Let me further clarify my point.  When an airport developer creates a new airport, they usually travel to the the airport, take a lot of photos, then spend up to a year or more in creating textures and putting it all together.  They then charge what the market will bear, and that's in the $25-35 range.  A new sim comes along, and they make scenery adjustments to fit the new simulator.  That would likely be several weeks of work, but I'm just guessing here.  Again, they will charge what the market will bear, and if enough simmers are willing to pay full price again then that's going to happen.  That's the point of my initial post, was to see if the sim community was willing to repurchase the same airports at full price, and based on the replies it appears you are.

 

 

 

34 minutes ago, b737800 said:

Mr Sheen or Brasso?

Bona

You do not need a market crash, companies often change tack and end up righting off billions, Microsoft purchased Nokia and windows 10 mobile UWC was going to drive the market then someone at the top pulled the plug and a few billion dollars went down plug hole. let`s just hope people flock to the new XBOX and make game pass a going investment or ???? 

2 hours ago, curt1 said:

 So, what do you all think? 

I sympathize with those who are tight on money but I can only repeat what has been said before. It is a loss only if you decide to give up P3D which is a good and solid sim and will still be here for your enjoyment. 

I do not find it depressing at all to start over with, hopefully, new and better landscapes, new and better airports, new and better aircraft. 

2 hours ago, ual763 said:

I believe a lot of developers (at least the reputable ones) will upgrade their offerings for the new MSFS2020, and charge only an upgrade fee.   

I wouldn't bet on it if they have to start over from scratch and even so. PMDG made a special commercial gesture for the 737 because they had to jumpstart sales of their new baby in a depressed market . 

 

Edited January 2, 20206 yr by domkle

I've been flight simming since the 80's so I've bought literally thousands of dollars worth of addons for flight sims over many decades.  Most of which haven't been of any use to me in a very long time due to tech marching on.

The new MFS will be no different.  Personally if the sim turns out as good as it appears to be I'll happily start from ground zero and start investing anew.  I've done it before and some day the cycle will start over again, though hopefully not for a long time.  Thankfully it sounds like Microsoft want to keep the new sim alive for the long haul, so it sounds promising financially.

This is how the hobby works.  You can either fly the sims stock or you can buy addons to improve them with the knowledge that those addons will be obsolete eventually. 

This is the way.

Nothing holds the same value in time. This applies to my XP purchases as well. I enjoyed using them, i enjoy using them, i might not enjoy using them in the future. Who cares? Why do you feel so attached to them?

The good old news as usual is, you can still use them for the products they were designed for (FSX, P3D, XP). No one is taking them away from you.

I am also money limited so i understand it UP to one point however. I feel that if you need to have these kind of thoughts probably you spent too much in the first place, in that case the issue is between the chair and the keyboard, not in the simulators themselves or the strategies put in place by competing developers 🙂

C'mon now, no piece of computer software (or hardware for that matter) has ever had anything even resembling long-term value.  If you buy it expecting to use it for more than, say, five years or so, you're just kidding yourself.  FSX was an aberration in the normal flow of things--Microsoft's sudden departure left us with a functional and static environment for many years, over which many of us accumulated tons of add-ons.  The norm before that (and again after P3D and XPlane materialized) was turnover to a new major version every couple of years, often breaking add-ons in a significant way and requiring re-purchases or major updates, some free, some not.

I've said it before, and I'll repeat it here...it's going to be some time--years--before we have anything close to the range of options in SimZilla that we have now for P3D and FSX, especially w/r/t aircraft, ATC, AI traffic, and weather add-ons.  I still use FSX on occasion because I have a couple of favorite FSX add-ons that never made it to P3D, and those airports and airplanes are still there for me when I want to engage in some sim nostalgia.  I fully expect to be using P3D for years still, even with the assumption that I'll also be moving into SimZilla over time.  And all my FS9 stuff is still there, sitting dormant in my disk archives, but I haven't touched it in 3-4 years now, and likely won't again.  I also have some radio equipment that was pretty pricey when I bought it that is all but useless today.  I'm not heartbroken about any of it, because I have understood for a long time that it's how the world rolls.  If you want hobby gear that holds its value, buy some classic guitars or invest in quality glass camera lenses.

So no, it's not a market crash.  It's just another routine moulting season for the hobby.  And don't expect that refresh cycling to stop as you gear-up in the coming SimZilla virtual world.  We'll all be having this discussion again in a few years.

Regards

When you figure in all the countless hours you spend in flight simulation as opposed to all the other "hobbies" out there (some of them much more expensive, like golf) then I'd  say you already got more than your money's worth...

I too have invested mucho dollars in FSX payware, but I will gladly say farewell to them if they are not compatible in FS2020, esp. if it lives up to all the previews.      

40 minutes ago, w6kd said:

C'mon now, no piece of computer software (or hardware for that matter) has ever had anything even resembling long-term value.

 

😁

Ha! Google "Mega Man" for Ninteno. Sold for 75.000 US$

😉

 

10 hours ago, curt1 said:

I'm sure many of you experienced 'Black Monday' on Oct. 19, 1987, as it was the single largest stock decline in U.S. history.  People saw their investments just evaporate, and it took a long time to rebuild their savings.  As happy as I am with Microsoft and Asobo, I'm feeling the pain of another kind of investment crash, that being my P3D airport investments.  Did all that airport money just disappear with no value going forward?  The thought of that is really depressing, and I hope somehow the value of those purchases can carry over to the new sim.  Maybe, just perhaps, the default airports will be so good that I won't need payware to the same extent, but I doubt that at the moment.  So, what do you all think? 

Before you made any of those purchases, did the seller state that their product was going to work with any sim you chose to use in the future?  If not, you already knew your "investment" was limited life.

 

To help put the costs associated with flight simming in perspective, I like to think of what it costs for one hour in a real Cessna 150,  or for a single round of golf at a good golf course. And the latter is often for a few hours of aggravation!    😉

Al

Edited January 3, 20206 yr by ark

• Solution is simple. Just keep your P3DV4. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm still flying and buying. If you buy a new house or car no law says you can't keep the old one.😉

Out of all the payware addons you can get for P3D/X-Plane, the airports are the ones which will do the best when it comes to dealing with the new market. The airports in MSFS won't be as detailed as what you get from some developers such as Aerosoft EGLL, FlyTampa Dubai etc.

However, other scenery addon such as high res imagery for a region (Orbx) or advanced weather engines (Active Sky/REX) will not do well. 

Edited January 3, 20206 yr by highflyer2020

10 hours ago, PATCO LCH said:

• Solution is simple. Just keep your P3DV4.

No, I can't do that.  I've been flying in FSX / P3D for well over a decade now and it feels like it.  I've been craving a better simulator for a very long time but P3D was my only option (Xplane is nice, but I think P3D is better) and lets face it, P3D feels like a slightly improved FSX because thats exactly what it is.

Now, finally, a better more modern sim is coming, and I'm so happy aobut it I can't even express it into words.  I'm not buying anything for P3D ever again, I'm ready to migrate to something better, and yeah I'm more than willing to build a new high end PC and leave all my DLC and addons behind to do so.

Sticking with the old sims isn't an option for me.  Not even slightly.