ACES Studio Member Responds to FSW Closure

[Kinetic2080 5]

On 5/22/2018 at 11:51 PM, n4gix said:

It's not your age, it is because you only have a two hour window in which to make any edits. Your latest reply was just at the two hour expiration point!

Aha I see! I'll remember that to next time, thanks! 😊

 

[fta2017 160]

On 5/9/2018 at 3:26 PM, jabloomf1230 said:

Blaming PMDG for the collapse of FSW is like blaming France for the US colonies seeking independence from England. At the time, France and England were rivals for global power but that was not the cause of the US war for independence.

In the case of FSW, PMDG mostly sat back and smirked at the naivete and fumbling of DTG. They could have thrown all their resources at FSW, but had good sense not to do so. ORBX had the same approach.

I can't speak for PMDG, but as far as I know based on interviews he's done (a Cosford 2017 video from memory), JV from Orbx was planning DLC for FSW but was waiting on the SDK to be fully completed. They have DLC on FSX:SE so I don't see why they would not have done for FSW, especially since they had licensed Global for it already.

Speaking of the size of development teams, it's a safe bet that Orbx has the largest in the industry these days, but they have no plans to make their own flight simulator. I also remember JV saying years ago that making their own sim was not on the table because "it would take $35million and ten years, more than we'd even want to spend".

His comments here are interesting too: https://orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/150476-orbx-10th-anniversary-the-history-of-orbx-series-parts-1-7/?tab=comments#comment-1326102

"Flight simulation engines will become more efficient and the interim platform winners will be the ones that are the most tightly coded and embrace new modern technology and systems without dragging the sim to its knees. Sim companies that don't foster a healthy third party developer community from inception will lose out (remember the MS-Flight debacle?). Flight sim addon developers will become increasingly platform-agnostic and new tools will emerge to compile content across many simulators and operating systems at once. The consumer won't be locked into a single sim, but will pick and choose addons for all his installed sim platforms to suit whatever mood they are in for the flights they want to do. And they will be most loyal to publishers that make buying choices easiest and provide support across the most platforms.

The days of fan boys devoted to a single platform will die quickly as more and more new sims enter the market. There will be no guarantee that the darling favourite sim of 2018 will be the dominant platform of 2028, not by a long way. Simmers will become more fickle about which sim they use, even more so than some of the flip-floppers we see posting on forums today about how they switched away, and then switched back.

The new minimum frame-rate will be 90FPS. There are kids less than 14 years old today who will be CEOs of companies that introduce remarkable new simulator engines and technology this coming decade and will uproot and disrupt the status quo of the our industry. The simple rule is: 'adapt or die'.

Eventually the actual flight simulator engine will be marginalised and not relevant anymore. It will be all about the content which will run across a bunch of different simulators. The best performing most open standard sim will be the most commonly used. Closed proprietary platforms will die off. It has always been about the content. There is a reason we guard our IP so diligently at Orbx; all those assets can be used on future platforms without knowing what those platforms are today. Orbx's value as a company is not how many sims we support, but how many assets we produce that will eventually run on anything."

[pmb 5,137]

27 minutes ago, fta2017 said:

The days of fan boys devoted to a single platform will die quickly as more and more new sims enter the market. There will be no guarantee that the darling favourite sim of 2018 will be the dominant platform of 2028, not by a long way.

....

Eventually the actual flight simulator engine will be marginalised and not relevant anymore. It will be all about the content which will run across a bunch of different simulators. "

I read this, too, and as a CEO of a content-providing enterprise with an interest in distributing content to as many platforms as possible I would say the same. It has to be shown if this vision will come true, though, and personally I dare to doubt. Even JV had to correct some of his visions more than once in the past.

Kind regards, Michael