9 minutes ago, LHookins said:

I'm used to software having a limited useful life.

Yes, one does need to treat modern software this way, at least for the commercial side. However, it isn't always clear to many people and still catches them out when they run into it.

12 hours ago, captain420 said:

Since most of the data is streamed from the cloud, what would happen if Asobo/Microsoft no longer provide any support or abandons the sim? Does that mean we won't be able to use the sim anymore since it's dependent on the petabytes of data that is streamed over from the cloud? This is one thing that I'm worried about, and that's the future of MFS.

It will become P3D2020

2 hours ago, MatthewS said:

Gullible aren't you, as if words mean anything.  The dollar is almighty and Microsoft is a public company, responsible to it's shareholders, not "gamers" or third party devs.  If the profits are not good enough they will pull the plug without a second thought... I'd say Microsoft will give MSFS a two year grace period before assessing it's future.

Actually, words do mean something when they are in a shareholder's report. Even if a company has shareholders, more often than not it tends to look after its board members, but to do that, board members need to be carefully aware that when a company issues a yearly report to its shareholders, which is also of interest to prospective shareholders, that includes its projected plans, which will have included the plan for MSFS covering a ten-year investment period, so if a board then decides to renege on that, the board will seem to lack direction, drive and commitment, but more importantly it will be seen to be misleading the shareholders by not sticking to the plan. When that occurs, the board members will fairly soon find that they are no longer board members when the shareholders vote them out for having misled its investors. And that's really how that stuff works.

So yes, I expect that ten-year investment plan to be held to, especially since it is in one of the largest growth sectors in the entire entertainment business sector.

 

Edited July 21, 20205 yr by Chock

3 minutes ago, Chock said:

So yes, I expect that ten-year investment plan to be held to, especially since it is in one of the largest growth sectors in the entire entertainment business sector.

Unless of course that plan isn't working, at which point the shareholders will be looking to the board to cut their losses. See Microsoft's complete bungling of their mobile phone plans as an example. Apple and Google have completely taken over the smartphone market from Blackberry and Microsoft. While I don't expect MSFS2020 to fail, I'm also not under any illusions that it is immune to economics.

3 minutes ago, goates said:

Unless of course that plan isn't working, at which point the shareholders will be looking to the board to cut their losses. See Microsoft's complete bungling of their mobile phone plans as an example. Apple and Google have completely taken over the smartphone market from Blackberry and Microsoft. While I don't expect MSFS2020 to fail, I'm also not under any illusions that it is immune to economics.

Yes that is of course true, but what everyone needs to be aware of here is that in creating a streaming world for the flight sim, MS have created a base platform which has many more uses than simply as a flight sim, and that is part of the reason why they have done so. Thus, even MS with its somewhat chequered history of backing the wrong technological horse on occasion, could hardly fail to leverage something like that in a useful way.

13 hours ago, captain420 said:what would happen if Asobo/Microsoft no longer provide any support or abandons the sim?

What we alway done, move on, remember:

Ms-DOS

Various windows versions, including the recently now unsupported windows 7,

Flight sim versions including  versions up to FSX and earlier versions of P3D. Early versions of X-Plane.

Record albums, cassettes, eight tracks and VHS tapes, try finding a VHS machine.

we have moved on from all of these in the past or used these earlier versions realizing there will be no further support.

John Cottreau.

28 minutes ago, johncott said:

Record albums, cassettes, eight tracks and VHS tapes, try finding a VHS machine.

The big difference between all of these and current software being distributed online is that none of those media formats, or the machines to run them, will vanish from your shelf or stop working because the contact creator decides to shut everything down. There are even brand new record players being made today. Most software shipped on floppies, CD or DVD before the Internet really took hold can also still be installed and enjoyed today. On the other hand, those big libraries of games and applications people have amassed on Steam or Apple's App Store, and their many competitors, can be wiped out at the whim of the developer or publisher, leaving the end user with nothing. At this point they truly have no option but to move on.

Actually, I've got a VHS player that I bought for my wife a couple of years ago.  Made by Funai.

Hook

2 hours ago, goates said:

On the other hand, those big libraries of games and applications people have amassed on Steam or Apple's App Store, and their many competitors, can be wiped out at the whim of the developer or publisher, leaving the end user with nothing. At this point they truly have no option but to move on.

As an aside, Regarding MS FLIGHT, I was one of those very very angry at my lack of access to my legally purchased product, and began a motion on their customer service forums for GFWL users to combine for a class action lawsuit. I had actually contacted three separate law firms and was giving them particulars on the issue, when abruptly, after literally years of inaction, the Microsoft support lady on the forum announced that a software glitch had been discovered and repaired, and that our accounts and downloads were once again available.

I made a post/thread regarding this at the time on the Avsim flight forums letting everyone know that their accounts were (suddenly) available again.

The accounts were only available for a limited time apparently, because after a week or two, they once again died, and I have never had access again.

Hopefully we all made copies!! Especially of our access codes for Steam!

Edited July 22, 20205 yr by HiFlyer

1 hour ago, johncott said:

Record albums, cassettes, eight tracks and VHS tapes, try finding a VHS machine.

 

I must have forgotten to move on. I still use my record player, have all my records and cassettes, a dual cassette player, all my VHS tapes and my VHS player, all still working. I did offload my 78s a few years ago but have kept all my 45s.

 

$59.99 is worth it for a couple years of the best looking sim ever and some nice memories.,,,

 

Plus as said earlier offline mode is decent .. if xplane had the clouds/environment (including sun glare etc) and the shading, without changing the ground at all it would look 2x better.  

 

Im not naive. If this thing is losing money, it aint going to make it 10 years.. doesnt matter what anyone said.. but so far its looking pretty good as far as excitement for the sim. If its even just keeping the lights and breaking even , i think we'll be ok... having an xbox version and gamepass will definitely going to help with viability 

Edited July 22, 20205 yr by Wewk584