Sinofsky, Win7 lead project manager, was fond of the phrase "to ship is to choose". There's only so many hours in a day and only so much resource available to refine existing features and implement new features before the MS/Asobo planned release date, whatever that is, so they need to firm up which features will be in the initial release and which features will be implemented in subsequent releases/updates.

SDK, partial or otherwise, as mentioned above has already been promised. We already know Rotorcraft will not be in the initial release however they've made promising sounds about implementing it at a later date. Looking at the rest of the choices and bearing in mind that the developers have said the emphasis is on simulation then to my mind that leaves the choice between ATC and Seasons. Seasons are a feature that really must be implemented and as soon as reasonably possible but I can probably, just about, live without it at initial release as long as it's promised for the near future. That to me leaves ATC as it can work with or without Seasons and so that's what I chose.

6 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

I believe the interest has always been there, just not in the dry, technical button-pressing variety of sim that tends to be the bread and butter of some dedicated enthusiasts.

Agreed. I have a buddy here at work who has no idea about flying, has never flown a flight sim before, but he saw the trailer for the new FS2020 and he said "ohh I want to try THAT!".

I mean, people don't even have to be that much interested in the flying, but the idea that exploring the beauty of the entire world, in such detailed resolution and beautiful colors, and adding on top of that the fact that VR will be coming soon... I mean who wouldn't be interested in it?? One could create an entire business out of it... virtual reality sight seeing tours, featuring FS2020... 🙂

8 hours ago, yanfeng12342000 said:

VR and ATC. Those are not only essential functions, but much needed for VR. Without ATC it’s a crippled flight simulator in the eyes of the core simmers. Without VR it’s a crippled and dated game in the eyes of the general public.

I really don't see the general public assuming that any game is crippled without VR. It is still a niche market.

40 minutes ago, bashope said:

Agreed. I have a buddy here at work who has no idea about flying, has never flown a flight sim before, but he saw the trailer for the new FS2020 and he said "ohh I want to try THAT!".

I mean, people don't even have to be that much interested in the flying, but the idea that exploring the beauty of the entire world, in such detailed resolution and beautiful colors, and adding on top of that the fact that VR will be coming soon... I mean who wouldn't be interested in it?? One could create an entire business out of it... virtual reality sight seeing tours, featuring FS2020... 🙂

I agree. This looks so good and so authentic that i see it drawing in a whole new wave of users. Virtual reality sight seeing flights- why not? VR arcades might add this and anyone can ask to step into the cockpit and take the controls.

i agree with HIFlyer that MS are spending so big on this they will be looking to widen their catchment as much as possible, even though they want the simmers on board for the kudos and base revenue stream.

VR is essential for this next gen sim and personally I’d love VR from day one, but they need to ship a stable successful product in the near future now the cat is out of the bag.

45 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

I really don't see the general public assuming that any game is crippled without VR. It is still a niche market.

This exactly. VR is not needed at ALL in order to attract the general public to MSFS. If the general public happens to know what VR is they sure won't be willing to spend hundreds of dollars/pounds/euro's on it. The general public mainly wants pretty pictures (and Xbox-controller support) and they will be getting loads of pretty pictures in MSFS. None of the items in the poll are of interest to the general public (apart from seasons, maybe). Which isn't odd because it is an AVSIM poll and AVSIM isn't for the general public either.

Edited October 4, 20196 yr by Reader

Oh yeah, VR takes the lead :D

11 minutes ago, SilentChill said:

Oh yeah, VR takes the lead 😄

Yes, it reminds me of the USSR  of yore when a motion got 105% of the votes.

The general public is not using PCs but smartphones or dumb phones with big buttons, like my mother-in-law.

They could care less about a Microsoft flight simulator.

Edited October 4, 20196 yr by dilore

VR is on the increase and those who play or fly (totally separate pastimes of course) in VR mostly won't go back to flat screens, so MS would lose sales from existing VR players.  Personally, I love VR for flying helicopters, where you can look all around without losing sense of the direction you are actually heading in; for me, this is a night and day difference.

I'm struggling to see how anyone thinks that a poll with only 566 votes (at the time of this post) represents an accurate snapshot of what the flight sim community wants. And that was after rallying calls to other forums! That's got to be a tiny fraction of the number of just the members of Avsim. Even the current leader in the poll only has 182 votes. Fsx alone sold millions of copies. Most people tend not to participate in polls and those who do are usually only the ones who are particularly passionate about some aspect of it so don't necessarily represent the community as a whole. I'd be very surprised if less than 200 people voting for something will really change the development strategy of the new sim.

Edited October 4, 20196 yr by vortex681

Much as I'd like to see VR, I think the market size of people with machines powerful enough to get a sufficient frame-rate, if such machines exist, is not big enough to make this a priority.  Given time, there may be a bit more mileage in the coding and average GPU rendering speeds will get faster.  Voting on a poll is not going to make that happen any quicker.

3 hours ago, Grindathotte said:

VR is on the increase

Based on what? I saw September’s steam survey data the other day and vr usage was actually trending downward across all of the headsets other than the one they call ‘other’, which was increasing by 0.02%. 
 

I have a vr headset, and playing pcars2 with it remains one of my favourite gaming experiences, but I still feel like the whole thing is teetering a bit on the edge of relevance. I expect that might change when the new consoles come out though if they support VR, and the headsets are more attainable and higher quality. 

25 minutes ago, Grindathotte said:

Much as I'd like to see VR, I think the market size of people with machines powerful enough to get a sufficient frame-rate, if such machines exist, is not big enough to make this a priority.  Given time, there may be a bit more mileage in the coding and average GPU rendering speeds will get faster.  Voting on a poll is not going to make that happen any quicker.

Nope, if I vote for it and shout really loudly in lots of places on social media, then I and [checks numbers] 183 others get what I want first... /s
 

4 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I really don't see the general public assuming that any game is crippled without VR. It is still a niche market.

3 hours ago, Flamingpie said:

This exactly. VR is not needed at ALL in order to attract the general public to MSFS. If the general public happens to know what VR is they sure won't be willing to spend hundreds of dollars/pounds/euro's on it. The general public mainly wants pretty pictures (and Xbox-controller support) and they will be getting loads of pretty pictures in MSFS. None of the items in the poll are of interest to the general public (apart from seasons, maybe). Which isn't odd because it is an AVSIM poll and AVSIM isn't for the general public either.

Whole-heartedly agree. VR is still niche and will need a big increase in performance plus a big fall in prices before there's a significant uptake.

Titles like MSFS with big worlds to explore will be enticing, but we're not at 'Ready Player One' levels of performance. When it is, I'll be in for a headset.

But what do we know? To quote from a certain Reddit thread: we're just the "nursing home of flight simulation." 🤣
 

What happened to this poll?

VR was very low compared to seasons and ATC and then out of nowhere it is now tied?

1 minute ago, Gulfstream said:

What happened to this poll?

VR was very low compared to seasons and ATC and then out of nowhere it is now tied?

Yah. I was laughing because now that this happened, we are seeing conspiracy theories and suddenly reasons why polls are no good, whereas if the poll had supported some people's biases, the results would be trotted about the forum on a flag.

People is interesting critters.