2 minutes ago, Mountain Man said:

Right... but wondering what compromises will be required to maintain parity between console and PC is a question worth asking.  After all, that's the whole idea behind Xbox Game Pass, that you can play the exact same game on multiple platforms.

 

Considering it's not even going to release until after the next gen XBOX is out on the market, I'm pretty excited.

 

Heck - for all we know, the new XB will be making an effort to support keyboard/mouse/other peripheral usage straight out of the box and there will be no compromises at all!  

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by irrics

16 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

You want high quality, mostly metal construction that feels like actual aircraft-grade equipment? You're going to have to pay more for it than entry-level plastic flight hardware.

I'd be perfectly content if they released the X-45 again, exactly as it was built what, almost 20 years ago? Yeah, it's plastic, but it has little soft bits where your hands go and doesn't have the incredibly cheap-plastic feel of, say, the TM T.Flight Hotas X, which I also have and hate.

No, I don't need aircraft-grade controls, but it'd be nice if the non-aircraft-grade controls didn't cost 3 times what they used to cost, and had small quality-of-life improvements like the aforementioned rubberized sections that go a long way toward making a controller feel solid rather than like a cheap preschool toy.

I'm with you on FF - I'd love to see it make a return to flight sticks.

16 minutes ago, charliearon said:

Oh, oh!  I just read that it's coming to flip-phones only  Bummer!

😁

21 minutes ago, Anders Bermann said:

I wouldn't be so quick to rule it out. Personally I think Google Stadia is looking very promising. I'm currently using my PC in the cloud, thanks to Shadow. It's working quite well. I've been playing P3D, Witcher, GTA V etc... all fluent and very nice - on a 11 year old laptop. Yes, it has drawbacks and a small delay - but I don't notice it. 

Besides, more and more things are moving this way as XXX-as-a-Service. I may very well be alone, but I personally think, that the future of computing will be 'in the cloud'. 🙂

An interesting overview of cloud gaming here: https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-current-state-of-cloud-gaming/

The last paragraph is worth noting:

"Lastly, latency is still one major barrier to making cloud gaming akin to playing on a high-end rig, so don't expect flawless gaming 100 percent of the time. But, while I don't see cloud gaming changing the cultural landscape of PC gaming any time soon, it could be a useful service for anyone without gaming desktop or laptop, or super casual gamers. PC gaming enthusiasts will be a harder sell."

Are we sure this won't be a locally installed game and only the scenery would be streamed (and likely cached locally)?

That would avert most all latency concerns during actual usage.

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by irrics

Lol, so finally get a new sim from MS which looks insane and people are still complaining.

And the preview looks insane and I have no issues if it's XBOX only because at least it'll run smooth and we don't have to spend tons of money to upgrade to a PC that will smoothly run the sim.

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by sl55on20s

Just now, sl55on20s said:

Lol, so finally get a new sim from MS and people are still complaining. And the preview looks insane and I have no issues if it's XBOX because at least it'll run smooth and we don't have spend tons of money to upgrade to a PC that will smoothly run the sim.

 

I know right?  It's freaking incredible.

I think some people just like to be depressed and negative.

Same thing on the OrbX forums about this.

 

 

25 minutes ago, dmiannay said:

Just a thought... not an expert on scenery, but...

If MS have access to a gagillion TB of satellite scenery, which they no doubt continue to update regularly, is it not conceivable that, based on the time of your flight, the streamed scenery and land-class can be customized for the appropriate season?  Lots of assumptions here, but interesting to consider.

Never say never, but satellites don't waste imaging and bandwidth when it's cloudy, so they do most of the imaging in what amounts to Summer in the higher and lower latitudes. For equatorial zones, it's more a wet vs. dry season thing, and they shoot during dry season. Most users of satellite imagery are also interested in keeping the imagery consistent when they do updates, so there isn't much change in the time of year for the imaging.

This means MS probably can't work with raw data, unless there's some big store of commercial Winter satellite imaging out there (I'm sure the Military has some, at least IR-based). 

What they might be able to do, is use an AI-based routine that automatically identifies building rooftops, parking lots, etc. that would show snow cover, and then artificially generate white texture on those parts of the 2D image. A similar process might be used for 3D terrain mesh like mountains.

It would have to be very good though, not to look worse than just the Summer satellite photo. Also, snow cover would be easier than changing the color of a deciduous forest in Autumn, or showing barren trees in Winter. 

9 minutes ago, irrics said:

 

I just don't care about it being hyper accurate in such micro-niche areas/ways while things like weather and ATC are completely ignored - for years.

 

It's just way past time for them to work on addressing much much bigger issues than all the weird little edge scenarios Austin gets interested in.

 

I mean - hell - let me know when they bother to even get ground handling right and the 172 doesn't steer like a drunk motorcycle driver twisting in the wind.

