20 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

OK, but our addon purchases from 3rd parties didn't benefit Microsoft in any way. Nor do they benefit Lockheed Martin. Instead they created a weird cottage industry of sorts, where just about everyone tries to get a slice of the cake. And I mean everyone. You can see the result of that on your own computer with the dozens of different ways things get installed, the sheer number of cross-compatibility issues and content errors, platform CTDs, performance issues etc.etc. Addons that aren't curated and/or developed along strict guidelines put the platform as a whole at risk.

Yes, the MSFS will be developed and distributed in a way that it appeals to the masses. And so? Doesn't mean that it won't be good fun - and contrary to previous offerings, fun is probably what it is about. There is no rule that this has to replace or succeed P3D to be a good product. And it can be bad just as well, for any number of reasons. 

IMO the only manufacturer who is at least partly driven by community wishes is Laminar Research. Lockheed doesn't exactly cater to the home simmer either. The majority of the new P3D features are about professional use, SimDirector and structured scenarios. They haven't touched any of the issues that the community of home simmers has been vocal about since forever (like ATC and AI traffic). 

Best regards

They don't benefit L-M directly but will do so indirectly if it means people buy the base sim because they want to enhance it with addons. How many would buy P3D if there was no 3rd party market?

Yes, I appreciate you can have CTDs in P3D and if there's an SDK for FS2020 that too will have them. You'll only get a problem-free sim with just the base product and no addons.

I will watch the reaction with interest when FS2020 is released. How you pay for it and how much is stored locally is key for me and is of secondary importance to how pretty it looks. But then I'm just a boring old git although I do have the disposable income younger simmers may not have so Microsoft need to bear that in mind if they want old gits to buy into the experience.

Whether LM do sort out the underlying bugs in P3D with v5 is still an unknown. They don't respond to posts on their forum for that kind of request but I'm sure they will read them. All depends on how hard it is to fix them I suppose.

1 minute ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

What's the average age of a X-Box owner? Under 40 probably. I've never had a gaming console and never will. They're around for 5 minutes before the next one comes along and the old one goes to the charity shop or the tip!

And AVSIM is basically an online retirement home. This current console generation came out in 2013. The next gen will likely be released next year. That's not 5 minutes. 

Everyone here who see themselves as a "hardcore simmer" that hates the idea of a mass-marketed flight sim keeps forgetting that the franchise has always been a mass-market product that just happened to be modifiable enough to open up a secondary market. 

If new flight Sim product is successful... Bring back Combat Flight Simulator!  Either that and allow us to shoot at giraffes. Sorry, so wrong. 

6 minutes ago, Ron Attwood said:

A bit like video cards!

But if you have a second PC as I have my old 780 went into that replacing an ancient 7800GTX. So not the skip or charity shop.

3 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

And AVSIM is basically an online retirement home. This current console generation came out in 2013. The next gen will likely be released next year. That's not 5 minutes. 

Everyone here who see themselves as a "hardcore simmer" that hates the idea of a mass-marketed flight sim keeps forgetting that the franchise has always been a mass-market product that just happened to be modifiable enough to open up a secondary market. 

So many consoles around. Hard to keep track. The key to a successful sim is the ability for it to be enhanced by 3rd party developers. But if Microsoft restricts that as they did with Flight then developers won't bother and I suspect the sim won't enjoy support amongst the hard-core. It will languish and die as did Flight.

3 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

And AVSIM is basically an online retirement home. This current console generation came out in 2013. The next gen will likely be released next year. That's not 5 minutes. 

Everyone here who see themselves as a "hardcore simmer" that hates the idea of a mass-marketed flight sim keeps forgetting that the franchise has always been a mass-market product that just happened to be modifiable enough to open up a secondary market. 

Quite rightly said, not forgetting that FS2004, FSX cane from ACES Gaming Studio & was sold in gaming stores, & it was marketed a game on their boxes & is a game that simulates a simulator. 

Just now, Ray Proudfoot said:

So many consoles around. Hard to keep track. The key to a successful sim is the ability for it to be enhanced by 3rd party developers. But if Microsoft restricts that as they did with Flight then developers won't bother and I suspect the sim won't enjoy support amongst the hard-core. It will languish and die as did Flight.

So many consoles? There are three main ones right now. Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo Switch. Everyone here understands that this community will define FS2020's success by its openness to 3rd party devs. I'm not sure why you're spending so much time on here saying the same thing over and over again.

3 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

How many would buy P3D if there was no 3rd party market?

The real question is, how many new simmers would buy it, who have not been members of the community before? How would they even know about P3D? The community is mostly sustaining itself, from my perspective it doesn't look like it has grown in the last 5 years - feels more like the opposite...

