48 minutes ago, Woozie said:

Dont underestimate Microsoft and its resources. Sure, it all depends on how serious they gonna tackle this, but be assured, if Microsoft would be really determined to create a study-level-hardcore-whatsoever aircraft for MSFS, it would blow everything out of the water, FSLabs and PMDG included. They have the coders, they have the connections within the industry and they have the money. They could hire the airbus lead engineer for flightsystems or even the chief test pilot as consultants, or Captain Sully just to ensure that ditching on the hudson feels like real. Heck, they could even buy an A320 in order to 3D scan all parts and record switch sounds in the cockpit and then use it as a playground in their inhouse day nursery, and you wouldnt even spot this expense on the annual balance sheet....

I dont say they gonna do it, but its not like they cant match what Laminar or LM produces just because they are only a "game studio"

Some underlying tech that MS could be used... who knows? Airbus is!

Azure mixed reality

 

7 minutes ago, pmb said:

Just a dumb question: Does MS need any license at all? As far as I know they've licensed (not sold) the ESP code to LM to develop and distribute a simulator for professional use. That's it. MS still are the owner of all the code, FSX as well as ESP (minus what LM has contributed over the years, of course). 

Kind regards, Michael

No, AFAIK MS sold ESP completely, including the source code.

6 minutes ago, Airboeing said:

No, AFAIK MS sold ESP completely, including the source code.

Than this must have been another type of deal than with Dovetail. Well possible of course.

Thanks and kind regards, Michael

9 minutes ago, Airboeing said:

No, AFAIK MS sold ESP completely, including the source code.

Good!

I want them to completely move on from ESP anyways so that would help solidify it. 

If people want to keep living in that past world, they can go use P3D

1 hour ago, Woozie said:

Dont underestimate Microsoft and its resources. Sure, it all depends on how serious they gonna tackle this.....

I dont say they gonna do it, but its not like they cant match what Laminar or LM produces just because they are only a "game studio"

We have no idea what kind of budget has been assigned to this effort..

Is it a "Skunksworks" project, or a fully funded Mainstream title?

LM has its own motivation to further develop P3D, but even they are not throwing unlimited resources at it..

What we can hope for, is that MS learned the lesson with "Flight" and comes up with something that can successfully compete with XP11 and P3D..

Lets see how serious they are

Edited June 19, 20196 yr by Bert Pieke

30 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

...and the response I got was that I was attacking MS

Dear godness, I said you are underestimating Microsoft...

4 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

We have no idea what kind of budget has been assigned to this effort..

Is it a "Skunksworks" project, or a fully funded Mainstream title?

LM has its own motivation to further develop P3D, but even they are not throwing unlimited resources at it..

What we can hope for, is that MS learned the lesson with "Flight" and comes up with something that can successfully compete with XP11 and P3D..

Lets see how serious they are

Agree, no one knows how much they are going to put into it, and how much they are going to invest in the long term. However, the fact that they consider MSFS as part of their main lineup gives hope that this will be treated as a AAA-title. Further commitments will surely be dependent on success

50 minutes ago, pmb said:

Than this must have been another type of deal than with Dovetail. Well possible of course.

Thanks and kind regards, Michael

From the horse's mouth https://news.microsoft.com/2009/11/30/lockheed-martin-microsoft-agreement-to-bring-better-training-to-warfighters/ . It is a licensing agreement, not a sale. 

And we got from Randazzo some infos about the nature of the licensing for the entertainment part which is  a bit one sided.. Of course the negociation power of LM might be a bit stronger than Dovetail's or the consortum led by the late Tom Allenworth and the PMDG CEO.

Edited June 19, 20196 yr by domkle

26 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

We have no idea what kind of budget has been assigned to this effort..

Is it a "Skunksworks" project, or a fully funded Mainstream title?

LM has its own motivation to further develop P3D, but even they are not throwing unlimited resources at it..

