I don't see 3rd parties tha develop sceneries as unecessary on the new sim. It's just some products they developed in the past are outdated or won't fit on the new sim.

The global/regional aspects of the scenery are already taken care of, the 3rd parties need develop products to increase the details on the base sceneries. Like packages with landmarks, skyscrapers and POIs for areas not covered by photogrammetry. Airports will also be important (medium and smaller ones).

We will have to see, not everything is on the table right now.

Just now, Lorby_SI said:

Except for the (multi-billion-dollar?) global server infrastructure that Azure is running on. Or XBox Game Pass infrastructure for distribution. Or Microsofts machine learning platforms, that took decades of man-hours to develop. 

If a pro customer requires accurate terrain, there are companies who provide just that. These customers rarely have the requirement for global high fidelity. Check out Quantum 3D, Presagis, XVR and the likes.

Edit: Point being, that the kind of visual fidelity that MSFS offers has always been available, it was just a matter of how much you were willing to pay. MSFS does not reinvent the wheel on the pro/training market. Still, Lockheed found a niche for P3D in its current form anyway. 

Best regards

I said technologies not infrastructure, said infras could be rented from a third party (Amazon ?).

Xbox pass : I didn't say that LM needed the same distribution kind of channel. And will the Pass be really make a difference in this market anyway ? 

Machine learning : hasn't LM strong capacities here too ? They are no slouch in using Ai to analyse sat imagery

Hi-fidelity : what about the flight school markets ?

Finding a niche and thinking that you can stay alone and prosper in the niche = complacency. 

Anyway, my point was, we can't predict the overall potential of the scenery market in a year from now because we (the users) don't know what the good people at LM are cooking

PS sorry for being a little concise, debugging another computer right now 😣

 

 

lets wait for the SDK first, right now we dont know how addition scenery will work out in combination with the Azure World.

I am also interested to recreate my own house in the best quality for FS2020 like the Tower at Courchevelle, you can

clearly see its manually modelled and placed, even the chairs and benches thats not autogen.

The future is maybe additional scenery in "Ultra Ultra" Quality, whether there will be customers for it I do not know.

LM had their chance at a vastly improved flight simulator when they released V4, the long-awaited, grand-and-glorious, holy 64-bit "rewrite" of the simulator. I strongly suspect that there was just enough tinkering with the old 32-bit code to avoid a "false advertising" lawsuit over the "64-bit rewrite." We all expected a huge increase in FPS with V4. We all expected full use of multi-core processors. The result? Literally everyone reading this message was disappointed with LM's "efforts" at a "rewritten" sim. They obviously don't care that much anymore about us. I wouldn't expect their V5, if it's ever released, to compete in any way with MSFS2020.

 

I took up full-time(ish) development late in life, after yet another industry I chose became obsolete, and it was getting tricky for a 50+ to find something new. My particular market is tiny (New Zealand), and sometimes I need to be creative to survive. Since the initial announcement of MSFS I have definitely noticed a slowdown in my online store, but as a simmer, I'm thrilled that finally we are getting something that seems to be shaping up as a modern and complete sim. Sure, the timing couldn't be worse for me, with 18 months until I can collect my pension, but my goal is now to be able to develop for this new sim, simply because it is my obsession.

I suspect that other developers have similar obsessions, and that there are more in my position (I won't get rich) than would let on. I feel sorry for those who chose development to get rich, but I've always believed that this started as a hobby for most, so they are less likely to abandon it when things get tough.

But I can't help feeling that I could just retire when this is released, and spend my time exploring the world via MSFS...

1 hour ago, David Mills said:

LM had their chance at a vastly improved flight simulator when they released V4, the long-awaited, grand-and-glorious, holy 64-bit "rewrite" of the simulator. I strongly suspect that there was just enough tinkering with the old 32-bit code to avoid a "false advertising" lawsuit over the "64-bit rewrite." We all expected a huge increase in FPS with V4. We all expected full use of multi-core processors. The result? Literally everyone reading this message was disappointed with LM's "efforts" at a "rewritten" sim. They obviously don't care that much anymore about us. I wouldn't expect their V5, if it's ever released, to compete in any way with MSFS2020.

 

I think you will find that the people who knew what they were talking about were not saying that there would be a huge increase in performance with the 64bit version of P3D.

Speaking of third-party aircraft developers: The limited choice of default P3D aircraft opened a market for these outside developers, most notably PMDG. For years, I enjoyed flying the Cessna 172 in FSX. When I switched over to P3D, I was disappointed to see that the Cessna had been kicked out of the program. Next, I started flying the Beechcraft 58 with the G1000. This aircraft suited my preferences and skill level. Then, with the next P3D "upgrade," the Beechcraft 58 was sent packing too. So I then adopted the primitively-rendered Airbus as my default aircraft. I had just learned to reliably fly the Airbus when, yep, you guessed it, the Airbus was ejected from the sim. So there's little left in the way of default aircraft except a bunch of 75-year-old jalopies and a few LM fighter jets. (I've yet to see a single person in this forum who uses a fighter jet as his default plane.) My point, again, is that LM has made little effort to upgrade the sim over the years and therefore will not startle us with an amazing V5. Perhaps I'd better learn to fly the submarine.

There will be room for them in GA scenery because Azure is not going to generate 3D models for small objects all over the world, every species of tree for example. And Azure can't automatically model building facades. So sure, if you're at 30,000 feet you can get away with a few custom airports, but GA simmers will still appreciate regional work.

I'm pretty sure there will be  room for 3rd parties to make offerings. This is another wait and see, as all speculation is at this point. 

I would still question how much need there will be for scenery and what people will be willing to pay for it.  Look at the default KSFO and KLAX in MSFS.  You have to wonder if there is a need for a payware version of either one of these...and even if someone wanted slightly more detail are they going to pay $30-$40 for it.  It has certainly been worth it in P3D since all default airports are absolutely abysmal.  It's a question of will the default airports be "good enough" to justify not throwing money out the window just to have the interior of a terminal visible or have a more accurate shade of beige on a building...??  If their AI engine is smart enough to build the terminals/buildings/hangars in the correct locations with a believable texture that might very well be good enough for me. I guess we will see soon enough....

Edited November 25, 20196 yr by Flic1

43 minutes ago, Flic1 said:

I would still question how much need there will be for scenery and what people will be willing to pay for it

That is a consideration for me, that's for sure. It may be that I'd look at re-releasing current airports only, but then sticking to smaller stuff, with a price $10-$20. It would be a bonus if there were more customers, but not really necessary based on my fairly subjective count of the current base who might switch.

And I can't really see MS doing high-detail regional airports here in New Zealand, so it may only mean a slight change in the way I work. My releases are few and far between, which is due to other issues really, but cheaper, quicker releases would be worth pursuing. And I've always made a big thing of photo scenery around any airport release, sometimes huge areas, but having these part of a default sim would make things quicker and easier for me.

I hope there will be an easy tool for simmers all around the world to build the airport using the 'lego brick' system like in XP11 scenery gateway. I hope simmers will have a convenient tool to modify the landclass (if it still implement in the new fs), submit 3d landmarks building or vector scenery to the MS server and a mod will moderate the submitted contents. So every time when we fly in FS2020, we will see airports all around the world get updated or enhanced gradually, or the landclass/vector scenery in certain region get improved automatically.