P3D 64 Bit Addon Upgrade Fees

[sfgiants13 83]

As far as I know, ORBX and PMDG have been the only ones to say that there won't be any additional fees for the 64 bit upgrade.  I couldn't find any others.  Have any other big name developers stated that our licenses will be good for the 64 bit version?  I've really slowed down on addon purchases because I don't want to have to pay again.  There are a few addons I want to get (mostly scenery) that I would gladly shell out for now if I knew that there won't be any additional fees later.

[Bobsk8 12,492]

Probably most developers have no idea  what is involved in making their stuff work with the 64 bit, so will have no way of figuring out the cost. 

[netshadoe 144]

7 hours ago, sfgiants13 said:

As far as I know, ORBX and PMDG have been the only ones to say that there won't be any additional fees for the 64 bit upgrade.

PMDG has said "Based on our knowledge of the process at this time, we anticipate that x64 upgrades will be made available to licensed users of PMDG products at no cost." ...

meaning it's not written in stone that it's a free upgrade. (I bolded the word to highlight the what makes it ambiguous).

Just to clarify lest something make this a much more complicated switch over than it might be for aircraft developers...all speculation for us right now.

[Chock 17,769]

Trouble is, it may not be entirely up to developers. Even if they were to swallow their own costs of making any necessary changes to their products and that was the only concern in terms of compatibility, that doesn't mean LM won't suddenly decide to charge developers for making their products suitable/licensed for a new version. Were that to be the case, one could hardly expect development companies such as PMDG etc to ignore something like that; they'd be in a position where they'd have no choice but to charge again for their products, or they would be losing money.

Don't forget, P3D is not sold as a gaming/entertainment platform, as far as LM are concerned, it's for mission training and practice/research for organisations/militaries etc, in other words, customers for which paying another 70 quid for a newly-compatible 747 would be peanuts. So it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility that LM would decide to charge for tweaked products to be licensed for use in what to them, is effectively a new platform from which they presumably hope to make money.

They honestly won't give a toss about upsetting some flight simmer who doesn't want to pay another thirty quid for their payware Tiger Moth to work in their new version of P3D. And it's not because they are being mean, it's because that's simply not what they bought the rights off MS and developed P3D for. Sure, they'll happily take our money and not chase us up for not really being 'academic users', but when they have stuff on the go which includes an F-35 Fighter jet with a budget of $392 Billion dollars and are busy making bits for space rockets and such, they couldn't care less about Joe Blow either spending, or not spending, 50 quid on a license for P3D, or being upset on a flight sim forum because he has to pay another 20 quid for some upgraded scenery of Timbuktu.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

^

Funny stuff

[RW1 615]

12 hours ago, sfgiants13 said:

As far as I know, ORBX and PMDG have been the only ones to say that there won't be any additional fees for the 64 bit upgrade.  I couldn't find any others.  Have any other big name developers stated that our licenses will be good for the 64 bit version?  I've really slowed down on addon purchases because I don't want to have to pay again.  There are a few addons I want to get (mostly scenery) that I would gladly shell out for now if I knew that there won't be any additional fees later.

There is no way ORBX will give free upgrades, they spent Hundreds of thousands on upgrading installers before for free and said it would never happen again, regardless of what they have previously said, you will be paying for 64bit upgrades if it ever happens?

[TheDanger 182]

1 hour ago, rick66 said:

There is no way ORBX will give free upgrades, they spent Hundreds of thousands on upgrading installers

With the introduction of OrbxDirect I assume the workload will be far less now for updates/upgrades.

[anden145 2,273]

2 hours ago, rick66 said:

There is no way ORBX will give free upgrades, they spent Hundreds of thousands on upgrading installers before for free and said it would never happen again, regardless of what they have previously said, you will be paying for 64bit upgrades if it ever happens?