What we can hope for, is that MS learned the lesson with "Flight" and comes up with something that can successfully compete with XP11 and P3D..

Lets see how serious they are

To give an idea, Fallout 4 estimate development cost was said to be about 110 MUSD and the game raked more than 2 billions . Skyrim is in the same range. (Yes, some of us play RPG too !). 

Edited June 19, 20196 yr by domkle

7 minutes ago, domkle said:

From the horse's mouth https://news.microsoft.com/2009/11/30/lockheed-martin-microsoft-agreement-to-bring-better-training-to-warfighters/ . It is a licensing agreement, not a sale. 

Thanks, Dominique, much acknowledged.

Best, Michael

49 minutes ago, TuFun said:

Some underlying tech that MS could be used... who knows? Airbus is!

Azure mixed reality

 

Amazing tech

58 minutes ago, Airboeing said:

No, AFAIK MS sold ESP completely, including the source code.

As domkle already pointed out above, all the news from the time talked about LM licensing the ESP to further develop it. Microsoft wouldn't sell their IP like that.

Unless you have a better source, we should think MS still owns the IP. 

Edited June 19, 20196 yr by ca_metal

It is going to be a fun year. I think that the licensing of ESP may not play much of a part and that MS is planning a whole new engine and I would not be surprised to see that Prepar3D 5.0 has a completely new engine as well. They both have the reasons and horsepower to put ESP to rest. MS wants the little Johnny at christmas market through the mid to upper level gamers or what ever you wish to call them and maybe those of us who like to throw our money at more advanced equipment and home cockpit set ups would continue to serve LM's use of us as Beta testers as well are keep them connected to the talented Devs out there. The timing makes me wonder. We may find that the new MS sim will be much closer to P3D ver 5.0 (or if you perfer...Ver 5.0 will be closer to MS) than we expect.

3 minutes ago, shivers9 said:

It is going to be a fun year. I think that the licensing of ESP may not play much of a part and that MS is planning a whole new engine and I would not be surprised to see that Prepar3D 5.0 has a completely new engine as well. They both have the reasons and horsepower to put ESP to rest. MS wants the little Johnny at christmas market through the mid to upper level gamers or what ever you wish to call them and maybe those of us who like to throw our money at more advanced equipment and home cockpit set ups would continue to serve LM's use of us as Beta testers as well are keep them connected to the talented Devs out there. The timing makes me wonder. We may find that the new MS sim will be much closer to P3D ver 5.0 (or if you perfer...Ver 5.0 will be closer to MS) than we expect.

Cant wait to see how many here become "little johnnys" once MSFS is realeased. God, i cant stand this snubbish distinction between "those gamers" and "us serious hardcore simmers". 

We are playing our sims on CPU's and GPUs that were designed and optimized for gaming. With the help of a game-engine, those gaming-GPU's produce visuals which we can then admire on our gaming-optimized screens while using peripherals specifically made for gaming

WE.ARE.ALL.PLAYING.GAMES!

17 minutes ago, Woozie said:

Cant wait to see how many here become "little johnnys" once MSFS is realeased. God, i cant stand this snubbish distinction between "those gamers" and "us serious hardcore simmers". 

We are playing our sims on CPU's and GPUs that were designed and optimized for gaming. With the help of a game-engine, those gaming-GPU's produce visuals which we can then admire on our gaming-optimized screens while using peripherals specifically made for gaming

WE.ARE.ALL.PLAYING.GAMES!

Sorry...you miss the point. I am talking about the gaming engine. It is a fact that some "simmers" don't do games...sorry just not interested. I in fact have played one game years and years ago. It was when someone had a golf game out. Other than that, never even bought one. It is not about who is labled what. I use computers for news and Flight Sim. Don't do Facebook, Instagram, none of that stuff. There are some of us and I know...not many LOL who have no interest in those things.

Edit: bad choice of words. I do in fact do games because I flight Sim. 

Edited June 19, 20196 yr by shivers9
Dumb statement