Interesting discussion, I will monitor this thread since we have a few Developers in here.  I've also hit up Pete over on FSUICP about this too. Most of us prefer that software for calibration/ assignments of our controllers, So it's a wait and see mode for pretty much everyone. 

43 minutes ago, zmak said:

DCS gives wayyyy more purpose than any civilian sim. Floating around in a 777 falling asleep is hardly immersive. Now load that mother up with state of the arts weapons systems and learn how to use them at a study sim level whilst still being on top of navigation procedures and ATC is a whole new ball game on a way higher level

Great fun it's indeed, including recovery from a real flat spin 🤔

3 hours ago, zmak said:

DCS gives wayyyy more purpose than any civilian sim.

Indeed - if you accept to spend your spare time fighting. If not, and there are a few strange creatures like me who don't accept this, you have to look for purpose in civilian sims. And I happed to find purpose for 30 years now, and there's still enough I want to learn without having to shoot poor enemies.

 

Kind regards, Michael

4 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

The assumption that the entertainment exclusion by LM is because of their agreement with MS seems to be an idea that has been brought up and spreaded by users in forums

Or it was a misinterpretation of the license terms (lost in translation?). The ESP product page said, that licensor (Microsoft) allows the use of ESP for commercial purposes. That doesn't mean that the actual end customers have to be "commercial", "professional" or whatever. It only says what the licensee (Lockheed) can do with ESP. Creating a new flight simulator game on ESP and selling it to end users is a commercial purpose, as is creating a training tool to sell to corporate and government customers. From how I understood it, ESP basically allowed everything that is forbidden under the normal FSX EULA ("copy, alter, change, reengineer...") - for the appropriate license fee.

I always wonder where that kind of information comes from. A person leaking details of a contract between Microsoft and Lockheed (or MS and DTG, or...) would have been fired instantly, and probably charged with corporate espionage.

Best regards

Edited November 10, 20196 yr by Lorby_SI

On 11/9/2019 at 11:14 AM, Lorby_SI said:

Seeing my own sales in the shops and that announcement from PMDG, it looks to me like the addon market is currently slowing down considerably, almost coming to a halt.

Thank you for your insight. This seems to confirm my feeling that many of us are increasingly reluctant to purchase any new products until the new MSFS is available...

47 minutes ago, pmb said:

Indeed - if you accept to spend your spare time fighting. If not, and there are a few strange creatures like me who don't accept this, you have to look for purpose in civilian sims. And I happed to find purpose for 30 years now, and there's still enough I want to learn without having to shoot poor enemies.

 

Kind regards, Michael

Depends on your mindset. I see it like a game of chess in the sky and in many cases you dont even get see your enemy . Im guessing you have never tried DCS? Its free which is nice and you even get a free jet although its an old Ruskie its still fun.

I would never give up civilian sims its just nice to give the brain a true workout occasionally

Aaand why couldn’t P3d also use Azure bing maps?

and then you can use all aircraft already in use which you own already?

please   Correct me if I’m wrong?

Edited November 10, 20196 yr by mikeymike

36 minutes ago, mikeymike said:

Aaand why couldn’t P3d also use Azure bing maps?

and then you can use all aircraft already in use which you own already?

please   Correct me if I’m wrong?

It could.. Maybe that is the next version of P3D.. Nobody knows.. If only we could read the future 😉

Regards 

S.

48 minutes ago, mikeymike said:

Aaand why couldn’t P3d also use Azure bing maps?

and then you can use all aircraft already in use which you own already?

please   Correct me if I’m wrong?

Wrong? No. Anything is possible in software. It is all a matter of effort and cost involved, weighed against a possible gain. 

But MSFS is not only about the scenery, is it?

1. There is no compatibility route for content that we know of today. Everybody seems to assume that FSX stuff will work in MSFS, when all that Microsoft said was that they are thinking about a compatibilty mode for the FSX FDE (=the .air file). In any case P3D native addons will not work in MSFS, and neither would they work in a Lockheed branded LMFS. Meaning, you can't have the new world without changing everything else to the new platform specs too.

2. What is the point of having two platforms that look exactly the same? 

3. Lockheed would have to pay Microsoft for using the Azure online infrastructure. On a per-use basis, ongoing. A simple lump-sum purchase of P3D by the customer won't cut it anymore.

4. There is nothing simple about this. It is not "just" a matter of "use". Lockheed would be looking at a massive effort, that they were not willing to invest in the past. Why would they do it now? Assuming the end user market having any relevance for LM (which I doubt), the P3D user base will not grow with the MSFS release, rather the opposite. So investing a lot of money into P3D seems like quite the risk to take.

Best regards

Edited November 10, 20196 yr by Lorby_SI

Maybe so but....

It’s going to be very hard going back to P3D after flying all over the world with accurate satellite imagery and photography in MSFS2020 let alone the huge improvement in flight dynamics...!