I would think it would be easier for scenery developers to 'convert' to x64 that airplane developers. I think ORBX have researced the requirements of converting/using their sceneries and found that it would require a relativly small amount of work. That's why they can make a statment, that they would provide a free license transfer.

5 hours ago, Chock said:

...

Don't forget, P3D is not sold as a gaming/entertainment platform, as far as LM are concerned, it's for mission training and practice/research for organisations/militaries etc, in other words, customers for which paying another 70 quid for a newly-compatible 747 would be peanuts. So it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility that LM would decide to charge for tweaked products to be licensed for use in what to them, is effectively a new platform from which they presumably hope to make money.

...

True... Except that if you're a military and/or goverment organization, the price tag isn't 70 quid. On their website is clearly states:

"This PMDG 747-400 QOTSII license is for personal use only, not for professional or training use."

Besides, I seem to remember RSR saying something about, that if you're a goverment/military organization, you would need to license the items, and that that would require some sort of service plan also... 

"... Our enterprise and professional products on P3D will have significantly higher license costs ($1,800-$25,000+ based upon what is required) and our enterprise product line will also require the purchase of an annual maintenance contract.  This pricing is directly in line with the professional and enterprise software market and deals with the larger issues of certification cost, intellectual property licensing and liability mitigation.  Our intial plan for P3D included only these market sectors, but we recognize that there are many non-professional users interested in our products who are using P3D and thus we created a license/pricing bracket to meet the needs of those individuals without dilluting our professional and enterprise market."

The full post can be found here:
[08FEB15] P3D Pricing Policy - Some facts on this issue...

 

Cheers!

[groentesoep 22]

7 hours ago, netshadoe said:

PMDG has said "Based on our knowledge of the process at this time, we anticipate that x64 upgrades will be made available to licensed users of PMDG products at no cost." ...

Well it depends on which thread you quote. Upon release of the 777 they said the following:

Quote

Pricing in P3D will be different than our FSX customers may be accustomed to, as our P3D product line will continue to grow and expand under a continuing development program.  This will include update to x64 versions, additional functionality and product capabilities as they are made available within the P3D platform.

From here:

 

[Ian S 214]

John Venema is very clear on the ORBX website that whilst they have performed a lot of upgrade work free until now, this won't continue.

[cannonplug 126]

10 hours ago, Ian S said:

John Venema is very clear on the ORBX website that whilst they have performed a lot of upgrade work free until now, this won't continue.

But more recently (20 FEB), he said this:

There's been a bunch of speculation about our pricing policy for the next version of P3D, likely based on my previous posts back in December.

Let me clarify: we will NOT be charging anything for our products for the next version of P3D. They will be 100% free to use on the new platform. Better still, through the magic of FTXCv3 you won't even need to re-download them.

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/130828-no-upgrade-fee-for-orbx-products-for-next-version-of-p3d/

[rototom 198]

I would expect some cost in most cases. If your assuming that 64bit will be the only difference between version 3 and 4, that's probably wrong. Every addon will need to be assessed and made compatible with version 4 and that could mean updates for 64bit or updates for some new feature or new flight dynamics or systems modeling or whatever. And you'll never know what they did or didn't have to do even if they told you some story. So if a developer tells you that your not going to get charged for a 64 bit update, that should mean little to you because when version 4 gets here, they will probably have some work to do, and that will be compensated.

[vgbaron 3,486]

I would expect that any conversion to 64bit would also result in a lot of code changes to optimize the program logic to better take advantage of the 64bit platform. This could very well result in additional changes to add on products. All speculation but within the realm of possibility.

 

Vic

[sfgiants13 83]

Since V4 was announced I thought it would be nice to bring this back from the dead since it seems a lot of developers are starting to make announcements.  So far, here's who I have who have announced that they will not be charging upgrade fees.

 

ORBX

PMDG

ActiveSky

LatinVFR

A2A

Flightbeam

FSDreamteam

[Bobsk8 12,492]

Add A2A to that list.