Microsoft - the great enigma? And it's continued failures.

[FaxCap 13]

I have always wondered what we would be using now if MS had charged more for FSX. I bought FSX the day it came out.

It was a ridiculously low $39.99. I think it sat at about $49 for months. Many of my aircraft and scenery cost as much or

more than FSX.

 

P3D isn't cheap yet I understand Version 2 will have rewritten graphics engine. Maybe MS should have followed

Lockheed-Martin's business model. Charge enough for the software to allow constant improvements.

 

As for Ballmer, I understand he throws a mean chair. :lol:

 

Ken

[SteveW 1,792]

IF FSX could easily by bettered by another game maker it would have been replaced by now. The twee landscapes of FPSs and 3d World tech demos don't make an FSX beater. Rendering and 3D is tiny compared to handling the mechanics of a true flight simulator to beat FSX. XP sells well all the time but few really get off the ground with it. FLIGHT was destabilising the dominance of FSX and the addon market, and was pulled quickly as soon as it became clear it would have to beat FSX. Making an FSX beater would be a drop in the bucket for MS, the dent wouldn't show up on graph paper 10ft wide.

[Guest]

They'll be based on hard-headed estimates of revenue.

 

I'm pretty sure it was not about revenue ... even if we take the low ball figure of 1,000,000 copies @ $50 (just FSX standard and not Acceleration or deluxe) that Aces confirmed (many years ago) -- over the past 4 years I'd guess at least another 400,000 copies were sold (including deluxe/acceleration) at a reduced price $30. So That's about $62M revenue. I doubt the cost to upgrade (not a re-write from scratch) FS9 code to FSX code cost more than $20M in development resources (again based on how many resource Phil hinted were working on FSX and having some of his resources taken away and then added back later) ... and keeping in mind it was published by Microsoft in their same distribution channels they have for their other products so no huge deployment costs there. Even if you excluded the additional 400,000 copies (over the last 4 years) as speculation (which would put total copies around 1.4M units), we're still at about $42M profit less deployment costs.

 

Sure $40M maybe small in the big picture of Microsoft, but it's a good profit and Microsoft doesn't abandon profit regardless of it's relative value compared to other products. I still maintain and agree with Phil Taylor that closure was all about internal management issues ... if this wasn't the case, then why produce MS Flight?

 

Ah, Steam, another example of Microsoft missing the boat.

 

True, and now we have Windows Store?? Re-inventing a distribution wheel that already exists and runs on Windows OS ... called Steam. The smart thing for Microsoft would have been to work out a deal with Steam rather than try to go head to head with Steam and waste huge resources in doing so. All this does is make more partner enemies when Microsoft has so "few" friends -- this isn't a good business decision, but it's typical of the Microsoft executive mind set -- fighting for resources and control.

 

I think it will require more than just Ballmer leaving, I believe the entrenched executive group needs to be flushed and then replaced.

[n4gix 4,947]

What I cannot ever understand is when certain top cronies at avsim were given a look at flight before its release they all came back and wrote rave reviews for us all to read...

What is missing in this is that what they (AVSIM reps) saw is not what was actually released. In the interim upper management was replaced and 'Flight' development took an unexpected 90º starboard turn and then proceeded into uncontrolled airspace...

 

...with the ultimately foolish insane decision to keep all future development "in-house," the entire 'Flight' program entered a death spiral, and the resulting impact with the ground was inevitable. By the time the folks at 'Flight' began frantically contacting third-party developers, it was far too little and too late to save the doomed 'Flight.'

[ahuimanu 50]

Great topic.

 

If the game industry would either:

 

A ) adopt OpenGL more widely

OR

B ) develop an SDK/API that returns to the spirit of DirectX (circa versions 7 and 8)

 

... we can perhaps entertain full abandonment of Windows.

 

I am so much closer now given that I don't think I'll be buying into the nonsense surrounding Office 2013 either. So, my needs to stay on Microsoft are waning rapidly.

 

If we had a comprehensive technology suite (a la DirectX), that was cross-platform, then we'd be getting somewhere.

