May 28th, 2020 - Development/Insider Update

[ludekbrno 302]

31 minutes ago, jlund said:

"Now, the unpopular opinion, (but it´s just that, an opinion) and I really wish to be wrong, but I think NavBlue will be a subscription."  I can't see why it is an upopular opinion, cause I think you're absolutely right.

Although MS and Asobo have said that it won't be a subscribsion, I'm pretty sure that only goes for the simulator itself.

Scenery, weather, live traffic, ATC, IFR (so navigation data too), multiplayer etc. are an integral part of MSFS, not some add-on software. And don't forget, that for multiplayer all players must use the same navigation data! So I think, that it's a completely wrong opinion about necessry subscription. MS/Asobo said, that you can buy MSFS as one-time purchase or with Game pass subscription. They didn't tell, that you can buy an incomplete version MSFS with limited functionality as one-time purchase or complete version MSFS as Game pass subscription. So i still can't understand, why again, again and again someone must spread this fake news about monthly subscription necessary for fully functionality. Many people still can't understand, what Xbox Gamepass for PC means .It is not a service service for buying an additional functionalities in games. It's only one of two equivalent possibilities to buy full game. 1) One-time purchase or 2) monthly subscription, but you allways get the same complete game with all functionalites.

Edited May 31, 2020 by ludekbrno

[jlund 381]

Why is it so hard to believe that Nav data MAYBE will be a subscription model? FSX and P3D was also a one time buy, BUT if you want up to date navdata you have to subscribe to Navigraph (or Aerosoft).

[Dominique_K 10,152]

Just now, ludekbrno said:

 So i still can't understand, why again, again and again someone must spread this fake news about monthly subscription necessary for fully functionality.  

One thing is sure, the game itself including the scenery streaming and MP won't be subscription based. The question of the remuneration of complementary services coming from "partners" has never been raised as such in interviews with Neuman or Wloch as far a I remember. So we just don't know. I note however that MS is pretty shy on the matter of pricing one year after the announcement and about a probable 6 months before release.

 

[Thomasso 224]

On 5/29/2020 at 9:49 PM, Tuskin38 said:

Why would you prefer to pay more money?

Because it would motivate the developer to continue working on it at their best - too keep customers paying.. win win.

[ludekbrno 302]

1 hour ago, Dominique_K said:

One thing is sure, the game itself including the scenery streaming and MP won't be subscription based. The question of the remuneration of complementary services coming from "partners" has never been raised as such in interviews with Neuman or Wloch as far a I remember. So we just don't know. I note however that MS is pretty shy on the matter of pricing one year after the announcement and about a probable 6 months before release.

 

The question is, if navigation data are additional or basic content of MSFS? 🙂I am nearly sure, that everythink what MS/Asobo present in discovery episodes, is the part of the basic content of MSFS. Why should they now present some products from 3PD, that aren't an integral parts of MSFS during MSFS presentations? If they want to promote 3PD content for separate payment, better time will be only after MSFS release. Otherwise MSFS contain much more on-line sources from 3PD (many 3PD sources for scenery or weather etc.) and nobody tells, that you must have monthly subscription for weather. Why should pay for navdata? 🙂 We must remember, that MSFS change sims from off-line to on-line software, not complete off-line, like other sims. But it doesn't mean, that users have to pay for something by subscription. If they said, that we can buy complete MSFS game as one-time or subscription, there isn't any reason to expect any necessary subscription for some part of the game. I think, if MS need a repeated payment for some content, they would not offer one-time purchase at all.

[Superdelphinus 718]

2 hours ago, jlund said:

Why is it so hard to believe that Nav data MAYBE will be a subscription model? FSX and P3D was also a one time buy, BUT if you want up to date navdata you have to subscribe to Navigraph (or Aerosoft).

Because there is zero evidence for it?

[Thomasso 224]

1 minute ago, Superdelphinus said:

Because there is zero evidence for it?

Is there any evidence that it won't be?

[n4gix 4,961]

On ‎5‎/‎29‎/‎2020 at 2:07 PM, Farlis said:

There are text to speech programs who know how to phonetically combine syllables correctly.

They are used in car navigation for example.

Oh yeah, my Garmin Nuvi is so terrific at pronunciation... Like "Adam Benjamin Virginia Medical Clinic." It seems it cannot distinguish "VA" to be anything other than "Virginia" and not the "VA" (Veterans Administration). It regularly manages to mangle other street names as well.

