1 minute ago, Murmur said:

The mobile XP version (that people mistakenly think was distracting resources whereas, on the contrary, it provided financial resources for the development of PC version) could be the only thing that allows LR to survive in some way, because I don't see XP and P3D having anything different than (low?) single digits market share after MFS will be on the market for a while.

The mobile version of XP isn't Laminar's only source of income apart from the PC version. There is the FAA-certified "Pro" version of XP for training, and Laminar has side projects with aerospace companies. Like the commission to develop Airbus FBW code for an un-named client we heard about not long ago, which is how a version of that feature showed up in Planemaker. Besides, Austin would just continue development if the PC version sold 5 copies a year. It's his baby, and he's wealthy enough to afford keeping it alive as long as he's still around.

3 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

Besides, Austin would just continue development if the PC version sold 5 copies a year. It's his baby, and he's wealthy enough to afford keeping it alive as long as he's still around.

^^ this

Maybe MS will use the new engine (no pun intended) to reboot Train Simulator? DtG could do with some competition to give their glacially slow development of TSW a kick in the backside. 

3 hours ago, deetee said:

Maybe MS will use the new engine (no pun intended) to reboot Train Simulator? DtG could do with some competition to give their glacially slow development of TSW a kick in the backside. 

Great idea because they were developing their new Train Simulator and had some really nice preview shots and then just like FSX they pulled the rug.

22 minutes ago, Lenny777 said:

Great idea because they were developing their new Train Simulator and had some really nice preview shots and then just like FSX they pulled the rug.

Yep, the train sim audience must be getting tired of the DTG monopoly by now. 

However, I wouldn't just assume this new world generating system can be adapted for a train sim or car racing sim, before we see more of what it looks like on the ground. The procedural grass shot was great, but do they have photogrammetry resolution on those 3D buildings high enough that it won't break up into a pixellated blur when you see them up close?

Moving through a town or a city on rails at ground level might require much more fine-grained world data than a flight sim, where you're seeing most of this at altitude unless you're at an airport.

Still a great idea though, if they can pull it off.

15 hours ago, LHookins said:

That's something I thought of the first day.  I was looking at doing boating and driving.  Boating might work, the roads aren't good enough for a driving sim for the parts of the world I saw, but custom areas would work.

Hook

Microsoft TRAIN SIM revived!!!

What I appreciate most about this post, is it's from a pilot's point of view and admitted hes not really a summer. And he was impressed with the validity of the flight models from a real world point of view without comparisons to other sims. Now I'm impressed as well. 

23 hours ago, Paraffin said:

Yep, the train sim audience must be getting tired of the DTG monopoly by now. 

However, I wouldn't just assume this new world generating system can be adapted for a train sim or car racing sim, before we see more of what it looks like on the ground. The procedural grass shot was great, but do they have photogrammetry resolution on those 3D buildings high enough that it won't break up into a pixellated blur when you see them up close?

Moving through a town or a city on rails at ground level might require much more fine-grained world data than a flight sim, where you're seeing most of this at altitude unless you're at an airport.

Still a great idea though, if they can pull it off.

Well there is Aurans' Trainz which I had for several years but I did not buy their new and ostensibly improved graphics wise version. It's a better simulator per se but still doesn't give you chills with the graphics.

On 10/1/2019 at 10:24 PM, Murmur said:

I agree with others here. But let's face it, even if LR and LM would have done their best in the last decade, MS is (and will be) throwing so many resources at MFS that realistically no-one could have competed.

 

 

I wouldn’t put Laminar and Lockheed-Martin in the same bag. LM is a huge defense contractor with financial ressources, access to imagery, AI expertise including in sat imagery analysis which would allow them to have their own FS20 if they wanted to. The question is do they want to ? Or to phrase it in another way,   would their pro customers ( defense, flight schools etc.) be interested ? Does it make sense profit wise ?

 

And remember, we don’t know anything of their plans for v5. To put them in the dustbin of history seems premature to me.

 

 

 

Edited October 3, 20196 yr by domkle

Reading between the line DTG got slated for pulling the plug on FSW even the devs were not told till Monday arriving for work, was it DTG that pulled the plug or someone else???

7 minutes ago, rjfry said:

Reading between the line DTG got slated for pulling the plug on FSW even the devs were not told till Monday arriving for work, was it DTG that pulled the plug or someone else???

That's a really good question I thought about, too. My very personal take is, both were in talks for some time and felt that FSW failed, and when MS told them what they had in mind they pulled the plug in agreement.

That's pure speculation, but the timing of shutdown of FSW (which I foresaw for quite some time, check my old comments) and initiation of the MFS project certainly was not an accident.

Kind regards, Michael

2 minutes ago, pmb said:

That's a really good question I thought about, too. My very personal take is, both were in talks for some time and felt that FSW failed, and when MS told them what they had in mind they pulled the plug in agreement.

That's pure speculation, but the timing of shutdown of FSW (which I foresaw for quite some time, check my old comments) and initiation of the MFS project certainly was not an accident.

Kind regards, Michael

Well according to the MSFS dev`s they were working on this when DTG were doing FSW in fact before it was released strange???

53 minutes ago, rjfry said:

Well according to the MSFS dev`s they were working on this when DTG were doing FSW in fact before it was released strange???

I can imagine this were early investigations on feasibility of the Bing/Azure approach, with the final definition and go for the project around closure of FSW. But what do we know... 

Kind regards, Michael

Just now, pmb said:

That's a really good question I thought about, too. My very personal take is, both were in talks for some time and felt that FSW failed, and when MS told them what they had in mind they pulled the plug in agreement.

That's pure speculation, but the timing of shutdown of FSW (which I foresaw for quite some time, check my old comments) and initiation of the MFS project certainly was not an accident.

Kind regards, Michael

As I recall, DTG had a round of financing for FSW a few months before. I always thought that the money raised was too short and/or investors wanted to take their loss on a very midly popular project. 

If I recall correctly, Train Simulator 2 was being developed on a modified Flight Simulator X engine before Aces were shut down. They could certainly leverage some of that work to revive that franchise.