Any possibility of someone else taking over the consumer rights to the ESP platform and code?

[G-RFRY 1,712]

To say that only LM and LR are the only ones that can do what they doing is not he case, but sadly we may now never find out due to the legal position,

( Dovetail Games has signed a global licensing deal with Microsoft, granting exclusive rights to develop and publish all-new flight simulation products based on Microsoft’s genre-defining technology. )

Pasted from DTG statement a few years ago, 

Edited April 24, 2018 by rjfry

[bonchie 2,305]

I hope not.

We don't need yet another ESP reboot. P3D is already doing that.

Someone needs to do something new.

[Paraffin 2,197]

1 hour ago, bonchie said:

I hope not.

We don't need yet another ESP reboot. P3D is already doing that.

Someone needs to do something new.

That "someone" would need to figure out what the market is. Who will buy your something new?

We now have two choices in the higher-end civilian flight sim market -- P3D and XP -- both covering a large amount of ground in GA and scheduled airliner simulation (I know the gripes about XP for the latter, just roll with me here and assume it's improving). Both with an established and growing list of add-ons. 

Are you going to compete for the users who are happy with one or both of those products with "something new"? That's a heavy lift. Maybe if someone like Elon Musk or Bill Gates threw a billion dollars at forming a new studio it might happen, On the other hand, there's that old saying that nine women can't make a baby any faster than one woman. It would take a great deal of time and effort to bootstrap something that would compete in that market.

So what's left? The "casual" and newbie to flight sim market? I've argued for a while that this is chasing a fantasy. Aerofly FS2 is already our "approachable" sim, and P3D and XP are not that hard to get started with, if you have a serious interest in aviation. Both Microsoft and now DTG have crashed and burned with this idea of creating a civilian flight sim for newbies. DTG could have done a better job of it, but it wasn't only poor business decisions that doomed the project. They were chasing a fantasy market.

As I said in another thread in Hangar Talk, I think we're in good hands with the existing sims. The future is bright. I would certainly welcome a new "serious" sim, if some billionaire wanted to fund it, and it turned out well. But I don't see it happening in the current market when we already have good choices.

[CFIJose 5,485]

The only possibility I forecast is that the few good features that FSW offered will be modded to P3d v4.

Hurry up A2a and release Accufeel.

[hypercide 97]

I'd be surprised if something's not already in the works. As all the forums, including Steam, amply demonstrate, most sim buyers want lotsa stuff: lotsa options, lotsa choices, lotsa planes, lotsa right now, etc etc. FSW would have worked if they had come to market with TrueSky, IFR, built-in career mode, and a bigger hanger with a wider variety of types.

I doubt they pulled the plug before having considered how to dispose of the FSW's finished and unfinished digital assets, and I suspect we'll hear something from someone before too long. If FSW does hold unrealized promise [for example, i) visually neither vanilla P3D nor vanilla X-plane can hold a candle to FSW, and ii) FSW's GUI has a lot to teach those other two platforms about intuitive ease-of-use], realizing that promise is where the money is.  

[shivers9 1,174]

My guess for the next big name in Flight Sim will be the company that forms and builds ATCNext. It will be a program that runs outside of P3d and X-Plain and will communicate through sim connect or perhalps some new interface. It is very much needed and the market will be everyone who uses a Simulator both us consumers and the pro's. If done right it could even support a Air Traffic Control Student Simulator as well as other areas. In the case of P3D that could include communication simulators for subs, tanks, emergency action sims, wild fire operations and the list goes on. I am 70+ and no clue about coding but it will happen.

[shivers9 1,174]

12 minutes ago, hypercide said:

FSW's GUI has a lot to teach those other two platforms about intuitive ease-of-use], realizing that promise is where the money is.  