[HansRoaming 73]

IF FSX could easily by bettered by another game maker it would have been replaced by now.

 

FSX itself is meh, it's the add ons via 3rd parties that make it shine these days.

[SteveW 1,792]

OpenGL and DX are well supported by the same underlying GPU hardware. I don't think it's a problem for graphics as several games and tech demos show awesome worlds, and cross platform capabilities with hardly a bump in the road. Problems facing developers come from the general mechanics of true flight simming, ATC, Ai, User Interfacing, changing world and nav data, open development, backward compatibility, and so on.

[ahuimanu 50]

OpenGL and DX are well supported by the same underlying GPU hardware. I don't think it's a problem for graphics as several games and tech demos show awesome worlds, and cross platform capabilities with hardly a bump in the road. Problems facing developers come from the general mechanics of true flight simming, ATC, Ai, User Interfacing, changing world and nav data, open development, backward compatibility, and so on.

 

You are correct in all these things, but I think the only reason to stay on Windows is gaming. Thus there is a tendency to favor DirectX.

[HansRoaming 73]

Problems facing developers come from the general mechanics of true flight simming, ATC, Ai, User Interfacing, changing world and nav data, open development, backward compatibility, and so on.

 

This is what I use for above

 

ATC - VoxATC

Ai - VoxATC, FS2Crew, A2A some aircraft

User Interfacing - FSX, inflight 3rd party aircraft, FSUIPC

World - Orbx, FS Genesis, Fly Tampa etc

Nav - Aivlasoft EFB, Navigraph, Reality XP, 3rd party aircraft FMS

 

So in terms of the core FSX, not very much these days

 

Open development, APIs and so on, the Internet is built on these principles.

[SteveW 1,792]

Exactly, but all that stuff is bumping up against an end-stop, hence the need for a new sim, and it needs to comprehensively be an FSX beater.

 

Open development, APIs and so on, the Internet is built on these principles.

But not only does a new sim need to use all of those principles, it needs to provide a programming interface to its functions, that's what i'm talking about, not html5.

[HansRoaming 73]

But not only does a new sim need to use all of those principles, it needs to provide a programming interface to its functions, that's what i'm talking about, not html5.

 

You've heard of API's? Not exactly new as you can find examples in ancient Unix implementations and HTML is markup language standard not an API, RESTful web services would have been a better example.

[SteveW 1,792]

but you got the general idea didn't you?

 

Simconnect was designed to fill a role for the future, it would be a shame to drop it now...

 

and html5 was in reference to "internet principles" there's no need to pick me up on it.

 

You've heard of API's? Not exactly new as you can find examples in ancient Unix implementations and HTML is markup language standard not an API, RESTful web services would have been a better example.

[HighTowers 1,434]

Best thing that comes out of all this , is a huge slap in the face to Microcrap by having P3D, or any other modern flight simulation model come out and be very successful, and continued on with the add on devs. Its not hard to see that FSX in itself is successful by it surviving after nearly 7 years and having alot of support from 3rd party devs who continue to develop for it, and producing phenomenal stuff at that.

 

All this proving that PC flight simulation does have a market, and is very well supported by a very loyal community. If we would have had thousands of petitions from all over the community a few years ago when we heard of MS flights game plan and petition against it for a FSX upgrade instead, perhaps it wouldve been heard. Then again maybe not with Balmers narrow mindedness.

 

Bill Gates couldve pushed for it in some seperate devision or different company with the ACES members. Who knows the logistics of that. Now they are with LM. Clearly there is a demand. Be it commercial/corporate, or us consumers. And we may not even be in this predicament, if FSX didnt have the old assembler code it does.

[SteveW 1,792]

Steve's DX shader fix for me is possibly the best improvement to FSX we've had and has graphically lifted the sim since we can run DX10 preview properly now. I don't think it's about coding, old or new, code's easy to redo, it is the total concept, completion, and delivery of a new sim that's going to be hard.

[HansRoaming 73]

Simconnect is an API worth implementing on another platform if only to ease transition for FSX 3rd party developers.

 

PS I picked you up on HTML 5 as it was a strawman.