11 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Eye candy does sell, but it doesn’t sustain (AF2 is a good example eye candy that didn’t sustain users) ... the platform will need to provide ways to establish users with “purpose” which in turn helps establish content value ... that will be done via the SDK and hopefully an easy delivery/update system.



To be fair, there may be other reasons, such as coverage, that factor in.

3 hours ago, overspeed3 said:

Don't know at this moment whether or not I will be forking-over another $$700 to $800 for new FSX payware.  But forward-compatibility issues aside, I definitely will not be spending more bucks to either upgrade or to purchase a new gaming PC that might be necessary to run MS2020...   

Well then you are one of the lucky candidates Microsoft was reaching out to when they made there taking back control of FSX - congratulations!

Wow it's like having a FSX loot box I wonder what Microsoft Game Studios have planned... 😂😂😂 Hehe

1 hour ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

The longevity of the new MS Flight Simulator will be entirely based of how good the SDK is, how good the documentation is, how good SDK samples are, and how well it allows for content protection.

Eye candy does sell, but it doesn’t sustain (AF2 is a good example eye candy that didn’t sustain users) ... the platform will need to provide ways to establish users with “purpose” which in turn helps establish content value ... that will be done via the SDK and hopefully an easy delivery/update system.

I’m not sure how relevant compatibility will be, as its clear many users are/were willing to buy the same aircraft/airports in their quest to try XP11 from FSX/P3D so I can’t see this changing for MS FS nor being a road block to success.  In addition, an entirely new market of XBOX users that know nothing about FSX/P3D/XP11 would further the lack of need for compatibility.

Will XBOX only users stay to grow with FS?  IMHO, the SDK and delivery method will be the determining factor.  And success may require the need for much larger add-on provider development teams and associated costs as the content bar is raised.

Cheers, Rob.

Good post Rob, lets hope Microsoft allow 3rd party developers to also have most or all of the profit as well! I think the trade off though will have to be that the SDK is very well supported and documented so you feel the extra cost can go someway towards a smoother development process, something a company the size of Microsoft should be pretty good at.

4 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

and how well it allows for content protection.

Be careful on this point.

Content protection usually just creates a huge burden on end users, meanwhile literally everything has been pirated, always, for flight simulator no matter what somebody is trying to do to protect it. 

 

Hopefully they have an integrated store option for those of us that want the simplicity and ease and that could allow for the protection you are looking for. 

11 hours ago, AviatorMan said:

I would not want it to be held back by compatibility with existing FSX or P3D aircraft. 

As I said many times before the new simulation with a new graphics engine can still potentially support legacy aircraft, or legacy aircraft with some (minor?) modifications, as well as potentially an all new aircraft model format.

If the new sim has Killer graphics, smooth fps, ray tracing etc and the NGX is for sale, I would defintely be very keen. Conditions: 1. The plane must have a realistic flight model. 2. The gauges must be silky smooth.  3. Better sounds than present.

3 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I have no idea of Microsoft's resource allocation for this "re-birth" ... LM 104,000 employees ... MS 144,000 employees ... LM produce aircraft, satellites, secret stuff ... MS produce software, XBOX, probably some secret stuff too 😉  ... but percent of resources allocated ... guess that will be tied to their business analysis but my "hunch" says they are looking more at the XBOX end user as primary revenue source and PC side is more a testing ground and proof of concept to get the ball rolling while MS get the XBOX side online and working with their new XBOX hardware.

Seems like a fairly solid plan provided they can keep the XBOX users interested and since it was suggested PC first, XBOX later, and we know there is going to be an SDK, that will give us a little more time to provide content/purpose ... the eventual release of FS to XBOX is a good sign that MS plan to commit to this for at least 2-3 years and hopefully that's enough to get traction with a robust SDK.

Still many questions that hopefully will be cleared up within the next few weeks/months.

Cheers, Rob.

I'm pretty sure they're expecting to make most of their money on PC with this one.

16 minutes ago, Krakin said:

I'm pretty sure they're expecting to make most of their money on PC with this one.

