So I was thinking. Assuming no early download availability, the sim is allegedly available for D/L from 23:00 on the 17th. Now, with that in mind, when do you think it will be zipped up and finalised?

Here's my theory. I'm gonna assume that Asobo has a company structures which is essentially along the lines of this: A lead programmer for various sections of the sim, with some minions they dole tasks out to, and they report to a project supervisor, who reports to a boss, who reports to an MS project supervisor, who reports to a boss, who reports to marketing etc.

With this in mind, I reckon the following: They would need the (three) final zipped and ready to rock download versions all done and dusted at the latest on the 17th at perhaps 5pm in order to allow for last minute stuff ups, so it could be plonked on the servers and the files tested to see if they D/L okay. Which means they'd need those files (to be safe) ready maybe 24 hours before that time so that they could be unzipped and tested on a few machines to ensure there are no cock ups, making that early on the 16th. Which in turn means the people who compiled the files needed them maybe the day before, making that the 15th. The project manager will have needed to tell the various department leads to have their stuff ready to go in time for collating, and since they'd have to tell their minions to have it all ready, that means the 14th. But the minions needed to be ironing last minute bugs out and stuff, finishing up and so the bug reports and tests had to be stopped at least the day before, making that the 13th. So this means the sim would have to be pretty much completed as far as content is concerned on the 12th. Throw in the meetings about this and the odd delay or stuff up and that puts it on the 11th.

So, the sim should be all pretty much finalised in less than week's time by my reckoning. Unless that is, it works like it did when I was at a newspaper, where someone would run in to the office and tell me they needed a fifteen hundred word article on a subject which I knew nothing about and would have to research, with photographs, written and subbed with the page PDF ready for transmission in three hours time. 🤣

 

I think in order for any particular version they're working on to become a release candidate and then finalized for distribution would take at least 2 weeks...so my money says that the first version to be released as retail has likely already been zipped up or will very shortly be in the process of that.

Yup, realistically, I suspect it's probably good to go right now, with all the promos and interviews etc all lined up and in place too. So if anyone is still waiting for a testing invite, I think that ship's well and truly sailed, and arrived where it was bound for as well. 🤣

Edited August 6, 20205 yr by Chock

At this point I wouldn't ask for anything fancy. If the installation goes anything like my last (the other day) Windows 10 update, it's going to be a major fiasco.  I had to roll the update back to the previous version because Windows was opening many instances of the web browser and apparently one of them had a dialog open, requesting to be closed, but I couldn't see it. The only way I knew if was there was because it beeped every time I clicked my mouse.

What versions of Windows 10 will MSFS 2020 require? 

25 minutes ago, Chock said:

So, the sim should be all pretty much finalised in less than week's time by my reckoning. Unless that is, it works like it did when I was at a newspaper, where someone would run in to the office and tell me they needed a fifteen hundred word article on a subject which I knew nothing about and would have to research, with photographs, written and subbed with the page PDF ready for transmission in three hours time. 🤣

 

I have been wondering all these years "How does this guy write so many words to tell exactly the same I would say in one single line?", now I know the reason!  😆

 

Well if you want a good quote on that, I can recommend this one from Mark Twain:

I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get the same money for cop.

1 minute ago, Chock said:

Well if you want a good quote on that, I can recommend this one from Mark Twain:

I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get the same money for cop.

Completely true!

19 minutes ago, dobee51 said:

What versions of Windows 10 will MSFS 2020 require? 

Win 10 1909 update from last year in November.

It could be much simpler than that. Those DVD's you can get in Europe were already printed a month ago, so they already have a release ready. Everything from there on is updates, which will be a continuous process after August 18.  

I heard they already published the final release build and they all went on vacation to celebrate for the 3 weeks.

Most likely they are committing code right up until the night of release with the DVD copies getting a day 1 update on install.

I can't wait until the 18th (even though I'm working that day). I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas, daydreaming of the new toy they are going to be playing with.

With that said, as soon as I get home Ill start my DL and should get to play later that night or first thing the next morning.

I think the physical copies were printed way before the announcement of the release. 
You have to factor the time for printing everything, packaging and sending to the retailers, with the times we're living in...

9 minutes ago, Lotharen said:

With that said, as soon as I get home Ill start my DL and should get to play later that night or first thing the next morning.

With my ISP speeds (10Mbps) I should be playing by sometime release weekend, likely on the 21st or 22nd, if I'm lucky by Friday night.  And no I'm not even joking!  😬

Yes, obviously thousands of CD's were already produced and ready to ship out, so any minor or major issues or bugs will be addressed by future updates after August 18th...