Sorry, but why is this topic still here on the deceased simulator's subforum!?
I enjoy a lot to fly on P3D V4, even dead or not.
As all of you I'm excited with the MSFS announcement but it is just that, an annoucement with stunning video footage and with the "promise land" in your computer in the near future. Okay, great. But opening a topic stating the announced dead of one of the most used simulators (and with active development) and quoting an announcement of PMDG not developing any more for XPlane platform doesn't make much sense in my opinion. Or at least should be posted on the MSFS or XPlane subforum with other title instead of here. And please I have nothing against XPlane, MSFS or the OP.
P3D is not perfect and none of the other options are. And unfortunetely I have to say that MSFS will not be perfect either. It will have his limitations, bugs, drawbacks as every other simulator on market today. I really hope it can give us much more than we have today. But till then I'll have much to enjoy with the deceased simulator.
 

8 hours ago, Lorby_SI said:

3. Lockheed would have to pay Microsoft for using the Azure online infrastructure.

 

Lockheed Martin has been a customer of Microsoft Azure for most of the last decade. Considering Microsoft won a 10 billion dollar defense contract with the Pentagon for Cloud computing, I think LM and Microsoft realigning their product lines may not be as complicated as we think and even mutually beneficial.  Microsoft can get some of the benefits of P3D's SDK development and LM get new environment rendering. Also the add on Devs who make products for both us end users and for private commercial clients will only benefit from LM and MS realigning. Like having Windows client and Windows Server aligned, the whole ecosystem benefits. Just my thoughts on the matter. 🙂
 

6 hours ago, FrankSalo said:

Lockheed Martin has been a customer of Microsoft Azure for most of the last decade. Considering Microsoft won a 10 billion dollar defense contract with the Pentagon for Cloud computing, I think LM and Microsoft realigning their product lines may not be as complicated as we think and even mutually beneficial.  Microsoft can get some of the benefits of P3D's SDK development and LM get new environment rendering. Also the add on Devs who make products for both us end users and for private commercial clients will only benefit from LM and MS realigning. Like having Windows client and Windows Server aligned, the whole ecosystem benefits. Just my thoughts on the matter. 🙂
 

Everyone who is using Visual Studio is a "customer of Azure". Azure is the brand name for everything development related at Microsoft. But even assuming that you mean the cloud computing part, being a customer or being a reseller who brings thousands of other customers are different things in licensing and contractual relationship. 

You can't just rip out and replace parts of the software, it doesn't work like that. Assuming that P3D could somehow adopt the new MSFS technology and stil remain compatible with the old world is not even a speculation, it is pure fantasy, a dream. P3D and MSFS have vastly different codebases, libraries (SpeedTrees, Scaleform, Triton etc. - take a look into the "licenses" subfolder), even P3D MDL files are not FSX standard anymore. IMO, the only option would be for LM to throw away everything that they built in the last 10 years, and buy the MSFS code base - develop P3D one more time from the start.
Why Microsoft should allow the existence of a duplicate of their simulator, sold by a different company to corporate or government customers, is beyond me. What is in it for them?

I'm not saying that this can't happen. Stranger things did in the software world. I'm just saying that this doesn't really compute for me, neither from a business nor technology perspective. 

Best regards

Edited November 11, 20196 yr by Lorby_SI

17 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

 Why Microsoft should allow the existence of a duplicate of their simulator, sold by a different company to corporate or government customers, is beyond me. What is in it for them?

Best regards

There it is, exactly what I believe. I have no idea what the nature of the agreement is between MS and LM. But, if I were MS why would I allow anyone using my ESP code for non-entertainment purposes compete with me in the entertainment space? It would not make any business sense at all.

Say what you will about MS but doing silly business practices is not one of them.

Edited November 11, 20196 yr by gsand

3 hours ago, gsand said:

Say what you will about MS but doing silly business practices is not one of them.

Hi,

The expression “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts” comes to mind. I believe the origin is an allusion to the story of the wooden horse of Troy, used by the Greeks to trick their way into the city.

Impressive though it may seem to us from the evidence presented, I still have an uncomfortable feeling that these developments may turn out to be a carefully timed plan to destroy our loyalties towards much of the competition which has served us so well during a protracted 10 year period when MS were found wanting. Sadly, there are many who will respond by saying “So what, ‘‘t’was ever thus. What’s wrong with a bit of competition?” Well, yes, but then how does the undermining of 3rd Party enthusiasm to enhance and innovate for other flight simulators help anyone if no one is buying?

Folk here seem all too willing to forgive and forget arguing, as always, past and present behaviours were driven simply by commercial imperatives. Flight simulation has never been the cash cow that leads to riches galore. All the more reason for MS to capture what they can in terms of a willing potentially compliant user audience. The evidence strongly suggests that they are succeeding big time!

I would be the first to acknowledge that my suspicions could be way off base. Nevertheless, in my eyes at least, MS still have much to prove.

Also, let’s not forget that kudos for the development of  ‘MS2020’ should, in fact, be going to the French Asobo Studio and not, in fact, Microsoft. The latter have provided the financial backing and the marketing clout and, presumably, purchased the right to publish under the Microsoft name by Xbox Game Studios.

Mike