I've been mostly flying X-plane over the past 18 months, and have owned it for years - but the pace of development of this sim is glacial. You've mentioned a couple of the biggest issues. X-plane has always had a pretty small team (how much of the work does Ben do??), whereas I suspect Microsoft has a proper-sized dev group from the look of that video.

As a P3D fan since v1, I've also been surprised how slowly that platform has developed, given that an aerospace multinational has the reigns.

What I saw in the trailer puts MSFS well in front of the competition in terms of weather (volumetric clouds, that actually look great), lighting and a range of other factors. Honestly, at least in terms of visuals, we've never seen anything like this. I hope X-plane and P3D can match this, but I'll be very surprised if they do. 

5 minutes ago, irrics said:

Are we sure this won't be a locally installed game and only the scenery would be streamed (and likely cached locally)?

That would avert most all latency concerns during actual usage.

No one here is sure of anything right now...except that we can’t wait to find out 😊

22 minutes ago, Mountain Man said:

Right... but wondering what compromises will be required to maintain parity between console and PC is a question worth asking.  After all, that's the whole idea behind Xbox Game Pass, that you can play the exact same game on multiple platforms.

You can play the same CORE game, but not all expansions/add-os are always available for both platforms. My experience is that even though many RPG/SIM/Strategy/Tycoon style games are released both for console and PC, the Xbox version is generally dumbed down and not very expandable.

With that being said, it is a GOOD thing that MSFS will also come for the Xbox. 

That means more revenue going into the product as a whole and better chances that it will succeed and improve over time instead of just being discontinued like Flight...

 

23 minutes ago, irrics said:

I know right?  It's freaking incredible.

I think some people just like to be depressed and negative.

Same thing on the OrbX forums about this.

Many of us have been here before......many times in fact. Trust me, some slick advertising trailer does not give you any info that can be trusted. Nothing real here in this thread just a lot of folks guessing. 

11 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

 I hope X-plane and P3D can match this, but I'll be very surprised if they do. 

Take my comment with a grain of salt - since I am a developer for X-Plane and therefore staked well inside the X-Plane franchise. But:

I think that X-Plane 11 with the right add-ons (like OrbX, Xenviro, etc) and in the right conditions can already match a lot of what was shown in that video. Sit a decent dev down for 2 days and you can have Flamingos flying around as well...

Keep in mind that what you saw in that video was content that requires a lot of careful human attention, hand-modeling landmarks and buildings, satellite imagery and what not. It would surprise me (pleasantly, as I am also an avid flight-simulator fan and always strive for the most realistic experience) if you would see this level of detail beyond very constricted areas. Think early flightsimulators (FSII), where you could only fly in the LA, Chicago and Northeast corridor areas...

It´s easy to show snippets of gameplay, run some filters on them and make them look great, but once we get our hands on the final products I am sure that we will find out that even Microsoft can´t defy the laws of physics, hardware is still hardware and dev-time is still dev-time...There is a lot of stuff out there in the world to model, and I doubt that they will throw 1000 artists at it for a few years to get that level of detail over a wide range of our planet.

Over the history of flightsimulation we have occasionally seen programs that looked WAY better than their contemporary contenders (Flight Unlimited, DCS,...), but lack the global content or attention to real world aviation.

I would like to close with the remark that up to the very end of the Microsoft franchise NONE of their simulators made it possible to even do a simple, basic maneuver as a side-slip in one of their default aircraft. I firmly believe that their new version will cater to and satisfy the part of the userbase that is more into eye candy and great scenery. But I am afraid that the serious simulation aviator will find this new entry lacking in other important aspects.

Just my personal opinion.

Jan

 

32 minutes ago, irrics said:

Are we sure this won't be a locally installed game and only the scenery would be streamed (and likely cached locally)?

That would avert most all latency concerns during actual usage.

Fairly certain that's the way it'll be, scenery will be streamed using mapping and AI (similar to Google 3D maps) and of course the game will be installed locally (or also streamed, for those using streaming services).

IF Microsoft is smart they will poach a few devs from PMDG and get them to work on flight dynamics for the larger airlines. Then offer DLC content for the add on aircraft.  Co-Pilot anyone?? Could be monthly or one time purchase. Either way we would basically be forced to comply lol. 

Personally I’d rather buy the aircraft direct from the source rather than a third party. I also don’t like the way PMDG does business. It’s not like they have a patent on Boeing flight dynamics. Why doesn’t my $180 737 that I had to buy twice have proper wingflex like the 747? Also why do the graphics look like they haven the been updated in 6 years? Oh wait they haven’t, PMDG knows people will buy their product regardless.

When you look at this trailer you realize that with a new engine you don’t really need much add on content. Maybe an acars system and livery downloader, that’s it. 

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by JL8767