PMDG porting more aircraft to Xplane?

[Murmur 3,941]

It's quite simple, actually. By their own admission, their DC6 has sold incomparably less compared to their other P3D offers. Their deduction was that the XP market is not comparable to the P3D market. My opinion is that two factors significantly skewed their conclusion, i.e.:

.) DC6 was released for XP10, whereas the upsurge in XP adoption has been after the release of XP11;

.) Apparently, modern airliners are the most selling products in the flight sim market, with GA aircrafts possibly the next best selling ones, while the DC6 is quite a different aircraft, neither a modern airliner, nor a typical aircraft used by GA pilots.

So, I can't blame them for not being warm towards XP community. But at the end of the day, this doesn't really matter for two reasons, i.e.:

.) other 3rd parties have already shown that they can produce excellent products for XP (the DC6 itself, from the reviews I read, wasn't really a superior product compared to other offers that were already been released for XP).

.) if the market for XP grows significantly, and more so if it should become the biggest market for flightsims (still a way to go to date, but you never know) they will certainly consider it again.

In other words, the fact that PMDG is not developing for XP, is the least of its "problems". A lot more important is how and how rapidly XP will fill its current shortcomings: seasons, weather, ATC, etc.

 

Edited March 23, 2018 by Murmur

[tonywob 4,768]

In my opinion, the DC6 wasn't a great choice as a first product for X-Plane. It's evident everyone was pining for the NGX or the 777 and I imagine this would have sold very well if they had it out in time. Their statement at the time was that it was a way for them to experiment and learn about the sim, rather than to release a flagship product for X-Plane. However, they are very secretive, so we have no idea what they are working on (if anything).

Either way, RR claimed last year that they can't port some of these aircraft over because of some technical limitations in the sim, however this hasn't stopped IXEG, FF and numerous others from doing so. X-Plane has its own eco-system, and will continue to grow with or without them. I think a mistake many developers seem to be making is that they believe X-Plane is just like P3D and it clearly isn't. They should embrace X-Plane's features and way of doing things instead of just trying to mimic P3D.

 

[Griphos 138]

Yeah, it is definitely not the case that all the big developers see XPlane as a growing or viable platform for development (fan rose-tinted perspectives aside).  And it’s hard to blame them given the nature of the moving target already mentioned. 

For developers of aircraft, particularly high-fidelity aircraft that largely work through independent modules for various flight and physics modeling, like A2A, it’s hard to see how they would be enticed to put in the labor necessary to port given the high risk of having to re-do that labor after any given update  

At any rate, with respect to PMDG, even if they did port a tube liner to XP (and I flew tubes), I wouldn’t buy it, given their history of support for the DC-6.  There seem to be good models available from other devs who offer adequate to good support. 

Edited March 23, 2018 by Griphos

[ohsirus 241]

I just checked to see if there were any updates from PMDG as I haven't taken her out of the hangar in a long time as after digging thru a few threads. I found the comment from RS that just because Xplane released XP11 does not mean that they are going to shift resources and revisit what is a legacy product now. For me this has been a test of not only PMDG gauging the Xplane market, but the Xplane market evaluating PMDG. I don't feel PMDG is ready to provide that level of customer satisfaction when dealing with what is a moving platform that Xplane is. My take is  buy PMDG for FSX/P3D, no denying they flourish in what they are used to. Just my $.02 .

[Griphos 138]

Actually, their support decisions mean I won't buy PMDG for EITHER P3D or Xplane.  

[JGregory 76]

On 3/23/2018 at 9:52 AM, Griphos said:

For developers of aircraft, particularly high-fidelity aircraft that largely work through independent modules for various flight and physics modeling, like A2A, it’s hard to see how they would be enticed to put in the labor necessary to port given the high risk of having to re-do that labor after any given update  

This will soon be a non-issue.  Laminar has announced that Plane Maker will soon have "versioning", so authors can "choose" to save an aircraft in various versions of the sim.

[Griphos 138]

But will this mean they won't have to update aircraft for newer versions of the sim?  When the sim makes changes, planes saved in older versions may no longer work correctly, right?  Or am I missing something.  I'm not sure how choosing to save an aircraft in a current version means you won't have to re-do things for future versions.  

[JGregory 76]

1 hour ago, Griphos said:

But will this mean they won't have to update aircraft for newer versions of the sim?  When the sim makes changes, planes saved in older versions may no longer work correctly, right?  Or am I missing something.  I'm not sure how choosing to save an aircraft in a current version means you won't have to re-do things for future versions.  

Yes.  If Austin makes changes to the flight model, and you choose NOT to save your aircraft in that "new" version, the aircraft will still work because the sim will recognize the version and understand that you don't "want" to use the new changes in that aircraft.

Edited April 1, 2018 by JGregory

[mjrhealth 820]

3 hours ago, Griphos said:

But will this mean they won't have to update aircraft for newer versions of the sim?  When the sim makes changes, planes saved in older versions may no longer work correctly, right?  Or am I missing something.  I'm not sure how choosing to save an aircraft in a current version means you won't have to re-do things for future versions.  

It comes down to, Laminar create a Turboprop model, which they have, now a developer may build a model based on that version, and it does what it is superposed to do. Now if laminar update that model they will change the version number, teh developers version will still work when laminar update XPLAne, and than, once the developer integrates teh new model and releases teh update it will work with teh newer version and we should be none the wiser. Also means LAminar will brake things less as the developers will get to test them before we see them and laminar wont have to rush out patches that brake more things.

[Griphos 138]

This seems like a really good idea!!  Kudos!