6 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I have stated this many times, but I personally think that the ATC voices in FSX/P3D sound very good. Quite how they can sound "robotic" (as some people have claimed) when they are actually recorded human voices is difficult to understand.

"Robotic" because of speed (way too slow), pacing (irregular) and inflection (as in none at all).

They are much improved after having been speeded up, had the pacing regularized by Editvoicepack of course!

[JRBarrett 3,133]

47 minutes ago, ludekbrno said:

The question is, if navigation data are additional or basic content of MSFS? 🙂I am nearly sure, that everythink what MS/Asobo present in discovery episodes, is the part of the basic content of MSFS. Why should they now present some products from 3PD, that aren't an integral parts of MSFS during MSFS presentations? If they want to promote 3PD content for separate payment, better time will be only after MSFS release. Otherwise MSFS contain much more on-line sources from 3PD (many 3PD sources for scenery or weather etc.) and nobody tells, that you must have monthly subscription for weather. Why should pay for navdata? 🙂 We must remember, that MSFS change sims from off-line to on-line software, not complete off-line, like other sims. But it doesn't mean, that users have to pay for something by subscription. If they said, that we can buy complete MSFS game as one-time or subscription, there isn't any reason to expect any necessary subscription for some part of the game. I think, if MS need a repeated payment for some content, they would not offer one-time purchase at all.

Nav data isn’t free (in general). Providers like Jeppesen or NavBlue, don’t just simply give it away. Granted, the data they sell to vendors like Navigraph for use only in flight simulation is only a tiny fraction of the price that the very same data certified for use in a real aircraft would cost. (A 12-month subscription for worldwide Jeppesen FMS data for a real aircraft costs between $5,000 and $10,000 per year per aircraft, depending on the specific FMS model.)

It may be that Microsoft has reached a long-term arrangement with a company like NavBlue at a low enough cost that they can afford to include it in MSFS on an ongoing basis without passing the cost along to end users of the sim. That remains to be seen.

Edited May 31, 2020 by JRBarrett

[Tuskin38 6,645]

They would have said in the video if any of these features cost extra, or in fine print somewhere, to cover their butt from liability.

Edited May 31, 2020 by Tuskin38

[Mace 1,964]

5 hours ago, SamYeager said:

If you type the waypoint in caps e.g. GRIFFY it will pronounce the letters individually although if you type in lowercase e.g. griffy then it will pronounce it as expected. 

Hmm, that's strange, I cannot get google translate nor bing translate to pronouce GRIFFY phonetically, no matter what I do -- lower case, upper case, whatever.  They both just say "griffy" in english.  Am I doing something wrong?

The only one that *might* have been phonetic was the French translation on Google Translate, but I can't quite tell as my French is not good.

[ap1 16]

25 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

They would have said in the video if any of these features cost extra, or in fine print somewhere, to cover their butt from liability.

I would think so too.  It does sound from the video as if the NAV data will continue to be updated without cost.

[ludekbrno 302]

4 hours ago, jlund said:

Why is it so hard to believe that Nav data MAYBE will be a subscription model? FSX and P3D was also a one time buy, BUT if you want up to date navdata you have to subscribe to Navigraph (or Aerosoft).

Because data from Navigraph never was not presented as integral part of FSX and P3D.

[ap1 16]

https://gamerant.com/microsoft-flight-simulator-data-updated-regularly/amp/
 

This article seems to say that the data will be updated every cycle.  It doesn’t say anything as far as I can tell about a cost.

[threexgreen 3,160]

4 hours ago, jlund said:

Why is it so hard to believe that Nav data MAYBE will be a subscription model? FSX and P3D was also a one time buy, BUT if you want up to date navdata you have to subscribe to Navigraph (or Aerosoft).

1 hour ago, Thomasso said:

Is there any evidence that it won't be?

There is an interview with Jorg Neumann, head of the MSFS project at Microsoft, in which he was asked about whether there would be any form of subscription involved. His answer was no, there is no subscription. You can buy it outright or via the game pass which offers access to all their games. The follow-up question was to get a deeper understanding of this and asked if you wanted to buy only MSFS including all the streaming and data that comes with it, would one be able to purchase that outright (no subscription) and Neumann's answer was yes.

@Rob_Ainscough also said a Microsoft employee communicated to him that there is no subscription involved.

It would certainly be nice to have an ultimate confirmation in one of the updates, but this is why it's looking a lot like there will in fact be no subscription, neither to buy the game nor to use the streaming and data. This is the word straight from the developers/publishers, so I'm inclined to qualify this as evidence.

Edited May 31, 2020 by threegreen
Removed blank space.