of those 60 million roughly 10 million goes to salestax.Another 20 million goes to the retail chains, shipping companies, and CD factories.10 million more goes into marketing.That leaves 20 million USD to feed a team of people for 2 years AND turn a profit.

"That leaves 20 million USD to feed a team of people for 2 years AND turn a profit."And even that's cutting it close. Aside from feeding people, there are leases on servers, software costs (even Microsoft has them), bandwidth costs and my already mentioned training costs. Also, office space is office space and every department soaks up a share of the costs involved--lease, utilities, furnishings, etc. Even if Microsoft owns the entire works, internal accounting still requires that teams budget for those costs.

I have every reason to believe that the FS series is lucrative for Microsoft and delivers solid returns. A couple of points to ponder:1. It was in the top ten of all PC games sales, reported on Gamespy, for nearly a year after its release. I'm not sure how big the development team is - 10 people? Assuming they make $100k a year - that's about $2 million in salaries for one cycle. Add another two million for non-people related costs, deals with plane makers, contract writers and media producers, production etc. So, probably between $4 and $5 million to produce an interation. If it sold one million copies at $35, then it grossed $35 million. I think MS makes money. 2. This is conjecture based on a conversation with one of the CFS team I met in Tahoe three years ago, but MS likely ended the Train and Combat sim lines becuase they believed that the talent could be used better developing other titles - and other x-box titles. Back then MS was re-deploying a lot of resources to maximize it's return on that system. This was likely a cold, hard business decision based on sales of those products, competition from other sims (Trainz, IL2) that were of similar or better quality, and percieved relative returns. 3. I don't think that MS cares much about what they read here, with two important exceptions: bugs and other technical issues related to hardware, and thoughts and ideas for new features. It's really important to remember that most of the visitors to this site are in the category of hardcore users, who's useage patterns and expectations are far different than the broad general public. Avsim's forum membership is in the tens of thousands, I believe. The software sells in numbers orders of magnitude greater than that. They are also adults who make a decent living making a really fun and enjoyable product. I doubt the give a flying you know what about what some whining teenager who thinks that the 777 is overpowered by 6%, and how on earth could you claim to be "as real as it gets..." Their true audience is the marketplace, and it has been receptive. 4. Finally, they own the space. There is only one civilian flight sim competitor left - X-Plane. It is a niche player at best. Up until very recently, the only version available in stores was the 5.XX version - now three versions behind what is available direct from Austin. I can't seem the exiting it as long as it's possible to release a new version every two years and make money doing it. So, I'm not too worried that FS is going away. There is still a lot that can be improved - performance, satelite scenery, more realistic weather, better ground and runway textures.

Plus a slew of other capital expenditures to acquire or license the data assets for the project.

>of those 60 million roughly 10 million goes to salestax.LOL,16.66% sales tax?? MS doesn't pay sales tax anyway,WE do. Gross sales figures of FS or any product for that matter are totaled on the product alone,not the product plus sales tax.BTW,do you have a link for these costs associated with marketing,shipping,cost of burning the CD's?? I'm curious where you got them from.David

16% salestax is a good average I think. And sure we pay that but remember that it gets paid and as you listed the price paid times the number sold that amount does include salestax ;)I've calculated about an average cost of what you can expect from production prices of CDs from what I've seen of that over the last few years. It's an estimate based on personal experience rather than a number I picked off some website.It should be close enough for a rough comparison, but it's not a number from some catalogue (which probably doesn't exist anyway as it will be largely up to contract negotiations).A good part of that is made up of the actual production cost of the operations and equipment involved of course...

>I have every reason to believe that the FS series is>lucrative for Microsoft and delivers solid returns. A couple>of points to ponder:>>1. It was in the top ten of all PC games sales, reported on>Gamespy, for nearly a year after its release. I'm not sure how>big the development team is - 10 people? Assuming they make>$100k a year - that's about $2 million in salaries for one>cycle. Add another two million for non-people related costs,>deals with plane makers, contract writers and media producers,>production etc. So, probably between $4 and $5 million to>produce an interation. If it sold one million copies at $35,>then it grossed $35 million. I think MS makes money. Years back it was figured that MS netted around $8.00-9.00 per box on a $39.95 simulator. Thats about a 20-22% profit margin per box which isn't bad. Many other companies run on much smaller margins than that but,they also have higher volume runs on certain products. Prices have gone up but I'm sure costs have too so its probably a wash.Look,MS produces this title to make money pure and simple,they don't continue to produce the title just for our viewing pleasure. At Redmond they have a profit margin ratio for FS that must be hit or goodbye flight simulator. BTW...If MS decided they no longer wanted the title how long do you think it would take before another studio bought the rights? It would be gone in 60 seconds...David

