Is Flight Sim World MS Flight arisen?

[jandjfrench 3]

Hi,

I thought I'd heard that Dovetail Games had purchased (or whatever) the rights to MS Flight and would further develop and re-release it.  I hope this is the case.  I realize that when it was released Flight was extremely limited compared to FSX but in terms of what it had it put FSX to shame. 

Jim F.

[HiFlyer 9,358]

DTG says they decided to go with updating FSX rather than using MSFlight as the basis of their new endeavour. I've always thought of as a logical decision but an unfortunate one.

I do notice however, above and beyond the Orbx landclass that the FSW video (as I mentioned in another forum) gave/gives me very eerie MsFlight vives.

[jandjfrench 3]

Regarding FSX as the basis for FSW:  was that info straight from Dovetail?  I thought I'd heard that the rights to do this were sold to Lockheed Martin.  

[ESzczesniak 128]

I believe FSX code was sold to Lockheed Martin as the ESP (effectively FSX) platform and is for professional/educational uses only.  Where as FSW will be for entertainment purposes. 

[jandjfrench 3]

Hi Eric,

Professional, Educational, Entertainment.  Seems to be an "in the eye of the beholder" kind of thing.  I recall all the simulation vs. game posts regarding Flight and I'm not eager to see anything like that again.  As compared to FSX I saw Flight as a far more realistic simulation of flying than FSX ever was, or is for that matter.

[Guest]

The main difference is probably in marketing: With the entertainment license of ESP, DTG may market the simulator in the larger gaming market and associate it with "fun". LM most likely may not market P3D in the same way and have to keep up the impression of the sim being for professional and educational purposes only.

[ESzczesniak 128]

1 hour ago, jandjfrench said:

Hi Eric,

Professional, Educational, Entertainment.  Seems to be an "in the eye of the beholder" kind of thing.  I recall all the simulation vs. game posts regarding Flight and I'm not eager to see anything like that again.  As compared to FSX I saw Flight as a far more realistic simulation of flying than FSX ever was, or is for that matter.

I agree that in practice it is cloudy and there have been discussions at length about just how cloudy this interpretation is by those parties involved.  However, the legal wording of the EULA for P3D is clear.  P3D can not be licensed for entertainment uses.  Microsoft didn't plan to stop selling FSX, even after they stopped developing it, so allowing P3D for entertainment would be to compete with a Microsoft money maker.  What can count as "education" is interpretation, but if usage is called in to question you will loose your software rights if the courts decide it is for entertainment.  Obviously, Microsoft has now relinquished rights to FSX and Dovetail will use it for FSW. 

[eelis 42]

10 hours ago, jandjfrench said:

 As compared to FSX I saw Flight as a far more realistic simulation of flying than FSX ever was, or is for that matter.

Exactly and I fear that  the 'new' sim is just FSX 1.1, but that remains to be seen.

-eelis-

[KavindaJD 31]

3 hours ago, eelis said:

Exactly and I fear that  the 'new' sim is just FSX 1.1, but that remains to be seen.

-eelis-

That's the same with me. It's a shame really, the guys over at DTG don't really have the technical/software engineering expertise, so they went through with the easier route - using FSX as their base.

If Steve (stonelance) was on their team, they would have used MS Flight as their base!

They probably gave out a free copy of FSW to existing Flight School users, because they were so confident that they'll make the money with their range of DLC!

[RatRace 4]

As I recall the reason DTG gave for choosing the FSX engine was that they had already invested a lot of time and effort in upgrading FSX for the Steam platform. With MS Flight they would have to start all over again. 

In any case, the new DTG sim will probably be a 64-bit FSX with Orbx landclass and Accu-Feel enhancement. It will definitely not be a MS Flight 2 !

 

[WotanUK 289]

Hmm it's interesting to think what might happen if DTG decide to sue LM for misuse of the license, they would have ample evidence on here of people using P3D who aren't training schools, professional pilots, want to be professional pilots or otherwise interested organisations.  It's also true that a lot of the community appears to have little faith in DTG, if they see simmers sticking with P3D (hopefully 64-bit) they might get annoyed.

[RatRace 4]

17 minutes ago, WotanUK said:

Hmm it's interesting to think what might happen if DTG decide to sue LM for misuse of the license, 

LM can sue their users for misuse of the license (something that is highly unlikely IMO, but theoretically possible), but DTG ?  All that LM and MS ever did was enter into an intellectual property (IP) licensing agreement that allowed LM to further develop the Microsoft ESP. 

The decision "not for entertainment purposes" was LM's decision and their decision alone. Neither MS nor DTG have anything to do with this. 

[anden145 2,285]

Hmm... it's interesting.

As I understand it, DoveTail Games bought the rights to redistribute Microsoft Flight Simulator X (name and franchise) for the Steam Platform. Also, they were allowed to make small changes and updating the runtimes, so it would be compatible with new marketing channels and basic access to make changes to the source code in FSX. 

Lockheed-Martin has bought the source code for ESP engine, and have re-developed that into Prepar3D.

I may (very possibly) have misunderstood something/everything 

[ESzczesniak 128]

My understanding is that DTG could not sue an individual user.  However, DTG could sue, or otherwise force, LM to enforce their EULA more strictly.  If necessary, LM could then sue individuals (but likely would just revoke the license).

[WotanUK 289]

43 minutes ago, RatRace said:

The decision "not for entertainment purposes" was LM's decision and their decision alone. Neither MS nor DTG have anything to do with this. 

That is not my understanding, MS sold LM the ESM engine to develop a non-competing sim.  MS were still selling FSX at the time and would not have wanted a competitive sim.  Later MS sold the entire thing to DTG.

I don't believe that DTG could or would sue any user, they might be unhappy about LM taking the Serious sim market away from them, they could object to LM selling P3D to users; as has been said above, i don't for one minute think LM would sue users, they would just yank the license.