And we await Microsoft announcing that they will be producing yokes, pedals & joysticks. THAT will be interesting!!

21 minutes ago, F737NG said:

even if Microsoft charge crazy commission figures.

Well not really, as I said successful add-on's sell only around 2,000 copies in their lifetime, so imagine an Add-on priced at 15,99 USD and Microsoft charging 70% commission and assuming an increase sales rate for more exposure to 4,000 copies (very optimistic as it is 100% more sales):

4,000 copies x 15,99 USD = 63,960 - 70% commission = 19,188 USD Net and Microsoft keep 44,772 USD from your hard work.

You still need to pay corporate tax from the NET, support your users, do marketing and other outgoing cost. In the UK corporate tax is 20%, so 19,188 usd - 20% = You would keep 15,350 USD not counting other costs.

Small firms like mine can only work part time on this and deliver only around 1 add-on per year, and unfortunately 15,000 USD is 8 times less of what I currently earn on my full time Job so as you must appreciate, if MS decides to apply such fees it would be just not worth for me to enter into a business relationship with them as it is not worth the stress, hazle, sleepless nights, etc. I rather enjoy the simulator as an user :).

Regards,
S.

 

11 minutes ago, Superdelphinus said:

Again, huge generalisations. You know that many, many people own both pcs and xboxes/ playstations right? If the performance on Xbox ends up being better on Xbox than my pc (unless I feel like dropping a couple of grand on upgrades), and the game is the same, I may well end up buying it on Xbox. Does that mean I’m just going forget what I enjoy doing on a pc flight simulator (which includes flight planning), just because of the system it’s on? 

I doubt you will at least if you are interested in more than a little flying like a described. There wont be mods for the XBOX versions besides a couple of official ones that are getting sold as DLC

Of course nobody does know for sure but yeah I own a console. I always owned one from SNES to every playstation and I like playing some games like GTA on console but I know the audience, the complexity of games and what you can do with your games. Therefore I stand to my "generalization" as I would bet money on it

47 minutes ago, simbol said:

Well not really, as I said successful add-on's sell only around 2,000 copies in their lifetime, so imagine an Add-on priced at 15,99 USD and Microsoft charging 70% commission and assuming an increase sales rate for more exposure to 4,000 copies (very optimistic as it is 100% more sales):

4,000 copies x 15,99 USD = 63,960 - 70% commission = 19,188 USD Net and Microsoft keep 44,772 USD from your hard work.

You still need to pay corporate tax from the NET, support your users, do marketing and other outgoing cost. In the UK corporate tax is 20%, so 19,188 usd - 20% = You would keep 15,350 USD not counting other costs.

Small firms like mine can only work part time on this and deliver only around 1 add-on per year, and unfortunately 15,000 USD is 8 times less of what I currently earn on my full time Job so as you must appreciate, if MS decides to apply such fees it would be just not worth for me to enter into a business relationship with them as it is not worth the stress, hazle, sleepless nights, etc. I rather enjoy the simulator as an user :).

That all works based on current levels of customers.

It's estimated that there are currently anywhere between 150,000 and 300,000 flight simmers. FSX in its heyday sold over 2 million units. That's 6 - 13 times the number we have now. With 67 million gamers on Xbox, the exposure will be even greater. Instead of a 100% increase, you may actually get 600% or more.

I get the reluctance. Some developers products just won't appeal to the masses. Those that do have that appeal will be selling unit numbers that they've never seen before.

I am pretty sure that the XBox version of Microsoft Flight Simulator will be for the new "Project Scarlett" console, and not (as seems to be indicated on the Microsoft Flight Simulator website) the current XBox One. I suspect that this is either a mistake, or a "placeholder" because the website was designed before Project Scarlett had been officially revealed at E3.

ORBX released another airport today. So thats in 2 weeks: Australia v2, Washington and the new Airport. Also they announced they will release the HD buildings soon which is in development for years to my understanding. Seems to me like developers are in panic mode and push out everything until its too late 😄

Edited June 26, 20196 yr by DaWu

1 minute ago, DaWu said:

ORBX released another airport today. So thats in 2 weeks: Australia v2, Washington and the new Airport. Also they announced they will release the HD buildings soon which is in development for years to my understanding. Seems to me like developers are in panic mode and push out everything until its too late

Nah, don't buy that theory. These are all the projects announced in the roadmap at the end of last year.

There are a few products that should have been released already, but TrueEarth development in P3D put a spanner in the works for the P3D titles - two of them are well overdue.

So it is though that developers are in panic mode, by pushing out products now, because a new sim will be launched by the end of 2020. Thats within the next 18 months? 

