What do people think about the statement John Venema made in this interview about X-Plane having no future:

 

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/54187-fsxpage-interviews-john-venema/

 

I'm curious why he'd say such a thing, and then claim that P3D 2.0 is the future. Surely from a business point of view, P3D has not future, i.e. You can't even buy it in the shops. I can see this remark rattling a few feathers

Orbx makes fantastic products for FSX/P3D, and no one can take that away from them. If they choose not to participate in the X-Plane market, they're certainly free to do so. In the meantime, we've got the likes of Truescenery and Drawbridge Designs on our end, and if their first releases are any indication, there's a bright future for both developers to rock X-Plane's world like Orbx did for FSX. Will they transition over to regional scenery like the FTX products? Who knows at this point, but the default natural scenery of X-Plane is quite adequate to fill in those spaces in between runways, in my opinion. Perhaps one day, P3D will release a full consumer-level license and John Venema's customers won't have to experience his scenery outside of FSX under false pretenses.

Perhaps one day, P3D will release a full consumer-level license and John Venema's customers won't have to experience his scenery outside of FSX under false pretenses.

 

That's quite the blanket statement, as if all P3D users are using it under false pretenses...

 

Perhaps one day, X-Plane will come out of beta and Flight Sim consumers and developers will have a steady platform to fly and develop on (I know, as a ridiculous a statement as yours was).

So you're saying that everyone who is using a P3D student license is enrolled in formal flight training? If so, then I rescind my remark.

I'm not convinced about the X-Plane future. I think X-Plane can/will only progress very slowly. It will be outperformed by some other company one day. I'm not convinced by the performance of the X-Plane engine. I fear it's because it's multi platform. It cannot use things like DirectX then, I'm sure that wastes a lot of ressources. Not sure though. Performance and possibilities of a native Windows application like the DCS framework do convince me much more. Just have a look at those incredible A10C Warthog videos...

Anyway, I may be wrong, I really don't know what future brings.

PMDG have said kind of the opposite, while they are not hot on X-Plane yet they're developing a aircraft for it, and according to them P3D won't have a commercial future due to it's licensing structure. PMDG (Robert) have been hinting at something else as the next big thing. Unless that could be P3D 2.

Well...I can't say I am surprised at John Venema's comment about X-plane. His thoughts on the subject are very well known. He's made it perfectly clear what he thinks about X-plane. It's not much different to the article he did for Aerosoft awhile back:

 

http://asn.aerosoft.com/?page_id=6320

 

John Venema: "X-Plane has no future. It’s not a good sim, nor does it have a large enough customer base to make it worth our while. It performs really poorly on hardware with settings maxxed out, unlike FSX which now screams along with new Intel and nVidia hardware."

 

I'd love to know what John's computer specs are. I'm building a new computer soon (that is if the wife gives in) and would like to know how I can get my copy of FSX to "scream" along like his does.

 

P3D 2.0 sounds interesting though.

Great,

 

probably HiFiSim will have a broader view and give X-Plane a try... AS is IMHO the best weather injector, the most professional too, for FSX.

Similar to saying "don't buy a mac" in my opinion.

 

Regards;

 

Fritz

I suppose that Orbx is looking from the view of profitability. With their staff, they have too. Austin Meyer has been able to make millions with X-Plane's constantly evolving platform. Each new version brings more to the Laminar bank account. But for developers like Orbx, each new addition can also destroy their previous work, sales, & expected profits.

 

L.Adamson

What I found compelling about the article is that add-on developer Orbx has a more full and part time paid employees (~25) than Laminar Research seems to have for X-Plane itself (5? 10?).

John Venema has never to my knowledge ever said anything good about Xplane and so even though his scenery is apparently the bees knees I completely disregard anything he has to say about Xplane.

John Venema has never to my knowledge ever said anything good about Xplane and so even though his scenery is apparently the bees knees I completely disregard anything he has to say about Xplane.

 

+1, enough said. There might be personal reasons for such statements as well...

What do people think about the statement John Venema made in this interview about X-Plane having no future:

 

Nothing.

 

http://truscenery.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/project-images-from-tampere-pirkkala-airport/

 

his scenery is apparently the bees knees I completely disregard anything he has to say about Xplane.

 

It was once the bees knees, but my opinion has gone right down since they released England. Not only was it poor quality, it caused major problems with other scenery areas such as FranceVFR, they also don't seem interested in making their software work without using the awful region switcher. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to fly from the UK to other EU countries using different regions, and currently this isn't possible. I once religiously bought any new scenery and airport they had out, but this has now stopped.

 

Seems like a vicious circle to me, X-Plane won't gain popularity without companies like Orbx, but then companies like Orbx aren't interested in developing for X-Plane. I'm not a big fan of X-Plane either, although I do believe it has a future. However, I don't get his decision to support P3D 2, unless he knows something we don't. Surely P3D will also break compatibility somewhat with FSX, and still I can't imagine many people apart from those already aware would buy it.