fsx-ms Hal Bryan, MS flight sim insider interview.

[gboz 157]

With FSX's 10th birthday here thought people might be interested in this

excellent FSElite interview with Hal Bryan who worked with the MS flight sim team from 1997 to it's demise in 2009.

 

Sorry about the non-video video but can't seem to find the audio only version.

gb.

[N400QW 205]

Excellent. It was a pleasure having dinner with Hal and friends at Lombardis in Appleton Wi. north of Osh Kosh back in the FSX rollout days.

Best Ribeye I've ever had. Still have some pictures of Hal, Katy, and others at the Osh Kosh FSX booth. Thanks for the memories Hal.

[simmerhead 885]

What is partly revelaed in this interview is the staggering amount of work that went into making FSX. I still think many of us forget what a mammoth achievement it was and is, and focus too much on the weaknesses.

 

That said, a large corporation like Microsoft could have afforded to make an FSX SP3 and fix all the bugs, or made Flight into a stand alone sim. The millions who bought FSX had deserved at least that.

[N400QW 205]

Many will recall the mini war that was present here at Avsim pre SP1/SP2 and Phil Taylor occupying the designated "whipping boy" role at the time.

It is agreed that they could have done an SP3 but perhaps we should be thankful for the ESP, Dovetail, LM P3D, route they took.

[simmerhead 885]

I think a lot of AVSIMers were out of line back in the FSX days and behaved shamefully. We had a great thing going with ACES being in direct contact with us. A few rotten apples is all it takes...

 

An interesting point Hal Bryan made was that X-Box was the real FS killer. 100 millions in profits over a couple of years weren't regarded as a success anymore. It had to be "billions" in profit, over a weekend (Halo etc.). Maybe if FS had been moved away from the games division things might have been different, but I'm happy with Lockheed Martin and Prepar3D. They've delivered more than I ever dreamed they would, and soon we're at version 4 = FS 14!!!

[N400QW 205]

Correct. It was a free forall back then. Agreed that XBox and Flight was the wrong turn for the powers that be at that time and seems to have led to Aces demise.
"I'm happy with Lockheed Martin and Prepar3D."
P3D and SE have added life to the franchise for sure. :wink: