1. How large is their team?
2. Do they have any experience with real world aviation?
3. Are any members of their team actual pilots?
4. Do you think the original ACES team or the new ASOBO team would've made a better next gen MS Flight Sim?

I feel like all of the answers to these questions are very easy to find.

1 several teams not sure of the numbers

2 possibly but if not they have worked with partners that do

3 some of the team went through real pilots certificate for the Sim

4 hard question to answer, would would have been awesome would be if they merged, for all the know they may have consulted some of the aces team

 

4) just look at the joke of a scuba diving "simulator" some ex Aces members did:

https://www.infinitescuba.com/

do you really think these guys could do what Asobo did ? lol no

So you're saying that the original ACES team is far inferior compared to Asobo when it comes to developing the new MFS2020?

1. I think close to 150. This is just a faint memory from an old interview though, so don't take my word for it.

2. Yes, several developers took up flight lessons once they started work on the simulator

3. The CEO received his private pilot certificate a few months ago.

4. We will never know, but in my opinion, they could lend their expertise to help improve it if Microsoft hired them back.

9 minutes ago, cepact said:

4) just look at the joke of a scuba diving "simulator" some ex Aces members did:

https://www.infinitescuba.com/

do you really think these guys could do what Asobo did ? lol no

As far as I know, Cascade Game Foundry does not comprise of all the Aces developers, and this is a much smaller project without nearly as much funding. It is not indicative of what they could do had Microsoft not stopped them.

After all, they did bring us most of the previous versions of Flight Simulator, which were great and innovative for their time, and Microsoft Flight shows that they were on to something great with the scrapped Flight Simulator 11 engine.

Captain420,

I think you are asking the wrong questions.

Why does it matter how big their team is? They have produced a product which is largely judged by individual users. The real question is "will they fix the bugs?  MS is paying their wages to my knowledge, and how much fixing went into FSX during their tenure with that?. I believe we had a Service Pack one It certainly got fixed, but mostly by the efforts by 3PDs. IMHO it will depend very much on how much more money MS is willing to throw at it.

Questions 2 and 3. Again, IMHO, there has had to be some experience in both areas to get this to where it is currently at.  I have heard that at least some of the staff have taken flying lessons leading to licenses. To what extent I have no knowledge. Obviously, those who underwent that training will have experience with real world aviation. With regard to other aspects ie Air Traffic Control, one can only guess and again, the combined efforts of the staff, have produced a more than passable Sim Platform, albeit, quite a bit seems to have come from previous Aces Studios. However, much of the plaudit are coming from the graphics area and flying or real world aviation experience will not have played a big part in that.

Question 4. This is chalk and cheese in y opinion. The Aces team did not have access to the huge technical advances which have contributed so very much in making this platform as good (or bad) as it is.

So where are we at?  We have a great sim which outshines existing "out of the box" sim platforms in almost all, if not all, areas.  My belief is that past history will repeat itself here. MS will probably fix most of the glaring bugs and we may gt one or two "service packs" or the equivalent.  The vast majority of improvements, I believe, will come from  the addon developers for aircraft, sceneries (particularly mesh) and utilities.  

In the real world, we have to ask ourselves which sim platform is really different at the moment of birth. P3D and XPlane are both fairly ordinary in most respects and it is the add on devs who make them shine.  Starting with the advantages in the initial MSFS platform, I can only imagine some of the potential offerings to come.

I live in hope

Tony