One of the ACES team told me to really improve MSFS it would take a complete rewrite of the FS graphics engine.

 

I can't imagine a FS graphics engine write for 64bit with no backward compatibility. I would be waiting at the store,

cash in hand the 1st day it went on sale. By "cash" I don't mean $59.95.....I would gladly pay close to $200 for it

if I knew it came with a guaranteed 3-4 Service Packs and at least a 5 year lifespan.

 

Ken

Very true, pay 200 dollars for it. Good comment

Very true, pay 200 dollars for it. Good comment

 

LM is doing that with P3D....why didn't MS?? They could have had a 64bit rewritten graphics engine FS12 out by now. ;-)

I don't think they would have got too much fuss over no backward compatibility. 

 

Ken

LM is doing that with P3D....why didn't MS?? They could have had a 64bit rewritten graphics engine FS12 out by now. ;-)

I don't think they would have got too much fuss over no backward compatibility. 

 

Ken

1. MS is not into writing base training programs.

 

2. The bean counters saw very little upside in FS Next.

 

I would gladly pay close to $200 for it if I knew it came with a guaranteed 3-4 Service Packs and at least a 5 year lifespan.

 

I doubt there'd be enough people willing to pay $200 to make developing it worthwhile. Also, no game developer will offer such guarantees.
 

1. MS is not into writing base training programs.

 

2. The bean counters saw very little upside in FS Next.

I think you nailed it best with number 2.  MS saw a limited market for hard core flight sims, not enough revenue to justify the expense of continued development.

 

I doubt there'd be enough people willing to pay $200 to make developing it worthwhile. Also, no game developer will offer such guarantees.

 

Flight simulation I believe is in a whole different ball park.  If you are thinking of it as a game w/ larger scale appeal, for example like Flight was developed for, then I would agree it isn't there.  But if you realize you are selling to a much smaller niche, heck if it were done w/ long term vision committing to the existing 3rd party development community for addons, then I think $200 is well under the price point were the product to have all the right stuff--for the 'serious' flight simmer.  I'd easy pay $500 for something, well, worth $500:  64 bit native code w/ max physical ram access, exploiting DirectX 11, multicore w/ as many CPUs/Cores as are available to it, publishing the service life as at least 6 years so that 3PD's can safely develop for it, and so forth.  Since you will spend the bulk of your time designing the killer engine and SDK's, your responsibility is only to create the very robust core/SDKs, leaving ongoing detail work to 3PD content developers.  This whole idea has to have the 'right magic', as FSX does today, i.e., there are no guarantees a smaller team could do this, but they have the model to copy, that being FSX.  Think about this:  $500 is only a fraction of what  what many of us are willing to spend to support the hobby w/  hardware plus addons.  The core engine was really very little of the outlay.  Enthusiasts will shell out $2000 every 3 years just to get something to run FSX on.

 

I'd easy pay $500 for something, well, worth $500

 

May be you would pay but are there enough others willing to pay that such a price to make it commercially viable to develop?

 

As you yourself  say this is a smaller niche marker. It could be too small to support the development of such a simulator.  That's possibly why there aren't even any $200 entertainment/leisure flight simulators on the market.

FSX was never finished, really it's broken code.  And was never properly optimized to leverage the GPU (hence the crappy FPS).  Add to that all the add-ons we normally add and stability can be adversely affected a swell.  So, no, it's not "good" that work has long since stopped on the unfinished product.

May be you would pay but are there enough others willing to pay that such a price to make it commercially viable to develop?

 

As you yourself  say this is a smaller niche marker. It could be too small to support the development of such a simulator.  That's possibly why there aren't even any $200 entertainment/leisure flight simulators on the market.

 

Yet people pay $80 for FSX Gold on a $2000 OCed PC they built or had built....add mesh, textures, landclass and expensive aircraft the cost of which adds up VERY quickly.

The heart of this hobby is the MSFS.  I totally agree with Noel in that I would be willing to pay a fairly high price for a 64bit multicore version of MSFS. All I would ask is for MS

not to pump out a new version every 2 years at full price. When you think about it that's been MS's business model from the DOS days.  

 

Ken

Yet people pay $80 for FSX Gold on a $2000 OCed PC they built or had built....add mesh, textures, landclass and expensive aircraft the cost of which adds up VERY quickly.

 

I'm afraid you are missing my point.

 

No doubt some people spend significant sums on this hobby. However,  the point is are there enough of them to make it commercially viable to develop a new simulator just for for them?

I'm afraid you are missing my point.

 

No doubt some people spend significant sums on this hobby. However,  the point is are there enough of them to make it commercially viable to develop a new simulator just for for them?

 

I think there is when you take all the regular and hardcore users plus all the small/medium flight schools around the world.

 

Ken

I think there is when you take all the regular and hardcore users plus all the small/medium flight schools around the world.

 

Ken

 

How many is that in total and how many would pay $500?

There wasn't enough willing to pay $60 to justify continued development, basic economics says fewer would pay $200, and even fewer would pay more. Or more to the point, COULD pay more. I doubt that raising the price would justify development costs given the even smaller potential market.

There wasn't enough willing to pay $60 to justify continued development, basic economics says fewer would pay $200, and even fewer would pay more. Or more to the point, COULD pay more. I doubt that raising the price would justify development costs given the even smaller potential market.

 

But to repeat what I and quite a few others have said...why would someone balk at $200 for FS12 then turn around and buy 2 PMDG aircraft for $130 plus another $130 for a bunch of ORBX stuff???

I'm not even including the weather or traffic packages.

 

I would love to know what the MS bean counters thought they would have to charge for FS12 to make it viable.

 

Ken

But to repeat what I and quite a few others have said...why would someone balk at $200 for FS12 then turn around and buy 2 PMDG aircraft for $130 plus another $130 for a bunch of ORBX stuff???

I'm not even including the weather or traffic packages.

 

I would love to know what the MS bean counters thought they would have to charge for FS12 to make it viable.

 

Ken

 

You are still missing my point which is that it doesn't matter how much some people are prepared to pay if there isn't enough of them to make it viable,

 

It's possible that FS11 wasn't viable regardless of price. Every product has an optimum price which maximises its revenue. If that revenue isn't enough to make the product viable then changing the price won't make it so.