We probably should keep a few things in mind:

 

First, Microsoft really did not make flight simulator. Someone else did, and Microsoft stuck their name on it. Those someone elses were living breathing human beings, and they are out there somewhere.

 

Even at th e very beginning, Microsoft did not make flight simulator. They bought it from someone else.

 

Second, if Microsoft were smart, they would try to sell the program to another developer. Quite often, with publishing deals like this, when the publisher stops supporting the product, the rights to it revert to the developer. The someone else who actually made Flight Simulator might want to update it if the rights reverted to them. So, it seems that if Microsoft wants out of the flight simulator business, someone else may pick up where they left off. Letting the program languish and die just does not seem very smart.

 

Third, the real problem is the whole PC game industry is dying. All the stores which used to have tens of feet of shelf space devoted to PC games are long gone. About the only place one gets PC games anymore is Walmart, Target and Best Buy. And Best Buy is dying. Most of these places now devote the space that used to be reserved for PC games to console games. I don't think flightsims will work on the consoles as well as on a PC.

 

I think it is hard to attract new blood if your sales are just over the internet.

We probably should keep a few things in mind:

 

Third, the real problem is the whole PC game industry is dying. All the stores which used to have tens of feet of shelf space devoted to PC games are long gone. About the only place one gets PC games anymore is Walmart, Target and Best Buy. And Best Buy is dying. Most of these places now devote the space that used to be reserved for PC games to console games. I don't think flightsims will work on the consoles as well as on a PC.

 

I think it is hard to attract new blood if your sales are just over the internet.

 

PC game sales have largely moved to online sources like Steam, Origin and Amazon. And there were reports earlier this year that PC games sales were up 230% over last year. As consoles tend to have limited hard drive space, they still need physical discs, and this shelf space. Many game developers, especially the smaller ones, have found online distribution works great. One game, Minecraft, has sold over 8.3 million copies for the PC and has never been available in brick and mortar stores, for example. Don't know that a new flight sim could ever match that, but online is not necessarily a bad way to go.

 

 

First, Microsoft really did not make flight simulator. Someone else did, and Microsoft stuck their name on it. Those someone elses were living breathing human beings, and they are out there somewhere.

 

Even at the very beginning, Microsoft did not make flight simulator. They bought it from someone else.

 

 

 

The first half is incorrect - after buying the original FS from Bruce Artwick, they parted ways and

Microsoft moved the development in-house.

 

FSX was programmed by Microsoft Aces Studios.

 

Maybe one day, War Thunder will release a "civilian mode" with commercial planes.

 

That wouldbe awesome!

Even at th e very beginning, Microsoft did not make flight simulator. They bought it from someone else.

 

Microsoft bought Flight Simulator from SubLogic basically because Bill Gates was a fan of it. Microsoft was a very different company at that time and very different internal culture.

 

Bruce Artwick did stick it out and develop the Microsoft Flight Simulator for a few releases but did his seperate companies Mallard and BAO, creating excellent addons for MSFS.

 

SubLogic focused on Flight Assignment: ATP with the departure of Bruce Artwick, another excellent flight simulator and well ahead of its time.

SubLogic focused on Flight Assignment: ATP with the departure of Bruce Artwick, another excellent flight simulator and well ahead of its time.

 

ATP was so cool! The PMDG 737 NGX of that era

 

I really miss BAO Tower. It was extremely fun, although not very realistic.

And there were reports earlier this year that PC games sales were up 230% over last year.

 

What reports?

 

According to the Entertainment Software Ass0ciation's report "2012 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry" (found here) PC games sales fell from 24.8M in 2010 to 15.8M in 2011. That's a fall of 36%

Gotta merge with truck or train for flight simulator in long term to be viable. FSX will be dominant years to come. Xplane 10 needs better scenery and realistic visuals or else simmers will stick with fsx and fs2004

What reports?

 

According to the Entertainment Software Ass0ciation's report "2012 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry" (found here) PC games sales fell from 24.8M in 2010 to 15.8M in 2011. That's a fall of 36%

 

First result on Google.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/07/09/diablo-3-spearheads-230-jump-in-pc-game-sales/

 

 

Hmmmm..... then the question was unclear to me since he started by commenting about the War Thunder video before asking about compatibility......

