang of regret or thought about the FS community.

 

Those who dare to fail miserably, can (sometimes) achieve greatly.

in all honesty, if you don't currently hold a PPL, ATP, or have a commercial concern in the Aviation Industry you should NOT be using it.

 

 

Says who ?

LM seem Ok with home users buying the Academic licence.

http://www.prepar3d.com/prepar3d-academic/

 

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