I hope I am  allowed to voice my opinion...I probably am looking for answers more then disputes and arguments on this issue...I will say as MSFS2020 has come on the scene all I see is products left and right for this new simulator.. I haven’t moved to this because of the bad ratings on the Microsoft website with tons of neglect and issues with this simulator...and I have so much invested money in prepar3Dv4.5 in the thousands of dollars of add ons  I might add..it’s been a while since Orbx,Fsdreamteam, amongst other developers that I feel like have totally abandoned preparv4 and 5...I just feel like ever time I go to FSelites webpage which I do often it’s a slew of new products everyday geared towards MSFS2020...I am not complaining just wondering where does the preparv4 community go at this point. Is this the end of add ons for that simulator? ...I think preparv4.5 is a wonderful simulator and I hope I am wrong ...Any feedback would be awesome and maybe lift my spirits a little bit 😀. Thank you for reading.....

I'm happy on 4.5 right now and will at some point move to P3DV5 as well. I have MFS also but after a few whirls around, it has been shelved for me. Until there are quality aircraft to fly in it (FSL, PMDG) which seems to be a long ways out at this point, I'll stick with P3D. I don't think it is the end for P3D.

I don't think so. It is inevitable that at some point the development costs will outweigh the return just like we have seen from FSX and P3D v3.  In the shorter term, it will depend more on the backwards compatibility of the future versions, however there will always be the freeware community who make excellent addons as well. MSFS has no doubt taken away a lot of the focus from P3D recently and will continue to so, but I don't see the payware developers giving up on the P3D income stream just yet.

MSFS is the new kid on the block. Using modern software for modern PC's and Operating systems. Flight simmers have been asking for, and waiting for a modern Flight simulator that can take advantage of modern hardware and MSFS appears to be it.  Its still in its infancy but it is shaping up to be the main simulator for us flight simmers within the next few years.  With MSFS eager to work with developers to  bring 3rd party software addon's that we all love, I don't see many developers  willing to spend the time and resources on an older platform. Don't get me wrong, I love P3D and am very grateful that they allowed us simmers access to it. I too, have spend lots of $$$ on addons for P3D. But as most things in life, things change and life moves forward.  

In the meantime, P3D still works, and all your existing addon's work, so enjoy what you have. its going to be around for a little while yet for us simmers. 

Even if the TPDs completely stopped development for P3Dv4 (which they have not), there are literally hundreds of add-ons available for it right now, and the appearance of Simzilla or even P3D v5 and later doesn't make v4.5 and all those add-ons stop working nicely, nor does enjoying P3D somehow bar the door to dipping one's toe in the water with the new sim as it evolves, for better or worse.

In the past month, PMDG has announced that they are continuing to develop for their P3D line, with the release of the 737 BBJs imminent and a new mystery project well under way, FSLabs announced a remake of their Concorde for P3Dv4/v5, CaptainSim released a new 767 add-on, and JustFlight announced release of a new BAe-146 is imminent. 

On the scenery front, we have seen recent new releases of P3D major sceneries including Tel Aviv, Sydney, Hartford, Albuquerque, Helsinki, Kuala Lumpur, and Tokyo Narita.  I have something like 320 P3D add-on airports installed, and that's not counting hundreds of less-than-full featured buffed-up fields like the ORBX FTX Global freeware collection, so if I were to fly a new city-pair every day I'd need more than 6 months to hit them all just once.

Sometimes the key to calm and happiness is to want what you have instead of having what you want.  I'm serene and happy flying my fully-functional and still-expanding P3D collection (in both v4.5 and v5) while I watch the messy birthing of Simzilla play out from a good safe distance.

 

I've been inclined to say that MSFS is new and exciting, so let's just wait until things settle down a bit before we start writing off simulators.

However....

As a developer, I've very much aware that my sales of Prepar3d scenery halved when MSFS was announced, and have all but ceased since the release. I've recently updated a couple of scenery products to Prepar3d v5, which were made available to existing owners, and the few new sales I've had probably won't cover the cost of bandwidth from the existing customer redownloads. So I'd need to see a very strong indication that Prepar3d is actually alive before I put another hour into development.

P3d will become the old go to for nostalgia and lots of accumulated payware aircrafts.

I remember when P3d first came out and FSX was still on my drive, and I would go to it when I wanted to fly some aircrafts that were available only in FSX. The Captain Sim 727 and 707 were favorites of mine.

When MSFS2020 starts to have good aircrafts, my  P3d will become a good stand by for several years. There's nothing wrong with this. Old sims don't complain or die if they stay in our hard drives.

tc

36 minutes ago, w6kd said:

Even if the TPDs completely stopped development for P3Dv4 (which they have not), there are literally hundreds of add-ons available for it right now, and the appearance of Simzilla or even P3D v5 and later doesn't make v4.5 and all those add-ons stop working nicely, nor does enjoying P3D somehow bar the door to dipping one's toe in the water with the new sim as it evolves, for better or worse.

In the past month, PMDG has announced that they are continuing to develop for their P3D line, with the release of the 737 BBJs imminent and a new mystery project well under way, FSLabs announced a remake of their Concorde for P3Dv4/v5, CaptainSim released a new 767 add-on, and JustFlight announced release of a new BAe-146 is imminent. 

