7 minutes ago, GlideBy said:

While I am not disputing the no subscription idea, I do not think this is comparable.  I think MSFS is a unique use of Azure, as they are doing AI work.  From the Azure website "Powering games like Minecraft, Halo, and Sea of Thieves, Azure enables built-in virtual networking and load balancing. Plus, automatically sync between cloud and on-premises systems."   Those are normal services that other games provide.

 

Do you have more information on this?  I was not aware of this.

Crackdown 3 is an example of what I'm getting at. Using virtual machines to do physics calculations on the fly in multiplayer matches. Even then it ended up living up far below their original vision. By comparison MSFS seems to be a breeze.

1 minute ago, Krakin said:

Crackdown 3 is an example of what I'm getting at. Using virtual machines to do physics calculations on the fly in multiplayer matches.

Thanks, I will look into it.

9 minutes ago, GlideBy said:

Thanks, I will look into it.

Oh and to answer your other question, I meant to say real world *weather*

1 hour ago, jpc55 said:

 

I describe this as taking the money out of the right pocket and putting it left pocket, and vice versa.  

All big corporations as each group will have it's own budget. We, call them "wooden nickles"  any development will come out of our "business partners" wallet, and we (IT) cover the infrastructure. but even there , wooden nickels between developers (one group) and (architecture and infrastructure group. Fun stuff. As far as I'm concerned, bureaucracy because at each point they all have their approval process. Lol

I think there are a lot of factors to account for.

How many TB of streaming data will the _average_ MFS user use each month/year? (Note I said average user, not the enthusiast simmer).

How much does it cost each TB of streaming to MS?

How much will the average user pay MFS (One time purchase vs gamepass subscription)?

How much will the average user spend on hypothetical marketplace add-ons and what share of it will MS get?

For how many years will a one time MFS purchase grant hypothetical free streaming? 5 years? 10 years? Forever?

The sale model depends on the answer to these questions.

For example, it is possible that some users (high spenders on addons, low time users) will indirectly subsidize other users (low spenders, intensive users), with the latter being a net loss and the former a net gain for MS.

6 hours ago, Murmur said:

with the latter being a net loss

Any user group that MSFT discovers is making them a net loss over the duration of the products life will find the terms of their online access change very quickly.

8 hours ago, Murmur said:

I think there are a lot of factors to account for.

How many TB of streaming data will the _average_ MFS user use each month/year? (Note I said average user, not the enthusiast simmer).

How much does it cost each TB of streaming to MS?

How much will the average user pay MFS (One time purchase vs gamepass subscription)?

How much will the average user spend on hypothetical marketplace add-ons and what share of it will MS get?

For how many years will a one time MFS purchase grant hypothetical free streaming? 5 years? 10 years? Forever?

The sale model depends on the answer to these questions.

For example, it is possible that some users (high spenders on addons, low time users) will indirectly subsidize other users (low spenders, intensive users), with the latter being a net loss and the former a net gain for MS.

Microsoft will not be worried about data usage.  They have one of the largest backbone networks in the world.

The data usage from people playing MSFS will be absolutely miniscule to them.  Not even noticeable.

There are 1.5 billion windows users, many of them daily connecting to microsoft data centers as well as a lot of enterprise customers, Xbox connections etc. They have a ton of data centers. Moving data is what they do.

The data usage from someone playing MSFS is no different than a decent quality YouTube stream.

The corporate customer will have priority they pay, and the system (cloud ) was built for that, Sony intend to launch a MS Cloud based streaming later this year for gaming (subscription based) , MS no longer use windows version to make money they give it away free for upgrade but see cloud based computing the future as other do, and the future is subscription based software AKA OFFICE you never own the software you rent it.

But you can be sure MSFS release will be as smooth as windows 10 update.

Edited February 18, 20206 yr by rjfry

On 2/15/2020 at 9:40 AM, martin-w said:

And the nice thing is that "a good internet connection" to see the max detail, is a mere 10 MBS.

Guys, please be careful when typing connection speeds. What you typed is the equivalent of 80Mbps.  small b is bits, large B is bytes.  A 8x difference. Did you mean 10Mbps? 10Mb/s is understood too

Edited February 18, 20206 yr by Brandon0110

27 minutes ago, Brandon0110 said:

10mbps

Yup, that's what he meant

9 hours ago, mSparks said:

MSFT

What's that?

On 2/17/2020 at 9:39 AM, Casualcas said:

Yeah, shipping a 747 to your door would be quite expensive, but where are you going to park it?

Bend over.....j/k sir 🙂

10 hours ago, mSparks said:

Any user group that MSFT discovers is making them a net loss over the duration of the products life will find the terms of their online access change very quickly.

There is no scenario where MSFS data usage is a "net loss" for them. Any streaming to MSFS is a drop in the bucket and not even a rounding error to their total data distribution. You can go do the same thing for free right now. Download the Bing map app and have fun. It's free as well.

MS is not going anywhere. Bing maps is not going anywhere. I realize your shtick is to spread fear in every MSFS thread but there's nothing to back up your assertions at all and they are counter-intuitive anyway. MS makes the most money by selling millions of copies, not limiting the game to a niche willing to pay a monthly fee. 

MSFS also does not cease to be useful without streaming scenery, even if 10 years from now they cut it off. It's got a full offline mode and you can download areas of orthos for safe keeping as well. 

Edited February 18, 20206 yr by bonchie

42 minutes ago, Brandon0110 said:

Guys, please be careful when typing connection speeds. What you typed is the equivalent of 80mbps.  small b is bits, large B is bytes.  A 8x difference. Did you mean 10mbps? 10mb/s is understood too

Small m is milli btw. 😜

I find it unfortunate that some people are still buying the ISP anti-net-neutrality line that data is a limited resource that, apparently, has to be mined or manufactured and therefore costs a lot of money any time someone uses it.

That server is up and running whether I'm flying over a new scenery area or not. It's the build costs of the data infrastructure that represent the real money, but once it's built the costs are pretty close to the same whether I download Los Angeles or not. And that data infrastructure has already been built and will continue to be expanded and re-built whether we simmers access the data or not.

I think the early-days moniker for the internet, the "Information Superhighway," has opened people up to this interpretation. Highways are expensive, and the more vehicles that run on them the more expensive maintenance and repair they require. But that isn't true of data - our "superhighway" isn't going to be worn down or get potholes from data passing through the cables. We need to get away from this idea that data is some precious and very limited resource. From a large backbone perspective, it's simply not. The only time "data" gets expensive is when you're sending so much of it that you overwhelm your infrastructure and have to spend money to expand. But that's not gonna be an issue here. Yeah, we're using what to us is "a lot" of data to grab the scenery at full res, but from the other side's perspective, we're spitting into Niagara Falls. We're not even going to be a blip in the activity.

 

 

Edited February 18, 20206 yr by eslader