3 minutes ago, speedyTC said:

🤔 Have Boeing ever designed a jet engine?

Oops

*Asobo hires more staff*

Avsim armchair experts: There's no way this will be profitable! There's a conspiracy afoot! We know all the development costs and how much it will sell!

Edited October 30, 20196 yr by Krakin

😎

Like I said in other threads, I believe they might use this game or project to showcase their Bing Maps and Azure AI capabilities to high end business users or others. I mean, if you have this kind of technology (like the world and weather system) it would be stupid to not further sell this to other parties.

2 hours ago, shivers9 said:

I have to agree. There is something going on here that we don't know about. I am not saying that it is something bad...who knows. It just don't make sense at this point. We have seen MS dump 2 versions of flight sims counting "Flight" and now they are throwing money at this project like they are going to mars. My guess is something like they will use this new world that they are creating for more than just our sims. We low end life forms have to think outside of the box. It is not out of the question that MS may be working hand in hand with the likes of P3D to provide a virtural world that could be the basis of flight sims, boat sims, railroad sims, Wild fire fighting and disaster control sims and the list is endless. I would bet my 1080TI on this but it may be several years before we know for sure. If you get past the pretty pictures and marketing dribble and think money then it makes more sense.

I totally agree with u. This, not only is one of the building blocks of virtual reality world, that is a coming, (someone talked about Oasis movie in one of the topics), but is also a benchmark study of the market. They definitely will sell such a platform to other players in the market, like shooting games, adventure games, and as u said, the list goes on forever. Despite all these new advancements in gaming technology, for sure MSFS2020 will be that giant leap for mankind!

What matters at the moment is the win-win situation between us, simmers, and Microsoft. So let’s just gear up for the semi-real experience of flying 🙂

A thread on this was posted some time ago with a list of jobs at Asobo studios.

 

 

Edited October 31, 20196 yr by rjfry

I think it's safe to say some in this community are really really out of touch with the entertainment software industry out there. The global population and even economically-developed population gaining access to computers and consoles is just getting greater and greater. It's an extreme example, but a game like GTA V had more than 1000 people working on it, and that's a game that requires much more design and artwork (think of the amount of objects that are required to be designed and modeled in that game). There's a whole generation of kids out there who would be happy to have access to a modern flight sim that can have a user-friendly learning curve. I myself used tutorials in past versions of MSFS. Most are not going to touch sims like P3D or X-Plane. Not because they're too complicated or sim-y, but because compared to today's software, they're hideous and not at all user friendly.

The community has also become used to tiny software teams working on these sims. Laminar has what, 20-30 people? MSFS2020 will undoubtedly outsell X-Plane by a large margin. I imagine they can hire more people.

2 hours ago, Krakin said:

*Asobo hires more staff*

Avsim armchair experts: There's no way this will be profitable!

Indeed. And of course it's possible that Asobo and MS are investing more because they are learning the market might be bigger than initially expected. A company like MS has focus groups.

Again, the analogy is "we'll have to wait and see if bigfoot exists guys." No, you don't. 

We all have to keep it civil, but it is pretty silly. 😉 

 

 

15 minutes ago, carbonbasedlifeform said:

We all have to keep it civil, but it is pretty silly. 😉 

I think the silliest thing I've seen come out of this is people thinking consumers will be happier with a mandatory subscription rather than microtransactions LOL! I guess DCS should have gone out of business a long time ago then.

3 hours ago, Krakin said:

*Asobo hires more staff*

Avsim armchair experts: There's no way this will be profitable! There's a conspiracy afoot! We know all the development costs and how much it will sell!

A well-reasoned counter argument would be more interesting.

As the trailer made some massive waives around the world, I'm already seeing a ton of old school simmers coming back to track the development and the overall feedback have been jaw dropping. They're going to make a killing on this thing if they'll target the right markets. I really wouldn't worry about them making money, especially with a revolutionary product as this.

37 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

A well-reasoned counter argument would be more interesting.

That would imply that your original statement was well-reasoned.

9 minutes ago, WarpD said:

That would imply that your original statement was well-reasoned.

Yup. The ball is in your court to show otherwise.

8 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

The market is self evidently a niche when the resources likely necessary for this venture would almost certainly get a much better return on investment if devoted to something more marketable,

What you have wrong is that this isn’t about selling a triple A blockbuster, i.e. Avengers end game. This is all about flagship marketable games for Xbox game pass. Think of this like a strong series on Netflix. They can use it as a marketing tool to get people into the ecosystem. 

https://venturebeat.com/2019/06/17/microsoft-flight-simulator-reveals-game-passs-potential/

a better explanation...

40 minutes ago, TravelRunner404 said:

What you have wrong is that this isn’t about selling a triple A blockbuster, i.e. Avengers end game. This is all about flagship marketable games for Xbox game pass. Think of this like a strong series on Netflix. They can use it as a marketing tool to get people into the ecosystem. 

But that's essentially what I said. That the Flight simulation market alone was simply not lucrative enough to provide an enticing return on investment, and that other factors had to be involved, with my first guess being Azure

Some background on my general thinking:

When Microsoft Flight was released, I took a good long look at the credits screen and the very impressive amount of resources that were involved. https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/microsoft-flight/credits

As you can see, there were also a hundred people or more working over what were told at the time was approximately a two year period at a total cost estimated by one of the developers (After he got off of NDA) of about 20 to 25 million

Since then, several programmers on the forum have suggested a fair going rate for developers of about $100.000 per year, which over two years comes close to that 25 million figure plus various unknowns....... (I'm approximating here since obviously not everyone is a developer making that kind of money. Some will make more and many will make less, but it's the best I have for a ballpark)

With Asobo/Microsoft claiming a similar amount of developers (and hiring more!) that comes to about 12 million dollars a year over five years and we find ourselves heading towards an estimated sixty million dollar investment (more or less) for this project, plus or minus unknown factors.

Even if every single one of the 300,000 Members (last time I checked) of Avsim purchased this sim at $60..... 

You come out with about 17 million dollars.

Not too exciting, financially.

Even if 1 million people purchased the sim at $60 (assuming my guesses are even near correct) You have 60 million dollars, and Microsoft is still only just about breaking even.

So the question is, why would they do this? 

Probably not because we are great guys and deserve it......

I would say a better bet for them would be creating something like GTA, and going after the 6 billion dollar prize.

There's obviously some variables missing in this equation. Something Microsoft feels they can get out of this that makes all this effort worth their while, and its interesting to speculate on what that might be.