Personally, I see it like this:

• My current investment is protected. All my stuff will continue to work as it does now.
• So 3rd party developers migrate to another platform or just go away. Big deal. See item 1.
• I get another flight sim to play with - literally. That is always nice. Whatever it will be or may become.
• The professional Lorby products will also continue to do what they do; so the investment of those customers is protected as well
• I wont sell any more of my own end-user addons. Again, big deal. Not a lot to lose anyway with the market being what it is today.

Best regards

1 hour ago, Lorby_SI said:

MSFS was just one of 14 major Microsoft titles that have been presented at the E3 this year, and by no means the most prominent one.

Something that many people might have missed: on the XBox YT channel, MSFS trailer is the most watched one (2.8M views) among all E3 videos, preceding even the new Halo trailer. So much for the "We're a niche of a niche!" myth. ☺️

Just now, Murmur said:

So much for the "We're a niche of a niche!" myth

Or it just proves that the idea of a Microsoft flight sim is appealing to a lot of people outside of the community too. 

Or every member of the community has clicked it a couple of times.

Or...

The number alone doesn't say who clicked it or if he/she even has a flightsim...

Best regards

But it shows a lot of interest, more than all the other announced games. Except for Halo, all the other titles have one or TWO order of magnitude less views. And that is a good thing.

Edited June 18, 20196 yr by Murmur

11 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Or it just proves that the idea of a Microsoft flight sim is appealing to a lot of people outside of the community too. 

 Or every member of the community has clicked it a couple of times.

Or...

The number alone doesn't say who clicked it or if he/she even has a flightsim...

Best regards

It's not just about views, it has a good rate on likes vs dislikes (someone collected the data and the FSim video was in a good position among other titles).

It has also a good number of comments, compared to the other videos. It doesn't say much, but the engament is there.

Edited June 18, 20196 yr by ca_metal

4 minutes ago, Murmur said:

But it shows a lot of interest, more than all the other announced games. Except for Halo, all the other titles have one or TWO order of magnitude less views. And that is a good thing.

Definitely a good thing that the interest is there. I'm just saying that you cannot make any assumptions as to who is interested. Microsoft will be happy that their business case looks favorably, and that is the message that matters most.

Best regards

 

Edited June 18, 20196 yr by Lorby_SI

This topic is hilarious. Even if MFS won't get released at all I am thankful MS posted this trailer. 😂 Reading this topic sure beats flying! 😎 It is utterly amazing how people react... We hardly know anything about this new sim but some are uninstalling their current sims already while others are stating they will never ever get this new one. Again, hilarious! The crazy things people say about consoles, the amount of simmers, the age of gamers, how important we simmers are, the need for 3rd party developers, how this sim will totally fail if your very personal preferences aren't met... I just can't stop laughing. Thanks for participating, all! 😄

I myself am pretty excited with the news: no matter how much money I spend on other sims, I will drop them in an instant if something better comes along. The trailer looks totally awesome but it's only a trailer. Good looking graphics and scenery are very important to me so things are looking pretty good as far as I am concerned but I won't decide if I'll get MFS or not before it actually has been released and the first reviews have been published. Saying 'This sim is it!' or 'It will never succeed!' right now would be a bit er... stupid, wouldn't it?

I do have to say though, in all honesty, that I will think again about some purchases I was planning to make this year... I already stopped buying add ons for P3D (and XP) a long time ago but add ons for AFS2 may also be postponed... (Was looking forward to TrueEarth GB but after seeing the MFS trailer... well...). I do however still think I will buy Deadstick whenever it becomes available: that's something entirely different and can't really be compared to P3D/XP/AFS2/MFS. 

Anyway, keep the posts coming! I'm having a ball! 😁

8 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Something that many people might have missed: on the XBox YT channel, MSFS trailer is the most watched one (2.8M views) among all E3 videos, preceding even the new Halo trailer. So much for the "We're a niche of a niche!" myth. ☺️

Only 84,000 likes. How many people have watched that trailer multiple times? I've seen it at least 5.

31 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

So many consoles around. Hard to keep track. The key to a successful sim is the ability for it to be enhanced by 3rd party developers. But if Microsoft restricts that as they did with Flight then developers won't bother and I suspect the sim won't enjoy support amongst the hard-core. It will languish and die as did Flight.

I don't get this disdain for consoles. The new PS5 and 2020 Xbox are going to be more powerful than the majority of simmers PCs.

What's going to drive the success of FS2020 isn't the add-on market, but how good the sim is out of the box and if it has wide appeal. If Microsoft get that wrong, the availability of an SDK becomes irrelevant.

With Microsoft's comments of "passionate community" and 'working with industry partners', I'm holding out hope for 3rd party developers to get in on the action - just it might not be in the same way that they are have become accustomed.