MSFS brings in the "Best of the Best". It's called "open architecture", and it's the cheapest way for them to go as a business. In the end, it will also be the best for the FS end users by the "third-parties" trying to out-do each other for the consumer's buck. All really great programs go this way.If they brought in the "Best of the Best" now, and closed up the architecture, it would trigger a huge collapse of what they have got going as probably lead to the demise of the product.And if they brought in the "Best of the Best" now, and did not close up the architecture, we would be right back where we are now within three to six months (if I know this enthusiastic community).Either way... it's going to be very exciting, but I would leave it alone and rely on third parties and open architecture !Bob (Lecanto, Fl)

Hi jean Luc,Yes it makes sense but I doubt if Bill Gates found his top 5 directors that way. I suspect they were head hunted or pople he knew personally.Maybe things are done differently in the USA but here in the UK we still have agency's that head hunt top guys for businesses every day. That's the mentallity I'm coming from.I also agree it's good to have thrid party developers make add-ons and would never like to see that change.But if I imagine myself in say 5 years from now and lets say I manage to pull it off and I manage to have a new sim on the market. If I see a guy like you produce an amazing new GNS I'll be on the phone to you and propose an offer. I wouldn't even have known I wanted your GNS until you showed it. So what is my next step. Place a job offer. "GNS expert developer wanted" Wierd. Things are strange in the USA nowadays. "I'll phone you up and have to say "Fancy cleaning toilets, nobody wants that job. Wink,,,,hehe"Given the restrictions of doing this in the USA makes me think it's better to opperate such a business elsewhere. Perhaps Russia where there are no such restrictions so I can head hunt legally.Thanks for pointing that out though. Most interesting indeed.But if you did not want to work for the new project then fair enough and I would welcome an add on market. But at least I can say to my customers "I tried to get that genius" and I would know I'm working hard on the next updated version to be the best it can be.

Either way... it's going to be very exciting, but I would leave it alone and rely on third parties and open architecture !It will be open architecture and we will encourge thrid party developers.We will also seek out the best freeware developers and not just rip their ideas off. We will work to reward people for the inventive and hard work.We will work for a win win situtation and if all goes to plan we well even work with Microsoft and not work against them.This idea is not as crazy as it seems.Ultimately, it may be possilbe to have a share in MS and visa versa. The comunity will in the long run and the short run benefit.That's my intention. It's not to hurt Microsoft but ultimately to help them also. Competion is not always a bad thing.Just imagine, right now they may be reading this thread and thinking; maybe we need to raise our game.How good is that?I would say that's a result. But with a Monopoly......it's dead and sluggish. With competition it's awesome.

That's what I mean.You see FS9 is not a $60 game. It's typically $600 or more depending on what you have got.So if a new game was developed for those wanting a fully functional grown up simulator that has great aircraft and great scenery rith of the bat then; maybe it's worth doing.That said; it's unlikey we can make the complete world look as good as the very best that MS FS9 add-on's can produce as a start up package. There has to be better ways of doing it.One thing we are considering is giving funds to the developers and letting them keep the profits when we start up. This will help to kick start the new simulation.But beating the basic flight sim is not that impossible

Wow:D I like that idea Peter. Competition is a good thing IMO.I wish you all the best with this project!

Very well made points Donny,Microsoft suffer the same problem all large companies suffer. They have to employ the most qualifed people.As an example; if they needed somebody to do better clouds they would short list it to who is the most qualified.I have no qualifications. I'm self taught in a whole bunch of stuff from business plan writing, screen play writing, and art. I leaned a few things too, self taught how to apply that art on a computer.Qualified; no.If they needed somebody to do clouds I would not even get a look in.They would say to me; Can I use SIMPt and do I understand COPItions displays. How long will it take me to STHIThmuions the APP settings on the USINSA?I haven't got a clue.

