2 minutes ago, domkle said:

We, the general public, just don't have any hint about what they cook with v5. Not me at least !  Read this press release . They have huge intellectual resources in the imagery and AI domains and they build planes, don't they ? 

I am not sure at all they want to put 100 millions dollars to compete with FS20 but discarding that they could be a real competitor for MS is premature. 

And would gain then ? Us.

But that's exactly what I said? They can compete with Microsoft Flight Simulator if they want to, but they need to part ways with the current add-on ecosystem in order to overhaul parts of the engine. They probably can't follow it as it transitions back to Microsoft unless they license similar engine code, like they did with ESP, so it will have to be a compelling choice to convince add-on developers to create add-ons for one more platform. And in the end, they care about their commercial userbase and not us, so I will be extremely surprised if things go that way. But I'm not rejecting that possibility at all.

Speculation  : LM abandoning the ESP terrain/ rendering engine and keeping the rest (flight modeling etc.) . I have the feeling there was (is ?) a strong temptation to do that in Redmont (see the flight modeling legacy still running in the prealpha according to some previewers). And throw a nice venture with their old friends at Amazon.

Don't make me wrong,.  Again this is speculation for the sheer fun of it. I love what I see coming from Asobo but I would hate to see the largest defense contractor in the word giving up on the hobby.

 

It’s only after FSX being dead for years that people started looking at P3D and X-Plane. Add-on developers will target their resources to this new sim.

You also can’t forget the licensing issue. MS will market its product to general users and LM legally cannot.

2 hours ago, dilore said:

I hope not. Competition is healthy. 

I agree.  However, as I look back at the past few years, and the snail's pace of development in P3D and X-plane, competition is also healthy for me and my sanity...we may be on the verge of having a sim that actually provides a decent flying environment.  That means not waiting on developers to give us half-working weather and environmental addons.  One of the biggest mistakes that LM and LR made was outsourcing these fundamental components instead of integrating stuff out of the box.  Both platforms failed miserably when it comes to listening to the community.  So, I hope that competition either spurs an attitude change or causes them to die off...both would be fine by me as I really have no loyalty to either one. 

XPlane, P3D, Aerofly and now MSFS are generic civil flight simulators. Most simmers use only a subset of their functionality (MS Word anyone?). Some fly mostly tube liners, others GA, others turboprops or choppers. Some fly only VFR, others predominantly IFR. I'm sure it's not true for everyone, but I believe for serious simmers it's mostly true.

MSFS et al are a jack of all trades, master at none. There have always been specialized combat simulators, and even one or two for sailplanes, but more are on the horizon, like Deadstick (bush flying) and Airland (helicopters). This could be a trend, especially if these sims excell over MSFS at their core functionality.

I hope these simulators will thrive and push MSFS forward as well as they themselves will be pushed forward by MSFS.

As for XPlane, P3D and especially Aerofly I do not have high hopes that they will survive in the long term. MS Word anyone?

Someone's going to give themselves an aneurysm trying to figure out what this sim is going to be or not be. 

15 hours ago, dilore said:

As for XPlane, P3D and especially Aerofly I do not have high hopes that they will survive in the long term. MS Word anyone?

Re P3D: LM could buy/lease a licence of a MSFS 'ESP' version though.

On 10/5/2019 at 4:20 PM, ChaoticBeauty said:

They can compete with Microsoft Flight Simulator if they want to

I don’t think they can can they? Not at least without a substantial change in the licensing arrangements the two companies have used over the last few years. 

2 hours ago, Superdelphinus said:

I don’t think they can can they? Not at least without a substantial change in the licensing arrangements the two companies have used over the last few years. 

What we know is extremely limited the EULA and the multi-tier pricing policy. We know nothing  of the details of the licensing agreement ( market constraints,duration, evolution and so on and so forth, I suppose the contract has tens if not hundreds of pages) and we know nothing of the discussions that could have been held these recent months. 

We have two major companies with strategic plans and an army of lawyers each.  It is a little vain to define what LM could or couldn't do with v5 ! 

Edited October 6, 20196 yr by domkle

On 10/5/2019 at 12:09 PM, dilore said:

"... Most simmers use only a subset of their functionality ... Some fly mostly ... Some fly only ... others predominantly ...

MSFS et al are a jack of all trades, master at none..."

That seems contradictory. Which is it... "Most use / some fly *only* ", or "jack of *all* "?

 

Edited October 6, 20196 yr by RustyFlyer
word omission

MSFS: is a jack of all trades.

Users: most of them use only/fly mostly/fly predominantly a subset of MSFS's many features. 

 

While until the end of my current life I don't see myself playing other sim with more pleasure than War Thunder, I do hope for the bext experience with FS 2020, and of course I will try to run it in my old PC and see how it goes.

The project deserves our Respect, I would even say Grattitude to the Team behind it. They're doing it Passionately, and when it is like that, and with the Giant MS behind it, it's "doomed" for success !!!

Maybe one day I can find the guts to revisit Aerowinx PSX but that turn around using FLIGHT SIMULATOR for the visuals ( ? ) ...

Oh how much I would like to merge the immersion of WT with those FS 2020 World graphics... Or DCS... the combat sutdy sim that unfortunately can't run properly in my old i5 :-/

I feel there are other possibilities with this simulator as well. I could imagine if the ground imagery was high enough of a quality that people could just mod in some cars/trucks and proper traffic and do some Euro Truck Sim, or American Truck Sim but in full scale. Imagine that!

I think it's really interesting to think that this world engine in general, could be used not just for flight simulators, but any open world experience if the fidelity in the areas is high enough. I can imagine a side development of this engine turning into driving simulators for learners before they hit the road. When you have a world engine this complex and this capable, the possibilities beyond just flight sim become apparent. It could literally change everything.

Imagine proper battle simulation in real world locations with this world engine, something to the likes of War Thunder but with more simulation fidelity.. Crazy.

5 hours ago, suncoastflyer said:

I could imagine if the ground imagery was high enough of a quality that people could just mod in some cars/trucks and proper traffic and do some Euro Truck Sim, or American Truck Sim but in full scale. Imagine that!

The quality won't be high enough for that. It will be good enough to enjoy cities at flying altitudes (like you see in the video's) but anything lower and things will start to look bad to downright awful. Some airports may look good enough to drive around on but most of the world certainly won't look as good as ATS does right now!

FS2020 is not even out and some have already put a bullet on P3D, XP, etc. I believe that many will remain with P3D and XP for whatever reasons. I highly doubt that FS2020 when released will be the most complete sim ever, it will have its short comings for sure. So, no, I do not believe either sim will be dead or not on par with FS2020.