>>of those 60 million roughly 10 million goes to salestax.>>LOL,16.66% sales tax?? MS doesn't pay sales tax anyway,WE do.>Gross sales figures of FS or any product for that matter are>totaled on the product alone,not the product plus sales tax.>>BTW,do you have a link for these costs associated with>marketing,shipping,cost of burning the CD's?? I'm curious>where you got them from.>>DavidI'm not 100% sure, but I think jwenting's own personal experience in the business provides him the credibility to speculate the costs. Practical experience can't necessarily be documented, and for the sake of an informal discussion on an online forum, I don't see the rationale for demanding some kind of empirical proof to back up an educated guess. Unless, of course, you're anal retentive, and make note of these things. ;)

>>But can someone explain why making flight sims would be>more>>expensive then other type of games???>>A number of reasons off the top of my head:>>1. Consider the large number of aspects of the real world that>must be simulated or accurately depicted (topology,>meteorology, flight dynamics, artificial intelligence, air>traffic control, navigation aids, procedures, etc). Each of>these areas require domain experts which increases the size of>the team. >>2. Consider the amount of research that's required to obtain>accurate data and reference materials, any or all of which may>require licensing fees. There may also be licensing issues>and fees involved in depicting some aerospace companies'>products or using their names. >>3. Volume of data. There are huge amounts of data to be>processed, any or all of which may need to be cleaned before>it can be used. This also requires domain experts,>consultants or third-party collaboration.>>4. Consider the amount of testing that must be carried out to>ensure accuracy.>>But really nothing of this would explain why it would be more expensive to create FS 2004 than say a generic fps. The aircraft themself MS don

You know there is also a theory which suggests that some companies consider a title as a "showpeice" in their portfolio. What I mean to suggest is that there would be a pride factor in continuing a title that is almost a staple in the computing landscape. I believe that FS2004 stays in the sales top 10 because it perceived as a "must-have" item by a reasonable majority of the game-buying public. The title has been around soooo long that most people recognize it and are intrigued enough to grab the lastest version. The hard-core, like those of us visiting this forum, may be a slighter percentage of buyers, but the title remains something people "gotta uy" for their machines. That is just my hunch and read on the matterThe trendline in the rush to have a PC in every home has flattened out a bit recently ([a href=http://www.gotw.ca/publications/concurrency-ddj.htm]Moore's law is even getting a challenge these days[/a]) and it took the anniversary of flight as a hyping point for this last version (and a good version it is quite frankly) to have some wider public appeal.One other theory/consideration for us to ponder is the fact that perhaps MS is cooking the next version a bit longer so as to have some sort of feature breakthrough to justify a new version. Must of us would buy whatever they served, but PC today growth is not what is was over the life time of FS98, FS2000 and FS2002. Sports games can pass this off as somehow a new season is supposed to be different. There is no "season" as such with our flight sim and people are seeing less and less reason to upgrade computers. And yes, the reemergence of consoles is certainly affecting PC game development and simulation-style software (driving it back into the cottage so-to-speak).Anyhow, I really don't see the lustre of the series dying out, but perhaps MS and the MS team will have to more careful about when they release a new version and about what features that version has. Also, consider this: the transition from 16-bit to 32-bit Operating Systems was somewhat sticky and it very well could be that MS are wainting for some push to 64-bit machines and Operating Systems for the next version of MSFS.We can all wildly speculate, but it just doesn't seem correct that MS would let go of the series. I have no idea if MSFS is a "cash cow," but I am fairly certain that MS likes the way the title "looks on the mantlepiece."Ciao,Jeff

I am somewhat relieved after reading all of your thoughts to this thread. Thanks for the thoughtful replies! My main hope is that MS takes proper time and puts out a significant improvment over FS9 (not that FS9 is bad); if this takes until 2006 then I am more than willing to wait. Afterall, when you apply many of the current add-ons, FS9 is a complete different beast than originally released -- sort of like having FS10 right now but not having to wait.