Yes, it's natural to worry about sequels, but I think you guys need to understand the unique place in history that Flight Simulator holds in Microsoft's corporate history.Flight Simulator was either the 2nd or so title released by Microsoft (the first being of course MS-DOS). Flight simulator has a longer history than Windows or any of their other products (with possibly the exception of word).Yes, the "flight sim" crowd is not vast, but that has not stopped Microsoft from making money (and good money) on every single version of Microsoft Flight Simulator produced.CFS was a different story. CFS first appeared after FS98 (FS6). It received a luke warm reception because of stiff competition in the WW2 fighter sim market with the likes of Jane's WWII Fighters, and Microprose EAW. After the glut of WWII fighter sims was over and during a lull, CFS II came out and although a precursor to FS2002, it still sold nowhere near the numbers of regular FS. CFS 3 was technically brilliant, but again had performance issues and generally did not fare well financially.If fact a main purpose of CFS 2 and CFS 3 were to provide test platforms to help development of future FS versions. CFS 2 clearly has an FS2002 look and feel, whereas CFS3 I believe helped usher in the new weather engine.Even thought FS2000 was generally seen by the community as a weak product, it nonetheless killed the other competition in terms of sales. Strong sales performance from Fly! Pro Pilot, and Flight Unlimited help spur FS2002 to be a strong as it was. But even with the added competition, FS was never a money loser. Sierra Studios restructured after the back to back successes of Homeworld and Halflife, and Tribes, and literally gutted it's Dynamix division. Fly and Fly II never turned out as the developers had hoped, especially the shoddy release of Fly II by its publisher. And EA shut the doors on Looking Glass Studios even though their titles were critical successes, they never equated to real dollars.Flight Simulator on the other hand never suffered from not making a huge pile of cash. It's steep hardware requirements often made it a benchmark program for PC development prior to the age of the FPS. And even afterward, has always had strong sales due to it's mix of realism, and relatively "easy" flight models. Unless MSFS starts to lose money, or Microsoft takes a drastic turn in it's corporate direction, I think we will see many releases of the product, as it continues to be profitable, and provides the company a very real and sentimental link to it's humble beginnings.

What I meant was look at his website.I would clearly like a button in this froum to supress all JWenting posts. Is that possible?Alex

WOW I hope the next MSFS has terrain like that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Check out those fields, hills, and trees!!!!Suddenly FS2004 feels plain after those screenshots!!!!!

I have no doubt whatsoever that the MSFS series will continue, unless something drastic like 9-11 interferes, even so, FS survived even that.I think it's very well possible to keep updating FS gradually as they've been doing all the time. The design is quite modular and major parts, such as the weather engine and the terrain engine have been replaced completely over the years, and I see no reason why they couldn't be rejuvenated again a couple of years further down the line. It probably will mean that some third party stuff will become incompatible eventually, and that's also nothing new, and unavoidable.If anything, flight simulator is becoming more successful all the time, with more and more third-party companies starting up. It's a bit like an operating system, the more software becomes available for it, the more desirable the base software becomes. I believe MS have dealt with that sort of situation before?Also, only a month or two there was that interview video about the flightsimulator team, so clearly there still is a sizeable operation going on.Best,Martijn

Microsoft will not stop till they come out with FS50-A century of flight Simming! Somewhere in the their corporate goals they have written that in stone! Just take it from me without being suspicious.