I'm going to need a lot of luck LOT. LOLROFLI will need to go so far then go really silent and shut up and pretend I've lost interest in the project.It will take 3 years, maybe less maybe more.God willing I can play a part in this happening....Maybe even now I have to start saying it's just a thread I explored and it's not happening. But then maybe it never will?On the other hand,,,, Just maybe who knows...wink

Bob, 100% agree... Quantity, MS can't fit all the data they'd like onto the CD's. Licensing, small 3rd party developers seem to have more liberty in this area.Quality, Small 3rd party developers have more flexible schedules that let them really execute. Big developers must strip-down and cut what doesn't fit. My favorite, Christmas comes every few weeks. An excellent 3rd party add on is always just around the corner...not every two years.Also, if someone wants a job at MS working on FS. Go for it. Game developers are generally pretty hungry for skilled talent that knows to tools.Peter best of luck...sounds exciting. And I'm curious to hear more...DannyCYVR

Hi there Danny,I'm not going to continue this thread much longer. I posted it really to see if we got some takers for the opportunity.some did and some missed the point.I will need to let this die down now and hopefuly those with some vison and that can read between the lines will know how to get opportunity.It's not about making freinds or foes.It's about passive or active?I come to bring discord not harmony. Only with discord can there be change and change can lead only to creation.Creation is action and not debate.It is not for the meek and not for the humble/it is for those with passion and energyFor those in this room they must believe they are supermen and that they can make anything happen.And they [email protected]

>A bit too crypitc for me Dark Moment and maybe you missed>what I was saying.>No, quite correctly tongue in cheek.You gave the (mistaken) impression that you know everyone who's good enough to be on the team and that therefore the team is no good since Microsoft didn't ask you who to put on it.>I probably did not explain myself well. I was meaning it in>context with our FS comunity where for example we have great>talent for scenery a lot of which is freeware and it's>generally better than FS9 default. Birds Eye view is just one>example of how good and how much better ground scenery can be>made.>And you probably know WHY. Microsoft themselves could create a lot more detailed scenery but that would drive the hardware requirements of the product through the roof, making it impossible to market at release time.>I was meaning for example; Microsoft don't seem to actively>contact these talented developers and ask them to do work for>them or even work for them.>Microsoft is constantly hunting for talented staff. I've been contacted once myself by a headhunter on an assignment for them. That job I had to reject because I felt I lacked skills in Microsoft tools to take on a job at the level offered.>I've talked to many developers to this end and nobody I know>has been asked to work for MS FS team.>That wasn't the FS team, but it was the company.>Aircraft has not got much better since about FS98. That's like>almost 8 years, way too long for me. I can remember aircraft>being better than FS default today in FS2000 so what's>happening with the sim?>LOLOLOLOLOL. Things have improved immeasurably. If the panels aren't as complex as something from PMDG or Flight1 that's with a definite purpose which is to make the product easy to use for people who don't have the patience or inclination (or ability) to read through hundreds of pages of manuals to even start the engines.>I'm certainly not saying Microsoft don't have a great team but>You said just that. Just not in so many words.>I'm also saying perhaps there is room for a new simulator>where top people are rucruited from this talent base.>Go ahead, prove your point.All you need to do is build a team and write it. If you know so well how it's to be done you'd make the perfect project manager.

Did you ever think about an open source extensible project like Flightgear? It is multi-platform that with a fast enough OS and hardware that with todays hardware might perform very well. I believe extensible portions are written in XML like the direction MS seems to be going.I've only briefly tried it a couple of years ago in the Linux version but it is available in Win.

>>I find alot of individuals who were not around for FS2 or 3 or>4 bashing MS for the sim and for being successful . . . well,>I for one think Bill Gates and company have done a pretty>great service for us computer nerds . . . just where would we>be without XP, and FS, and the list is far and long.>Well said. They may not be perfect but they're no worse than any other company with a set of products out there.But with millions (or even tens of millions) of untrained users using their products in ways never intended or even envisioned it's inevitable there will be more users experiencing problems than when you have a small company creating a highly specialised product that has maybe 50 users and all those receiving extensive training before using the product in the field.The main reason people bash Microsoft and their products is jealousy. Another large reason is being uninformed and having trouble with Windows caused by either bad hardware, bad third party software, or a combination of both, and thinking those are problems with Windows itself. Not the fault (often) of those people, Microsoft may have worded some of their default error messages (like "Windows has performed an illegal operation") differently (like "application XXXX has performed an illegal operation").

