Missed opportunity's.

 

When I was trying to look ahead and imagine the possible arc of Microsoft Flights future, Windows 8 and the new Microsoft store seemed no brainers. A new operating system, and the free island of Hawaii bundled with the new store seemed an obvious match guaranteed to get Flight into the hands of millions of people all over the world in a flash.

 

Mr Howard would have had a perfect springboard.

 

Instead, they just spun out of control like a bad rocket until the launch control officer pressed the self destruct button. Lack of imagination/vision and patience on everyone's part.

 

As to whether flight could have run on a tablet, maybe we should ask Xplane.

 

That map that we kinda hated would expand quite nicely with some standard tablet finger gestures.

 

Alternate futures..........

 

EDIT: If they had any sense at all, Windows 8 would have a "download Microsoft Flight" button in plain sight somewhere......

edit: since when is w o p a dirty word? ** means world of warplanes to be clear

 

It used to be slang for italian soldiers/italians in the WW2 AFAIK. I presume it has now been deemed to be derogatory by someone and now censored. :rolleyes:

Regarding the 'others' in the sense of Steam, although I'm not a Steam user i have a login and it tells you how many people are online and in the game. There is as much activity now as ever their was! Just now of 1631 members 485 were online with 123 in game!

 

I see what you are saying, but I would also suspect that's just the tip of the iceberg. The FSX Community is generally considered huge in the Flight simulation genre, yet a glance at the multiplayer stats does not show any more people there, than are in Flight at any given time (Plus your numbers are just for steam usage)

 

I was just thinking about it, and its probably not a good way to estimate community size, especially as I have seen more than a few here who eschew Multiplayer for various reasons as well.

 

I see what you are saying, but I would also suspect that's just the tip of the iceberg. The FSX Community is generally considered huge in the Flight simulation genre, yet a glance at the multiplayer stats does not show any more people there, than are in Flight at any given time (Plus your numbers are just for steam usage)

 

I was just thinking about it, and its probably not a good way to estimate community size, especially as I have seen more than a few here who eschew Multiplayer for various reasons as well.

 

Totaly agree, at best its simply a number, and the only one we have at our disposal.

 

As you pointed out, the FSX community is large, and their are other offerings out their too. I'm sure tho, that their is a lot of cross platform usage.

 

If you remove current users of such games what is the percentage of new people which Flight has brought into the genre? After thinking about this, maybe MS were trying to estimate this figure by releasing cockpitless planes? But this method is retrospective and you don't do market research after you have spent time and money.

 

As you point out the numbers probably are the tip of the iceberge, but what percentage of that tip are we seeing?

 

What is the current size of the overall market? How many new gamers did flight bring into the genre? I guess these numbers are closely guarded as information is power after all.

 

 

The Steam figures do tell us enough that the supposed objective of Flight to get lots of new players in has failed rather dramatically. Steam is the largest platform in pc gaming and a huge percentage of users is online when playing games, so the statistics there are a pretty accurate representation of active users amongst the targeted crowd. We also know that the MS Live numbers were horrible, with online user counts lower than low budget indie games on the xbox. And Flight lacks the features to put a serious dent in the existing sim crowd which is also confirmed by reports we all read. If anything, existing sim platforms benefited from Flight, esp. as it is now discontinued.

A civilian flight simulator has lower numbers than some indie game on Xbox.............. :mellow:

 

I would say that's a given, not just for Flight, but likely for Flight, Xplane, and FSX all together! (if the numbers were available)

 

This whole genre would be laughed at by something even as low key as Limbo. The Cows in farmville would blow methane at us as we faded to the rear.

 

The fact is that there are no simulations of any sort in the top numbers (sans a few adrenaline racing games) and the fact that Flight has dropped from its opening highs is not surprising, especially since its now common knowledge that development has ceased.

 

What was surprising was that it was ever in the top at all.

 

The numbers need to be taken in perspective.

 

The Steam figures do tell us enough that the supposed objective of Flight to get lots of new players in has failed rather dramatically.

 

Given that the initial island and planes were (and remain) a free online download, and that Flight was ever in the top ten at all, its probably safe to say that Flight is indeed in lots of peoples hands. Whether the majority of those people then go on to discontinue use as they did with FSX remains to be seen.

 

Microsoft could (if they cared) explode those numbers considerably by the simple expedient of adding a "download flight" button to the Windows 8 games folder. (and therein lies a possible problem!)

 

It has been pointed out how deeply Windows Live (A possibly soon to be defunct platform) is embedded in flight. I wonder how difficult it would be to switch that to the New Windows Store (especially in mid-stream) Depending on the answer to that, then we might have yet another possible reason for the sudden hasty stomp on Flight.

A civilian flight simulator has lower numbers than some indie game on Xbox.............. :mellow:

 

I would say that's a given, not just for Flight, but likely for Flight, Xplane, and FSX all together! (if the numbers were available)

 

This whole genre would be laughed at by something even as low key as Limbo. The Cows in farmville would blow methane at us as we faded to the rear.

 

The fact is that there are no simulations of any sort in the top numbers (sans a few adrenaline racing games) and the fact that Flight has dropped from its opening highs is not surprising, especially since its now common knowledge that development has ceased.

 

What was surprising was that it was ever in the top at all.

 

The numbers need to be taken in perspective.

 

 

 

Given that the initial island and planes were (and remain) a free online download, and that Flight was ever in the top ten at all, its probably safe to say that Flight is indeed in lots of peoples hands. Whether the majority of those people then go on to discontinue use as they did with FSX remains to be seen.

 

Microsoft could (if they cared) explode those numbers considerably by the simple expedient of adding a "download flight" button to the Windows 8 games folder. (and therein lies a possible problem!)

 

It has been pointed out how deeply Windows Live (A possibly soon to be defunct platform) is embedded in flight. I wonder how difficult it would be to switch that to the New Windows Store (especially in mid-stream) Depending on the answer to that, then we might have yet another possible reason for the sudden hasty stomp on Flight.

 

reminds me a lot of the desaster with FSX and the directx 10 s**t.........

It has been pointed out how deeply Windows Live (A possibly soon to be defunct platform) is embedded in flight. I wonder how difficult it would be to switch that to the New Windows Store (especially in mid-stream) Depending on the answer to that, then we might have yet another possible reason for the sudden hasty stomp on Flight.

 

This has often occurred to me as well.