Seriously delusional! Do you really think that ORBYX (& others) are simply going to disappear by the end of 2020, when every single simmer changes platform?  

4 minutes ago, Wobbie said:

So it is though that developers are in panic mode, by pushing out products now, because a new sim will be launched by the end of 2020. Thats within the next 18 months? 

Seriously delusional! Do you really think that ORBYX (& others) are simply going to disappear by the end of 2020, when every single simmer changes platform?  

Dont take it too serious. But nonetheless I think I see a release wave coming across the scene

1 hour ago, Wobbie said:

So it is though that developers are in panic mode, by pushing out products now, because a new sim will be launched by the end of 2020. Thats within the next 18 months? 

Seriously delusional! Do you really think that ORBYX (& others) are simply going to disappear by the end of 2020, when every single simmer changes platform?  

Well, companies have invested hugely in the tech to produce products like the ORBX  HD range.  You only have to browse forums to see that a number of people have spoken about slowing down/stopping purchases for current platforms until things have been clarified regarding FS2020. - me included - unless it's something i really feel im missing.  But scooping up everything available is not happening anymore.  Why would you buy an Orbx HD patchwork scenery now, when a new sim a year away will, based on current information, offer the same thing on a global scale?

Edited June 26, 20196 yr by ErichB

FSElite compiled an article on the answers of several developers to the MFS announcement. While the answers were nothing new to anyone 'briefed', there was a paragraph shoved in between at which I raised a few eyebrows:

Quote

With a few weeks now gone since the initial announcement, as well as some further snippets of details, we started asking developers what it meant for them and also how they feel about it. Some of these developers were unable to answer our questions for fear of breaching their NDA, whilst others were a bit more willing to answer some questions and share their immediate thoughts. This isn’t to say that those who did answer aren’t under any kind of NDA, but that they were willing to offer some input which they felt did not breach their terms (our reasonable assumption, anyway).

FSElite are making this sound like non-essential side info just casually put in there. One has to wonder what they're onto here.

7 hours ago, A330-300 said:

If the game runs like FSX did out of the box, they will be ridiculed not only by the core fans but by the tech community as a whole. Times have changed, social media pressure is a real thing now. FSX would never have left the ground (pun intended) if it released in 2019 as unoptimized as it was on release. I'm pretty confident MS won't repeat their mistakes. 

I’d add that The cult of “smoothness” (read: locked 60 FPS) simply wasn’t a thing to any significant extent at the time FSX was released. For better or worse, it is now. Gamers expect anything new to run as smooth as butter, and as you say they will absolutely laugh this new sim out of the room if it performs the way (let’s be honest) P3D does now even on good hardware (to say nothing of the way FSX performed on then-existing hardware at release).

I agree that MS are way too smart to let that happen. I think we can reasonably infer performance will be a top priority for them, in a way it never had been previously in the history of the franchise. Times have changed. It simply HAS to be their priority.

James

10 minutes ago, ErichB said:

Well, companies have invested hugely in the tech to produce products like the ORBX  HD range.  You only have to browse forums to see that a number of people have spoken about slowing down/stopping purchases for current platforms until things have been clarified regarding FS2020. - me included - unless it's something i really feel im missing.  But scooping up everything available is not happening anymore.  Why would you buy an Orbx HD patchwork scenery now, when a new sim a year away will, based on current information, offer the same thing on a global scale?

Obviously then, you are confirming that we are 100% guaranteed  that we will be getting the same thing as ORBYX built in to MFS.

I remember the same thing happening when Flight! was rumoured to be released, as well as P3D, that people would not be buying anything until the sims are released.

And yet, life carried on.

5 minutes ago, Wobbie said:

I remember the same thing happening when Flight! was rumoured to be released, as well as P3D, that people would not be buying anything until the sims are released.

It's normal consumer behavior, which people will obviously exercise.  

 

5 minutes ago, Wobbie said:

Obviously then, you are confirming that we are 100% guaranteed  that we will be getting the same thing as ORBYX built in to MFS.

'based on current information' ....... 2 petabytes of data

You could take a wild guess 

Edited June 26, 20196 yr by ErichB

18 minutes ago, ErichB said:

Why would you buy an Orbx HD patchwork scenery now, when a new sim a year away will, based on current information, offer the same thing on a global scale?

Exclude me here. I just bought ORBX LEAS Asturias and TE Washington for XP before, and I am going to buy sceneries (I rarely buy planes), perhaps a bit more selective from obscure makers, but I am not going to stop. Why should I? TE Washington will certainly give me a lot to enjoy and investigate for over a year from now, and perhaps even longer.

As a sidenote: I am not "rich", but this is my main hobby.

That's me. I am sure others will disagree.

Kind regards, Michael