And...hopefully who ever picks up that ball will also produce some sort of motorized vehicle with a box on back to haul stuff. Oh wait....someone already did that too!! LOL

[G-RFRY 1,712]

I hate to say this but it would not surprise me if the next big flight simulator will be developed for the games console, it`s what most big development studios are focusing on game consoles. 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

VR hardware improvements are just taking way too long  to appear at the consumer level. Sony hasn't even mentioned a PS5 and the rumors are that it won't see the light of day until 2020 at the earliest. The present PS4 VR is really no better than anything available for the PC. While that VR headset video resolution may be acceptable for shooter games, it's not when you have to read the gauges on a VC. Unless MS and/or Sony have developed something that is top secret, consoles presently aren't the best platform for a whole world flight sim. 

[Gibbage 199]

Just to clarify something.  FSX and ESP are two different programs from the same base code.  A fork if you will.  FSX was for the commercial/consumer market while ESP was for private/professional.  ESP was designed to be an everything sim.  Near the end we had clients wanting to train workers on how to drive mining equipment with it.  

ESP went on to become P3D under Lockheed Martin.  MS's contract does not allow them to market the engine or sell it to consumers.  LM does not seem all that eager to change that, or advance the engine past what the military/corporate clients want.  

FSX code was forked into MS Flight.  MS Flight was a stripped down FSX with a bunch of new features added and a highly optimized engine.  The SDK tools where the real treasure in Flight.  As someone that worked on the Flight team, let me tell you, it was super easy to work within.  Sadly those SDK tools never made it into the hands of the community.  

FSW is also a fork of FSX.  It too was stripped down and optimized, but coded for 64 bit.  All components would need to be re-coded like jet engine modules and such for the 64 bit code.  They put a lot of effort into the visuals, for things like PBR, to get it competitive with current game engines and compatible with modern development tools.  Sadly the SDK was not advanced very far.  

Again, I dont see LM pushing very hard to make improvements on ESP due to the limitations of not being a commercial product.  I truly think our last hope for the FSX code is that someone is able to save FSW and open it up to the community.

We will see what happens.  

[A32xx 129]

4 hours ago, Gibbage said:

I truly think our last hope for the FSX code is that someone is able to save FSW and open it up to the community.

Let's hope so. I supported FSW in spite of the lousy business model because at least someone was making a serious attempt to develop the FSX code, and hopefully that work wasn't in vain.

The question is, were the FSX features which were missing from FSW intentionally left out or couldn't they be updated at all?

Your comments on MS Flight and it's SDK are very encouraging. If FSW was an evolutionary dead end, maybe MS Flight has more potential for further development and optimization.

[JimmiG 244]

I think LM have made great progress on the ESP code. Apart from TrueSky (which was just middleware) and autogen alpha fade, FSW was far behind P3D v4 and IMO it would take years of development to bring it up to par.

Personally I don't think we need multiple sims trying to modernize the ancient ESP/FSX code. A new engine, built from the ground up for multiple cores and modern GPU's sounds much more attractive to me. Even the old landclass based scenery system seems outdated now that scenery data is so much more accurate than what was available in 2004 - 2006.

Edited April 25, 2018 by AdvancedFollower

[A32xx 129]

16 minutes ago, AdvancedFollower said:

Personally I don't think we need multiple sims trying to modernize the ancient ESP/FSX code. A new engine, built from the ground up for multiple cores and modern GPU's sounds much more attractive to me.

The brochure does look nice - however a completely new engine would be prohibitively expensive for the likely return!

It would need to be compatible with most existing add-ons to stand any chance of appealing to the simming masses (OK, you and me!) so it could never be completely new. The Unreal Engine would be fantastic but for that reason: how to make it compatible with most existing FSX add-ons.

[arsenal82 120]

Dtg sell FSX on steam

can not see Dtg stopping that.

 

[FlyBaby 659]

On 4/25/2018 at 2:31 PM, arsenal82 said:

Dtg sell FSX on steam

can not see Dtg stopping that.

 

I did not notice how popular the Steam version is....selling at $25....with over 8K very positive reviews and $4K in dlc.

I think this is a good cash cow for now.