I'm expecting PMDG on day one

[FAZZ3 815]

1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

Based on the lack of information regarding the final product,

I’m confident that at this stage, that statement only applies to end users like us, not developers. Microsoft clearly mentioned that they already began communication with developers a while back. Developers chosen by Microsoft might already have all the information they need regarding the SDK. Besides, Microsoft themselves stated that the SDK will be released with the tech alpha, which has already begun. 

[Pastaiolo 1,686]

16 minutes ago, bonchie said:

PBR has been in P3D for almost a year I think. I wouldn't call it a recent event. 

Considering that in other sims PBR arrived years ago yeah, i would still call it recent. But fair enough 🙂

[ailchim 206]

On ‎10‎/‎14‎/‎2019 at 1:21 PM, KillerKlient said:

To be honest I've been surprised that PMDG has been so inactive for many months after the 747 was released, they have been doing smaller bits of work and not announced any major aircraft release. 

You have completely the wrong idea what a monopoly is.  A monopoly occurs where barriers to entry prevent new companies bringing their good or services to a market.  There is nothing stopping anyone producing products of the same quality as PMDG's to compete with them.

Now controlling the route to market IS monopolistic as new producers cannot access purchasers.  Can you think of any?  I was thinking of the Steam platform..............

 

Edited October 27, 2019 by n4gix
REMOVED EXCESSIVE QUOTE!!! Please stop quoting the entire post you are replying to!

[KillerKlient 92]

2 hours ago, ailchim said:

You have completely the wrong idea what a monopoly is.  A monopoly occurs where barriers to entry prevent new companies bringing their good or services to a market.  There is nothing stopping anyone producing products of the same quality as PMDG's to compete with them.

Now controlling the route to market IS monopolistic as new producers cannot access purchasers.  Can you think of any?  I was thinking of the Steam platform..............

 

I think I have a pretty good idea of what a monopoly is, having studied economics for 2 years of my life.

A monopoly is a situation where one company has exclusive control of supplying goods or service.  Tell me, who can provide a better 777-300ER for P3D than PMDG? No one.  Tell me, who can provide a weather radar for your 777-300ER apart from HiFi Sim Tech? No one.  These are obvious monopoly situations, not sure how you don't see them? Perhaps you don't understand what a monopoly is as well as you think you do.

You mention barriers to entry, barriers to entry are not the definition of a monopoly but a reason as to why a monopoly or even oligopoly situation can occur.  The reason companies like PMDG have monopoly's on platforms like P3D is because there are many barriers to entry, the most obvious ones are:

- There are no official SDK's for P3D development (especially to the level of detail PMDG does their simulation).  That means extensive research and reverse engineering of the platform before you can even begin!

- To make a simulation as detailed as PMDG do, you need tons of research with real world pilots, actually visiting the aircraft and even working with aircraft manufacturer.

- To make a simulation as detailed as PMDG do, you need multiple skilled developers, sound engineers, graphics designed, etc. working many years.

All of those are very expensive and after doing all that you will most likely end up with a substandard product which is not as good as the PMDG equivilant, simply because your developers are not as experienced yet.  To make matters worse, if PMDG has already released the same aircraft type then there will be very little motivation for people to go and buy your substandard product.  Then to make things even more worse than that, the flight simulator market is very small so that further limits your sales.  All of this means that you have to have a lot of money and time to burn for many years before you can enter this market.  Which is a huge barrier to entry so not "anyone" can produce products of the same quality as PMDG, because it is financially unsustainable.

That is proven by the fact that there is no company that has a competing product for things like the PMDG 777 at the same quality level.

[threexgreen 3,135]

2 hours ago, KillerKlient said:

There are no official SDK's for P3D development

Is that so?

[KillerKlient 92]

8 minutes ago, threegreen said:

Is that so?

Maybe you should quote my full sentence, I didn't word that quite correctly but the emphasis is on the writing in brackets that you removed "(especially to the level of detail PMDG does their simulation)".  The SDK's are very limited and come from FSX days where you couldn't do that much and that's still the case as P3D has mostly inheritted those.  There are no proper SDK's for going into the level of detail PMDG does, that means extensive research and reverse engineering of the platform before you can even begin!

Edited October 26, 2019 by KillerKlient

[threexgreen 3,135]

20 minutes ago, KillerKlient said:

Maybe you should quote my full sentence, I didn't word that quite correctly but the emphasis is on the writing in brackets that you removed "(especially to the level of detail PMDG does their simulation)".  The SDK's are very limited and come from FSX days where you couldn't do that much and that's still the case as P3D has mostly inheritted those.  There are no proper SDK's for going into the level of detail PMDG does, that means extensive research and reverse engineering of the platform before you can even begin!

I see what you're saying now.

[b737800 470]

It always amazes me how little value some people put on good software. It's as if they think the developer is a sole spotty teenager still living with mum and dad who has little to no monetary commitments of their own and is just doing the work for the better of the community.