 

I assumed he meant compatibility with WT

 

Sorry... Yes the WT vid was great, and then my brain jumped tracks and asked the Prepar3d question. I noticed that product has dropped greatly in price, btw.

Sorry... Yes the WT vid was great, and then my brain jumped tracks and asked the Prepar3d question. I noticed that product has dropped greatly in price, btw.

 

N4gix's answer pretty much covered it. Sorry I didn't quite catch what you were asking. ^_^

 

 

********************

 

Earlier, I was mentioning similarities between FLIGHT! and War Thunder. Another one is that if you followed the FLIGHT! saga, you might have seen how they went out to capture sounds live from the actual planes being modeled, as well as taking zillions of pictures.

 

Seems the people at War Thunder have the same habits. I wonder in this tiny market how many Flight sims have the resources to do that instead of just digging up sound library's? Considering the sheer number of detailed planes being modeled, this level of fidelity speaks highly of their dedication to detail.

 

(Looking at one of the guys, it seemed for a second like they had Jack Nicholson working for them)

 

First result on Google.

 

http://www.forbes.co...-pc-game-sales/

 

Following the links on that page finds:

 

May also saw the first time since July 2010 that the top-selling game was a PC-only title. That boosted PC video games sales up year-over-year to 230% or $80 million.

 

 

http://tech.fortune....aign=(GaggleAMP)

 

There's no evidence to support it. Also, it's amiguous - is it referring to monthly or annnual sales?

 

If 230% relates to $80M then the base figure is $35M. The ESA report states total annual US consumer spending on computer games as $700M ($0.7Bn) in 2010 and $450M ($0.45Bn) in 2011. $450M/year is equivalent to an average of $38M/month. This suggest the 230% could relate only to a single month following the release of a single popular game (Diabolo 3) and isn't representative of the overall trend.

There's no evidence to support it.

 

The source is the NPD Group who put out a monthly report on video game sales. They unfortunately do not include sales from sources such as Steam, but no one appears to. All of the PC sales numbers I have seen only have hard numbers for retail sales in stores, and "estimates" for online sales.

 

http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/its-time-for-the-gaming-press-to-grow-up-and-ignore-the-npd-group

 

It's hard to claim PC gaming is dying when there isn't a complete picture. Sure, it's changing, but that doesn't mean it's going to disappear. Both console and PC gaming have to compete with mobile gaming on smartphones now, for example.

The source is the NPD Group who put out a monthly report on video game sales. ...

 

http://penny-arcade....e-the-npd-group

 

That link is titled "Why it’s time to grow up and start ignoring the monthly NPD reports" so hardly supports your case. The NPD Group supplied the figures that I quoted from the ESA report.

 

Googling "230% computer games" gives lots of hits but the first few pages all point to the CNN Money article. I haven't found a direct link to the original source. Have you one? However, such evidence I can find suggests that 230% is a one-off figure for May 2012 when Diabolo 3 was released and hasn't been maintained,

Googling "230% computer games" gives lots of hits but the first few pages all point to the CNN Money article. I haven't found a direct link to the original source. Have you one? However, such evidence I can find suggests that 230% is a one-off figure for May 2012 when Diabolo 3 was released and hasn't been maintained

 

The CNN article gives the source as the NPD Group.

 

That link is titled "Why it’s time to grow up and start ignoring the monthly NPD reports" so hardly supports your case. The NPD Group supplied the figures that I quoted from the ESA report.

 

The NPD numbers only give an accurate count of retail game sales, and do not account for all PC game sales. As more and more PC games are sold through Steam and similar services, those numbers will become less and less accurate (including the ESA ones that you posted). I only used it because there are no better numbers publicly available.

 

I was originally responding to the claim that PC gaming is dying. I don't believe it is. Changing, sure, but not dying. There are plenty of indie games coming out all the time for PCs that are only available online, and thus don't necessarily show up in numbers like those from NPD Group. More and more PC gamers are buying thier games through Steam, which again don't show up in most, if any, of the typical "PC gaming is dying" articles. Steam has 1,800 games (anyone ever see this many in Best Buy?) and 54 million subscribers as of Nov. 2012. This is why I posted the Penny Arcade article.

 

Now I think we've derailed this thread enough.