On the scenery front, we have seen recent new releases of P3D major sceneries including Tel Aviv, Sydney, Hartford, Albuquerque, Helsinki, Kuala Lumpur, and Tokyo Narita.  I have something like 320 P3D add-on airports installed, and that's not counting hundreds of less-than-full featured buffed-up fields like the ORBX FTX Global freeware collection, so if I were to fly a new city-pair every day I'd need more than 6 months to hit them all just once.

Sometimes the key to calm and happiness is to want what you have instead of having what you want.  I'm serene and happy flying my fully-functional and still-expanding P3D collection (in both v4.5 and v5) while I watch the messy birthing of Simzilla play out from a good safe distance.

 

I think this sums it up nicely.

There are so many airports on my disk in P3DV5 that I have not flown to yet or at least rarely and with a hardware (mostly) cockpit I see no necessity to move into the unknown.

1 hour ago, w6kd said:

Sometimes the key to calm and happiness is to want what you have instead of having what you want.  I'm serene and happy flying my fully-functional and still-expanding P3D collection (in both v4.5 and v5) while I watch the messy birthing of Simzilla play out from a good safe distance.

This. We live in a fast-moving world with new shiny things always on the horizon. I think it's a curse of our time that we often forgot to stand still for a moment and enjoy what we have instead of wanting what we don't. Same here. P3Dv4.5 has been very good to me and I enjoyed many hours with it. However, it's clear that, performance-wise, P3Dv5 is the way to go. Hence I'm personally moving away from 4.5 in favor of 5. And as @w6kd highlighted, we are seeing a stream of new releases for this sim, many of which are taking advantage of the features this platform has to offer.

With regards to MSFS, I think it's inevitable that this will be the go-to sim in the future. I have just started a flight KDEN-KLAX using the A320neo, with the freeware mod that aims to make it more 'beefy' in the systems department. And overall, it's really not half bad. FSLabs? No, definitely not. But at some point it will probably reach sort of the Zibo level of the default X-plane 737. Even if it's not there yet, taxiing around an essentially empty KDEN (because the AI traffic is, well, nonexistent), I could very clear see the glimmer of a beautiful future for this sim. I find it truly exciting! When the liked of PMDG will hit MSFS, I'm sure it will be amazing. I don't know when that will be, but I'm fairly certain it will come one day.

For now, enjoy what you have! Don't lament some 'death' of a treasured sim - go and fly! Use it! Treasure the experience that 4.5 can give you now with what you have. Perhaps FSDT will not make any new, large airports for it, but, there's a ton of stuff available for it right now. Have fun with it 😉 Meanwhile, v5 and MSFS will further mature and become the next big thing in flight simulation. And when you are ready, you join in.

Old sims never die.  They simply fade away... 😀

I still have FS2004 installed on my system and use it occasionally. The graphics are a bit of an eyesore, but I have so many addons that were never converted to a 64-bit environment so I don't want to give it up. Plus it runs like an absolute dream (obviously it's 16 years old).

Once MS2020 has decent payware aircraft P3D will get used less and less, but this will not happen overnight. It will take about a year before this transpires. The main advantages of MS2020 is that the addons should be cheaper than P3D versions because of licensing and more potential users should mean it's more attractive for developers. Follow the money as they say. 

 

It is not like you see a ton of new things for MSFS. Most of the stuff is just ported scenery from P3D because it is rather easy. Now after the first two month when the honeymoon phase seems to be over, I think developers will realize that people can only buy so much for MSFS without any planes. My money will still go forward to good P3D sceneries for now and I can't be the only one. Even if they develop first for MSFS, to bring the scenery to P3D is not that hard. So I still expect some development happening with P3D but I hope that 5.1 will make a big step forward in the TrueSky department.

Off the top of my head, sceneries in the pipeline for P3D are: CYVR, RJTT, NZAA, LFBO, EBBR, EHAM v2, LGAV v2.

There's also PMDG and FSLabs committed to bringing expansions and entirely new models to P3D.

It depends on what new features will exist in v5.1 that may break compatibility with v4.5, but for me, that's a fairly healthy list for now.

There's only so much MSFS can achieve while the aeroplanes remain (to put it politely) so lightweight. Therefore, it's disappointing to read simmers saying that they cannot return to the visuals of P3D or XP, which has decimated the market for most developers and massively reduced the likelihood of completely new projects for these sims.

Personally, I'm going to have a very strong preference for purchases of new locations and aircraft in P3D than 'repackaged' ones in MSFS. That will remain the case for me for a long time, going by the comments PMDG recently made.

What MS needs to do is to sort out their SDK.. guys, the MSFS developing mode is available to everyone.. it is there for FREE available to all of you.. has anyone just opened their SDK documentation? go ahead.. it will give you an insight why all your favourites add-on's are practically on HOLD.. the SDK has been likes this since Alpha.. everything is TODO.. NOT SUPPORTED, etc.

There is a reason why most of what you see for MS2020 is Scenery being ported over.. and yes there are some airplanes, but they are mostly very simple as creating custom and advanced avionics is at the moment also kind of difficult (let's say this way to avoid a heat exchange of views)..

S.

Edited October 20, 20205 yr by simbol
correction