Good software takes an enormous amount of effort, into the 10s or quite easily 100s of thousands of man hours to produce. Flight sim is still a pretty niche market. It doesn't have the user base of first person shooters or car race games, yet the level of detail required for full immersion is huge. An airliner is a complex beast with complex systems (far more complex than a McLaren MP4 regardless of what you might think) and to simulate one with the level of fidelity that have been used to is truly astonishing.

Whether or not the upgrade pricing is "fair" or not is up for debate, but until I see all the developers deserting us because they've just taken delivery of their latest Lamborghini and a 10 car garage just doesn't cut it any more, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

[JB3DG 225]

20 hours ago, KillerKlient said:

I think I have a pretty good idea of what a monopoly is, having studied economics for 2 years of my life.

A monopoly is a situation where one company has exclusive control of supplying goods or service.  Tell me, who can provide a better 777-300ER for P3D than PMDG? No one.  Tell me, who can provide a weather radar for your 777-300ER apart from HiFi Sim Tech? No one.  These are obvious monopoly situations, not sure how you don't see them? Perhaps you don't understand what a monopoly is as well as you think you do.

You mention barriers to entry, barriers to entry are not the definition of a monopoly but a reason as to why a monopoly or even oligopoly situation can occur.  The reason companies like PMDG have monopoly's on platforms like P3D is because there are many barriers to entry, the most obvious ones are:

- There are no official SDK's for P3D development (especially to the level of detail PMDG does their simulation).  That means extensive research and reverse engineering of the platform before you can even begin!

- To make a simulation as detailed as PMDG do, you need tons of research with real world pilots, actually visiting the aircraft and even working with aircraft manufacturer.

- To make a simulation as detailed as PMDG do, you need multiple skilled developers, sound engineers, graphics designed, etc. working many years.

All of those are very expensive and after doing all that you will most likely end up with a substandard product which is not as good as the PMDG equivilant, simply because your developers are not as experienced yet.  To make matters worse, if PMDG has already released the same aircraft type then there will be very little motivation for people to go and buy your substandard product.  Then to make things even more worse than that, the flight simulator market is very small so that further limits your sales.  All of this means that you have to have a lot of money and time to burn for many years before you can enter this market.  Which is a huge barrier to entry so not "anyone" can produce products of the same quality as PMDG, because it is financially unsustainable.

That is proven by the fact that there is no company that has a competing product for things like the PMDG 777 at the same quality level.

 

Just some corrections here:
1: P3D absolutely *does* have an official SDK and very little, if any, reverse engineering is needed. I have done some myself and have actually retreated from doing so because reverse engineering usually comes with more problems than it is worth, with only a few exceptions. And the secret to high quality work is not the SDK, but rather having the right mindset. You can have the best SDK in the world and still be so locked up in imaginary constraints that you would call high quality work witchcraft.

2: I have never in real life seen any of the aircraft I have worked on (T-38C and A in use by the USAF for training pilots). Yes, having good photographic and other resources are necessary, but in many cases such resources are available without visiting the aircraft, or working with the manufacturer. Real world pilots are also a great resource but PMDG hardly has a monopoly in this respect as most pilots are only too happy to help out any dev with any info they may need.

3: Partially true. Skill is absolutely needed. But there are no hard and fast constraints in this regard either. There are kids out there with no experience who show up on day 1 with brilliant raw talent. There are large teams who work hard and struggle to do an above average job, and there are tiny teams who pull off top notch sims for the aircraft type in a spectacularly short time.

4: PMDG has at least 2 rivals if you go by quality of product, but not necessarily the same aircraft. Majestic with their Q400, and FSLabs with their A320 series. If either of those two decide to do a 777 that competes with PMDG, they are more than capable of giving PMDG a run for their money.

Edited October 27, 2019 by JB3DG

[KillerKlient 92]

10 hours ago, JB3DG said:

 

Just some corrections here:
4: PMDG has at least 2 rivals if you go by quality of product, but not necessarily the same aircraft. Majestic with their Q400, and FSLabs with their A320 series. If either of those two decide to do a 777 that competes with PMDG, they are more than capable of giving PMDG a run for their money.

They won't because it's not financially feaisable, hence the monopoly situation.  Not sure about Majestic but FSLabs quality did not seem quite on the same level as PMDG to me, but still very good.

[suncoastflyer 685]

I'll just dump some fresh news on this thread.

The new NG3 is coming to Flight Simulator as a Flight Simulator only product (if only initially). It will also include the NG and MAX variants (yay!).

PMDG also shared that they anticipate bringing the 777 and 747 product lines to Flight Simulator (nothing but awesome).

Considering the level of skepticism PMDG displayed at the reveal of Flight Simulator,  Microsoft/Asobo must have done some serious communicating to get them this onboard. This should only be good news for us. At the end of the day PMDG is a business and they wouldn't do this if they weren't fully convinced it would work out for them.

Next year will be interesting. But for now, it's 2D cloud sprites for a little bit longer... (for me anyway)

Edited November 7, 2019 by suncoastflyer

[Superdelphinus 718]

I don’t reckon they would have had to that much communicating. Any developer would be mad to dismiss the new sim, especially in such a cottage industry environment as it is now. Basing your existence around a sim where half the people* act unlawfully to actually play it is mad. 

*exaggerated or under-exaggerated for effect.