PMDG's Official Position on DTG's: FSW, pending P3D update, etc...

[rsrandazzo 6,353]

Captains,

There is an ancient curse that occasionally comes to mind:  "May you live in interesting times."

As a software developer and a pilot, I am a big fan of boredom.  Boredom means everything is stable.  To my point of view, stable is good.

A few years ago the sim world went into panic when Microsoft killed off their flight simulation development and walked away from the market.  Those of you who have been here a while will recall that I have been quite vocal in my musing that this was a good thing, as it would open the door to newer ideas and innovation and might signal a renewal of the hobby after a period of pain.  I have continued to support this point of view- and I think 2017 will be the year that finally begins to see modern software and hardware architecture bringing joy to simmers.

We are coming out of a period of unprecedented platform stability.  A full decade with a single platform has allowed developers to innovate and build capability without having to re-learn the process every two years as we used to do "back in the day."

With that in mind- we are starting to get quite a few folks asking questions about future platforms so I wanted to put a bit of information out to you in order to ease any concerns you might have about our plans for the future:

Prepar3D v4:

There is quite a bit of "noise" in the community, none of which has been confirmed, indicating that Lockheed Martin is working on the next iteration of Prepar3D.  For our P3D customers, please know that our long-standing policy has been that we intend to support our existing products through P3D v4 "at least."  This is included in the purchase you have already made and will not require further costs.  It is reasonable to expect that a new version will include new features, and we expect that we will adopt those that make sense and roll them out using the micro-update process we have been developing over the past couple of years.

All of this is just a re-statement of the policy we announced in January 2015 when we launched our first products for Prepar3D- nothing has changed.

 

Dovetail Games' Flight Sim World:

A number of folks have been wondering what our official position is with regard to the recently announced Dovetail Games' Flight Sim World package.  I wanted to summarize our thoughts in hopes that it will prevent some of the uninformed conjecture that has started up on the topic.

Summary:  We are very excited to see Dovetail's work beginning to bear fruit and we look forward to learning more.  At this juncture it is really not a simple task to answer the many questions being asked about whether or not PMDG will support the platform, whether our existing product line can be converted to FSW, etc etc.  The bottom line is that we don't know much of anything about the platform. 

For a period we were in fairly regular communication with DTG regarding their plans and progress, but that communication dried up shortly after we declined to offer our product line via the DTG controlled Steam channel for FSX-Steam Edition, and we haven't really heard much of anything from them since that time.  We received a few email announcing staff changes, but we received no replies to our ongoing outreach effort, so at the moment when I look at the planning board for the next year, I see only a question mark next to the DTG platform.

We are simply waiting to hear, and remaining open minded.

With that said, I can boil the whole thing down pretty easily:  Once we have a platform and an SDK and some marketing direction from DTG to work with, we will make a business decision:  If the platform is capable of supporting highly complex simulations of modern airliners (we presume it will) and if we are able to market our products through our existing channels then there is a high degree of certainty that we will support it.  If the market will require participation through a market controlled channel such as steam, the likelihood of our support diminishes rather significantly depending upon the costs of doing business through that channel.

As for whether our products can be ported to their new platform- it is safe to presume that they can...  After all- it is just software.  We do not doubt that it will require some dedicated development work and that is why we have the big question mark next to DTG on the planning board...  We know work will be required, but we don't know when or how much to plan...

So stay tuned...

In the mean time, work progresses on the nearly completed PMDG DC-6 Cloudmaster for FSX and P3D, and the PMDG 747-8 Queen of the Skies II for both FSX and P3D is well on it's way to testing.  We will likely have another couple of updates for the 747-400 very shortly, as we have been continuing to chip away at open items as we move the 747-8 down the assembly line. 

As you can imagine, adding in all of the 747-8 functionality has created a bit of chaos in the code base, which has slowed down the update cycle for the 744, but I think we are through the worst of it now.  (touch wood, hold thumbs, cross fingers and toes, etc...)

These may not be "interesting" times, but they are darned exciting! 

Oh and wait until you see what else we are working on. 

 

[anden145 2,285]

Wow... first one.

OT: Thanks for the update, Robert! Much appreciated!

[PinkJackal 86]

No update for X-Plane?????????? 

[PeterGraves1980 8]

Exciting Times indeed, I am personally invested in P3D so will go the V4 as my main sim at this time

I can't wait to see what else PMDG has been working on, personally I hope it is a 2 engine aircraft fondly known as the flying pencil!

Best Regard

 

Peter

[cannonplug 126]

From the DTG forum here on Avsim:

On 5/3/2017 at 11:38 AM, DTG_Aimee said:

In order to market as an official FSW add-on, you will be able to sell your add-ons on your own store as long as it is made available on the Dovetail channels as well.

