What will become of ORBX?

[PilotPete99 915]

40 minutes ago, eaim said:

Ray I tend to agree with you, my intentions regarding the legacy flight sims will depend on how good MSFS is in different areas of flight, if it only excels in VFR i'll use it for that and probably still use either P3D v5 or Xplane 11 for IFR, but if MSFS excels in both VFR and IFR, then i'll most likely transition towards MSFS. Needless to say I'm not saying that I would never use P3D/Xplane ever again because I would, even if just to get my monies worth of the £1,000's spent buying my add ons.

I’m wondering also if the new sim will really emphasize the GA VFR flying. Since I am a private pilot I have always been bored flying GA in the sim. That said I am obsessed with tube liners, so perhaps P3d will still be the standard once the sim is released. I guess time will tell.

Cheers, Pete

[DrumsArt 270]

Wouldn't this thread, as interesting as it is, be more appropriate in the Hangar chat forum?
Just a thought 😎

Richard.

 

 

[dpcnh1 44]

The opportunities for 3rd party developers are not going away with MSFS.  They my change some, but not going away.

Edited May 24, 2020 by dpcnh1
typo

[michaelth 76]

Please forgive an old lateral thinker:

how will Aerosoft, Justflight, FSL, PMDG, Majestic, Leonardo, HiFi Simtech, to name only a few, survive after the release of MSFS? I feel that MSFS is heavily over-estimated. Do you remember all that P3D v5 bashing shortly after release? It has already reduced a bit.

Michael

Edited May 24, 2020 by michaelth

[fogboundturtle 2,708]

I think that ORBX might just focus more on Xplane once FS2020 is out. 

[757FO 143]

I dont believe that companies like FSL, PMDG, etc. have anything to worry about, I dont imagine MSFS2020 will simulate down to the details of products like FSL A32x or PMDG. 

[MaDDogz 242]

pff..

[Clutch Cargo 384]

I think 3rd party developers will trend towards smaller airports as MS won't be recreating those in such detail.  ANd there's 10's of thousands of those.  That's where orbx made their mark.  Also utilities and niche addons will continue to thrive.  I create photoreal scenery, so I may be dead in the water there. 😞

Also remember, like in the past, not all simmers will drop everything to the "latest & greatest".   Add the cost of the required internet speed to run MS2020 (or should I say MS2021), at full bore and a typical $59.99 app turns into one that could cost up towards $600/year? 

[Amon1973 1,421]

1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

She has not visited the ORBx forum since September 18 last year, so I am guessing that she is long gone....

That's a shame, she seemed a nice person on the few occasions I've met her, I hope she's doing well wherever she's working now. 

[Christopher Low 5,352]

I noted that she was not at the Cosford Flightsim Show last October, which made me wonder if she had parted company with ORBx.

[Amon1973 1,421]

2 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

I noted that she was not at the Cosford Flightsim Show last October, which made me wonder if she had parted company with ORBx.

I might be wrong but I think she was on Dirkadurka's twitch stream after Cosford representing Orbx, giving Orbx stuff away. Which makes me wonder if Dirka still has a tie in with Orbx?

[jon b 2,047]

MSFS uses ground breaking scenery techniques and is putting considerable effort in to their default aircraft, true enough, but they are at the end of the day still default options.

When in this hobby has a default scenery , airport or aircraft ever been better than a good quality payware or indeed often freeware add on?

Certainly never in the 30 odd years I’ve been enjoying the hobby has that been the case, and I don’t think that’s about to change.

I believe MSFS will raise the bar in the level of detail and quality that comes as standard out of the box in flight simulation, but it certainly won’t get anywhere near the quality delivered by ORBX, PMDG ,FSL and the like.

[SP2472 2,297]

My thoughts on Orbx and FS2020, for what's it worth...already expressed before.

FS2020 already has the scenery but probably (not known by me) will only offer a limited amount of detailed airports...a big opening for Orbx. Also, there is only a small representation of aircraft so many more will have to be created.

 

[SimonC 116]

I think the original poster is right in some points, but the general opinion here is something that bothers me: I don't think his intention was to say that ORBX will be gone. Only that sceneries like TrueEarth won't be necessary any more. Because MSFS provides that already.

But I wholeheartedly agree with @Farlis, ORBX might as  well continue to *enhance* the scenery, just like they have been doing for a long time now. I don't believe it either financially viable nor timely possible for Asobo to go into such detail, like 3PD have been doing for P3D.

In my opinion MSFS looks better than P3D in almost every aspect. Even P3D loaded with addons. Even with TrueEarth, and v5 with enhanced atmospherics... MSFS is still in the front - my honest opinion. If you personally didn't experience flying in MSFS, especially in "interesting weather", then you can't know how it is.

Didn't Asobo say they are also making a "sim for simmer", or something along the lines? I think they are on the right path to achieve that.

@simbol: you capitalized game. By a word of definition, both FSX and P3D are a game. All the same one, actually. P3Dv5 being a heavily enhanced ESP-"game".

So is the MSFS. But, by making it moddable, like P3D and XP are, it will essentially be open to the 3PD market - so, in that respect, what is different than P3D, except that there is no 3PD content for it yet?

It will take time to establish itself like P3D/XP, given the right conditions. I think the "base-layer" is very well done.

Edited May 24, 2020 by SimonC

[honanhal 1,420]

3 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Speaking personally I think plenty of people will stick with P3D and therefore they will continue to buy from ORBX. If you’re an IFR pilot I’m not sure how important seeing the ground as depicted in MFS is when you’re 6 miles up.

For VFR flying MFS might be the preferred simulator providing they have a fast enough internet speed. But for IFR I think there are plenty of reasons why P3D will remain attractive.

You may be right that there’s some portion of IFR simmers for whom MSFS doesn’t offer enough to switch (I’m skeptical that this will be a significant group — we’ll see). But I’m just not seeing how that group overlaps with Orbx’s core market, who by definition are simmers who want to improve the way their scenery looks.

If I’m a hardcore systems guy who doesn’t care what the view out the window looks like, why would I be buying Orbx products in the first place?

James