Only google could save Flight now

[RoboRay 126]

There is obviously more than enough flight simulation enthusiasts to make sims commercially viable (or none would continue to exist)... but that does not mean that viable market is large enough to be of interest to a vast entity like MS.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

There is obviously more than enough flight simulation enthusiasts to make sims commercially viable (or none would continue to exist)... but that does not mean that viable market is large enough to be of interest to a vast entity like MS.

 

We just apparently refuse to believe it. I would ask the same question I have asked before on this forum; If this market is so attractive, where are all the other civilian simulators? (as opposed to tons of arcade flying games)

 

Why, again and again, when enthusiastic fans try to encourage (place name of favorite combination of 3PD's here) to create the ultimate "real simmer" simulator...........

 

Nothing happens.

 

What do those company's, trapped by the confines of actual reality, apparently understand that we refuse to accept?

[RWFeldman 159]

The money is not in the product in itself. Its in the larger and continuous aftermarket sales. MS saw that potential but failed to produce the aftermarket products. Look at the price of addons. they are more than the sim itself, sometimes MUCH more. Companies will give away printers theses days knowing you have to buy the supplies from them. Same concept.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

The money is not in the product in itself. Its in the larger and continuous aftermarket sales. MS saw that potential but failed to produce the aftermarket products. Look at the price of addons. they are more than the sim itself, sometimes MUCH more. Companies will give away printers theses days knowing you have to buy the supplies from them. Same concept.

 

The other civilian simulator likely will face the same dilemma eventually. When sales of its flagship eventually slacken, they will, if they are like other businesses, need to seek new revenue. That usually means either another version to start the cycle all over again.... or their entry into the 3PD market to capture some of the fruits made possible by their labors.

 

That should sound familiar.

[Bobsk8 12,730]

What they could make money on today is selling a attack drone, that you could pilot remotely, and seek out enemy targets and destroy them. They could make money with that and the younger folks would go for it

 

Sent from my SGH-T679 using Tapatalk 2

[HiFlyer 9,359]

What they could make money on today is selling a attack drone, that you could pilot remotely, and seek out enemy targets and destroy them. They could make money with that and the younger folks would go for it

 

Sent from my SGH-T679 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

Too late. regular people are already working on the basics. (we is a strange species)

 

[Air1 136]

The problem with Flight wasn't a lack of pretty scenery, it was a lack of features that simulator enthusiasts cared about.

I do not agree at all. I don't think most so called "enthusiasts" even gave it a chance, thinking it was just a kids game and that I lay on Microsoft. Not that it would have mattered at the end of the day with the bean counters at Microsoft. A lot of us here have been involved with flight sims since the earliest day of the personal computer and have had most of the flight sims produced between us at one time or another. I know for me, as a real world pilot, FLIGHT had every thing I have been looking for in a flight simulator and that is the fun factor. We were expecting great things of THIS sim, to bad.

[ivanm 20]

I don't think there's any chance Microsoft, with its decades of history with Flight Simulator, would ever sell the FSX code to Google, or anyone for that matter.

 

The fact that Aerosoft, Orbx (they even opened up a new office in the UK), PMDG, Just Flight, just to name a few, can stay in business tells me there is a market there. Even Microsoft Flight Simulator has a history of being a top PC selling game. Unfortunately, Microsoft went for a different market altogether and we see ourselves in the position we are now.

 

What we should hope for is that the enthusiast market merges with the IFR simulators (real pilot training) market. This seems to be the direction Lockheed Martin is going. Even though it's a professional product, they make it cheap for us to purchase without needing to pay pro prices.

 

It would be even better if Google decided to build their own flight simulator. Considering Google Earth has a very basic one tells me this isn't impossible.

[nothingreal 0]

I don't think there's any chance Microsoft, with its decades of history with Flight Simulator, would ever sell the FSX code to Google, or anyone for that matter.

Totally agree. There's no chance they'd let it go all together - especially to Google.

 

I think the only chance for the franchise would be a licensing arrangement with a 'friendly' 3rd party development shop - perhaps keeping MS as the publisher.

 

I doubt there are any developers out there with the expertise to pull it off - outside of Cascade Studios, of course.. so either an eager developer would have to take in some of the recently displaced developers or a new development shop would have to be spun up specifically to work on the title.. All of this is dependent on MS even being willing to license out Flight..

[Paulish 0]

To my mind MS have completely missed the point re the value of Flight together with the original FS Series. The earlier MS Flight Simulator Series was supported and developed over many years by Microsoft and probably attracted ten of thousands if not millions of users over that period. This niche activity along with a number of others produced a great deal of loyalty to the Microsoft brand in the sense that the leisure users were also mainstream consumers and users of Microsoft’s flagship business products. Whilst this wasn't true for everyone in my own case I certainly had some influence on the purchasing of MS products in the workplace. Even in the home I have to ask myself now as to why I shouldn't eventually move over to Apple now that it seems that MS are never again likely to produce a Flight Simulator. They should have viewed Flight as a "loss leader" rather than being so highly reactive to its performance as a "profit centre"

 

For the future they could have pushed it to the point where it became a a kind of proto FS11 with all the efficiencies of the new coding. Opened up with an SDK, perhaps with default scenery as per FSX but with potential for 3rd party involvement. They could stopped development at the point where very little extra fixing was needed and taken a much lower cut than than they were originally expecting from the Dev's. In this way they could have given a boost to an industry wich has previously supported them and which in its current form will ultimately decline.

[FSMP 95]

One of the many things I do not understand about FLIGHT :-.

 

If MS FLIGHT was meant to bring in all these "new" potential Flight Simmers, to introduce them to the world of FLIGHT, why was there little to no "advertising" of FLIGHT to that new market.

 

I do not recall seeing ONE TV ad for FLIGHT.

 

In the past, previous version of Flight Simulator were reasonably heavily advertised on TV.

[Mountain Man 142]

A basically one man company can make a go of it with only a few tens of thousands sales. Microsoft needs millions of sales to even consider development. Their overhead is higher.

 

It's more than a one-man operation, and they bring in more than just a few tens of thousands in sales when you consider their lucrative commercial contracts. Perhaps the fact that it's not just a consumer product is what makes the difference.

 

Anyway, Flight's biggest problem is they offered no compelling reason for anybody to give up Flight Simulator X and make a full move to Flight. It's very hard to succeed when you abandon your core market.

[Guest]

Back on topic NOW!