>The reason M$ is so successful is because they have run>out/bought out the competition in the first place>Wrong. They outperformed the competition in the first place based on quality and feature set, which left that competition without a market.Only then did they have the resources (or business need) to buy those companies (or hire their staff).Microsoft, like so many others, started out in a small room in someone's house.>And I sure hope that the richest person in the world gives the>most to charity.He does. The fact that you don't seem to know that makes everything else you write fall into place: uninformed Microsoft bashing, even if your naming the company by the acronym the little stupid kids use when bashing Microsoft didn't already do that.>The business practices of his company have been nothing short>of a monpoly>No they haven't. If they were a monopoly no other companies would exist.>>I think the bottom line is that the vast majority of the>>people who buy MSFS would actually be put off by say a PMDG>>747 or an LDS 767 being the default aircraft - it would>simply>>be far too steep a learning curve for most. I didn't start>>off with such planes, I learned with the default 172 and 737>>just like everyone else and then progressed up from there. First sane thing you've said in your post, and quite correct.>>The aircraft are always gonna turn out better when left to>>dedicated third party teams anyway.>Microsoft could have created such teams, had there been a business need.But as you said, the business need is quite the opposite for them so creating such teams and aircraft would have been a waste of resources leading to a more expensive product that appeals to less customers.Now, if they really were a monopoly they wouldn't have cared about that and done it anyway just to keep third parties from entering the field.

>Potenially, I have huge funding available for this project>and I mean huge.>Then by all means go ahead. >I can build it to be an awesome product or spend the money on>something else. But if people are as pleased as they seem to>be with the Billion dolllar company running a Monopoly then>great. Let's leave it that way.>Ah, more Microsoft bashing. Of course we're pleased, it means a stable environment and a product that's actually supported. No buying Fly! 2 and having to download a CD worth of patches to even make it run, only to have the company go out of business a few months later.>What do you guys want. Help me or hurt me. Your choice. You>decide now our fate.>Nope, just yours.I'd love to see you pull this off. But I doubt you'll make it. You might get the team together, you might even succeed in creating the product.But with the things you want to add I doubt you'll ever succeed in making it a commercial success.You will be investing millions, possibly tens of millions, in development. With an estimated (my estimate) 5% max of the userbase of MSFS as your target market, or even 10% if we're extremely generous, that makes the product too expensive.With a $10 million pricetag and 10% of the MSFS market share (or about 200 thousand users, half them pirated, for 100.000 paying users), you're looking at a unit cost of $100 to break even on development.Add another 5 million in marketing, transportation, manufacturing, and income for your retailers, and that cost is now $150 per unit to break even.Add a 10% profit for yourself and you're looking at a $165 pricetag ex-tax for the end user.That's without added income to fund things like support, add that and you're up to $175-$200 per unit sold.So you need to sell the product for about $200 each given a development cost of $10 million and an estimated sales volume of 100.000 units.At that price though I don't think you'll sell more than half that volume, leaving you with either a higher unit price still (with more potential users dropping out) or a loss of revenue making the product uneconomical to create.And there you have the reason it's not been done before, and why almost everyone else who did make flight simulators has left the field for more profitable ventures like Doom clones.

Open source is overrated.Making something open source doesn't make it good.All good open source projects are in fact backed and run by large companies.IBM, Sun, Oracle, etc. invest millions in these projects in both direct funding and manpower.Almost every other OS project either stagnates or never takes off, the few that do develop into corporate sponsored projects as they grow big.