And Rob above:

28 minutes ago, rsrandazzo said:

If the market will require participation through a market controlled channel such as steam, the likelihood of our support diminishes rather significantly depending upon the costs of doing business through that channel.

Hope the parties can come to an agreement...

[spearmint_flyer 579]

Happy to see that but I stand with PMDG I don't believed they should be arm wrestled into the STEAM store. 

[MarioDonick 752]

7 minutes ago, PinkJackal said:

No update for X-Plane?????????? 

I agree it would be nice to at least get one or two lines about X-Plane. At least if an update of the DC-6 for XP11 is planned. Or even if PMDG decides to not further invest in XP.

[Pastaiolo 1,686]

As for the others, i was hoping to see something about XP. Still hoping for that.

As for Steam, it really depends on how much of a cut it takes. Back then, on another game DLC, i heard of a 30% cut from every sold copy. But in this case they will have to factor in the DTG cut too i assume. Either way, Steam has an enormous pool of users they shoudn't stay out of nowadays. Especially since DTG still allows them to sell their addon also on their site and not claim as exclusive the sale on Steam

[HighTowers 1,434]

Thanks for the informative update. Yes exciting times ahead after the doom and gloom from a few years ago. 

However its kind of disappointing, that DTG hasnt made a concerted effort to give developers, especially mainstream ones, early access alpha and beta already for their input, and to prepare what may lie ahead. This just delays having our favorite addons even further after the core is released.  Hope there is some amicable solution soon.  As Francesco mentioned, I read the other thread saying that products can be sold on developers own channel so long as the steam version is also on as stated by Aimee. Of course it all depends on what terms is required and how it impacts the business side of things. All the best to future endeavors.

[FaxCap 13]

THANK you for the update....really appreciated.

 

FaxCap

 

[cleonpack93 79]

You guys rock! Thanks for the updates.

[17shahrishi 4]

It's funny that you mention DTG but NOT XP. It's annoying me!

I love PMDG when I had FSX and spent HOURS flying The NGX and the T7 but now I'm in XP.

No mention of XP?! Really? I doubt you guys read it's SDK since it's so different than FSX and thus you try to avoid it! I love your products for P3D (except your absurd pricing-literally shows how greedy FS has become) but now since I've switched to XP, it's annoying me that you guys avoid talking about XP 

Saying that your 747 won't work in XP since its a resource hog is complete baloney, since apparently it will run in a 10 year old program and ONCE AGAIN nope, we won't read the SDK! You used the DC-6 as a test bed for XP then NEVER mentioned it again! You won't read XP's SDK since you want to please the P3D community and not us.

I feel that you purposely made a aircraft that barely appeals to everyone-hardly any videos of it and the hype died a month after its release (a DC-6, no one will fly it and again it shows your lack of support towards XP you basically looked at its DC-6 sales, saw they were bad and just left XP for good.

Future Platforms?! XP is the future! 
If you make products for XP, TONS, literally TONS of people will leave P3D for good and more $$$ will come (FS only care about $$$ and nothing else)

When I had FSX/P3D, I LOVED your products :)

Basically what I'm trying to say is that PMDG won't test further in XP simply because it's a new world and there is a learning curve and they'll lose out on money

Will this get deleted now? Hopefully not

FS used to about pleasing both sides of the community, now it's just about profit

Sorry for the long post, I was pretty angry

[ShadowN7 12]

Thank you Robert for the news on P3D and FSW.  I, however, would like to see a post about your official stance on X-Plane 10 and 11 going forward.  Even it if is not in favor of it at least to me the wondering will be over.  :-)

[rsrandazzo 6,353]

Rishi,

Ever heard the advice:  "Don't post while angry?"

Yeah...  Is good advice you probably should follow.

If you have questions about X-Plane, how about asking them in a thread related to X-Plane?  This thread, as described in the title, is specifically about DTG and P3D.  So the fact that you found no information about XPL shouldn't have come as a surprise to you when you read it.

Also- PLEASE try to avoid making ill informed conjecture and guesses about what anyone on this development team has read, hasn't read, or the reasons why.

You just make yourself sound like a petulant, angry forum troll- and we wouldn't want someone to presume that about you if it isn't actually the case.

Engage in discussion.  Ask questions.  Be civil.  It actually works.

 

 

18 minutes ago, 17shahrishi said:

Sorry for the long post, I was pretty angry

 

[Aaron Buchanan 19]

There are 3 platforms that are potential platforms for the future, and X-plane is just one of them. Your choice to fly a particular platform is your choice and I don't think demanding for an update is proper protocol. 

I would suggest that you use all platforms that you enjoy flying with and be happy about the future of Flight-Simming regardless of the platform that a developers chooses to build for.