Based upon?

But wouldn't backwards compatibility only be possible with FSX products anyway? I can't imagine that Microsoft would get their hands on the P3D codebase that easily, to re-integrate it with their new sim. So any advancements that have been made in P3D would be lost, especially the programmatic parts based in SimConnect (= system simulations, gauges, etc.) . Developing backwards compatible addons would start on a level of 5 years ago. For a developer it may be more effective to re-use the independent assets like 3D models, sounds and textures, and start over fresh with the rest. Similar to how it is done with cross-platform ports from FSX/P3D to XPlane.

Best regards

Edited August 13, 20196 yr by Lorby_SI

15 hours ago, CB_Pilot said:

A really interesting discussion 🤔. I would not be in favour of retaining backward compatibility because it would inhibit progress and compromise the experiences offered by the new technologies and solutions available today. Sure, I have loads of add-ons but I don't use them all now, having settled on favourites over the years. So, replacing my "fleet" would only be necessary for the few aircraft that really work for me nowadays. I'll take that hit if it means I can use the very latest that Microsoft has to offer as a flight simulator - no doubt about that.

(One small request though - please don't break or discontinue FSX or FSX:SE because it works really well for many of us. Please don't force the new simulator upon us as the only option from Microsoft.)

As MS have just repossessed FSX from Dovetail, I think you should be cheering.

20 hours ago, rocketlaunch said:

Personally Im looking forward to buying many planes again for the third time 🙂

Ha ha :) I can relate to that, but then again, I hope to be buying mostly new ones.

There aren't many hi-fi addons out there in the first place, and I wouldn't miss any of them in the new sim since there are a ton of aircraft I'd like to fly that aren't available as hi-fi addons in P3D. To name a few: C-130 Hercules, P-3 Orion, L-188 Electra, C-17 Globemaster III, C-5 Galaxy, Gulfstream biz jets, DC-3, Boeing 727, DHC-8 100/200 series, Curtiss JN-4 Jenny, KC-135 Stratotanker, Airbus A400M, L-10 Electra, Beechcraft Model 18, Boeing 247, Sikorsky S-42, Short Empire, F-111, B-1, B-2, classic steam gauge King Air...

There's lots of aircraft I'd like to fly and explore, so bring it on. There's not a single aircraft in FSX or P3D that I would miss, apart from the Real Air Turbine Duke - but they're out of the game anyway... 

I think this concern is overblown. 

You've got developers porting aircraft from P3D to XP11, two completely different sims, in just several months time. The first thing that will happen with MSFS will be a lot of ports. It won't take years to get a decent stable of planes to fly.

My general suspicion is that MSFS will still use the same flight model with .air files. They are not a limiting factor if done right. 

At this moment in time, I tend to agree with WarpD's post and Lorby_SI's posts regarding not rebuilding absolutely everything from scratch. I hope that will be the case, and that port-overs can be made to mitigate the cost of repurchasing payware, but I'm not in a situation where I can budget for any hardware horsepower increases the new sim may well require... so FSX:SE for me, for now, and I will sit on the fence until the new sim is out and established. It's a waiting game..

Re old code: Why should you re-code logic for example for changes in atmospheric pressure, metric/imperial or IAS/TAS conversions, the inner logic of instruments, GPSs, transponders and a lot of other things that work perfectly fine in FSX/P3D? Graphics is another matter, I am talking calculations here.

Re existing aircraft: Since I prefer a better flight model I am willing to re-purchase my favorite aircraft (A2A 182, Milviz Beaver, Wing24 Vega, Milviz MD 530). But I am also aware that it will take several years until these will be available for MSFS (if at all). Until that, I am probably not jumping onto the MSFS train.

 

Edited August 16, 20196 yr by dilore

I favor a modern, state of the art flight simulator. As for aircraft, the new sim should come with a variety of quality aircraft that satisfy the range of interest of most sim pilots to start. Anyway, these are interesting times. Good Luck to Microsoft and hoping they stick by their guns and get the job done right.