3 months and do we have a sales number?

[abrams_tank 7,397]

3 hours ago, Wobbie said:

Have you ever flown in a professional sim? Boeing, Airbus, or any other of the sims that are licensed for training?

The professional sims are built for a particular aircraft, by the way. MSFS, cannot ever match a dedicated pro sim, due to it's complexity that a game cannot ever manage to emulate. Of course procedures are amongst the most important for a sim. I worked on a sim, made by Frasca, that was dedicated to an aircraft. Normally, an instructor sets up a flight & the pilot flies, with the instructor injecting issues & failures as need be. Most, if not all pro sims are heavy in IFR training, So scenery is not that important. in fact, we originally had simple scenery graphics. It was not important to have photo real 3D scenery, Weather is also injected into the sim, as required. 

Yet another story is that we had a young female pilot visit our VA clubhouse, as she had been offered a job with DHL, flying in & out of Luton in the UK.

Well, she practice procedures for quite a while,went for her interview & got the job. Using a freeware aircraft & freeware scenery..Weather.. we adapted for her.

So my understanding of the problems with flying IFR in MSFS is the plane itself, not that MSFS Isn’t capable of IFR flights.  If the planes can be made “study level” in MSFS, then practicing IFR shouldn’t be an issue, right?  Also, as for procedures, isn’t this also dependent on how advanced the plane is modelled in MSFS?

As for injecting failures into scenarios, I agree with you that MSFS out of the box doesn’t seem to have an advanced interface and engine to simulate and practice failures.

But I wonder if Asobo developed MSFS in a way so that 3rd parties can modify it to add a more sophisticated failure engine and interface.

From what you say about practicing IFR and procedures, it seems to be dependent on how sophisticated the plane is modelled.  So if a 3rd party models a plane sophisticated enough for MSFS, wouldn’t it allow proper practicing of IFR and procedures?

As for failures, if MSFS does allow 3rd parties to create their own failure engine and interface, then wouldn’t students and their instructors be able to train failures properly as well?

I have not tried any of those multi million dollar simulators but only seen videos of how they work.   However, I am interested in learning why MSFS can’t become a key software for commercial simulators so I am interested in this discussion to see what are the shortcomings of it,  From what you say, it’s a problem of the plane not being modelled advanced enough (which can be overcome when the SDK gets more advanced), and the ability to simulate advanced failures, which may be possible if MSFS allows 3rd parties to create their own failure engine and interface,

In general, if FSX served as the basis for a commercial product (commercial version of P3D), and X-Plane also has a commercial version, I see no reason why MSFS cannot be altered into a commercial product, assuming there are no legal hurdles for MSFS.

 

Edited November 17, 2020 by abrams_tank

[Armchair Pilot 261]

23 hours ago, yanfeng12342000 said:

I'd really like to know how it is selling. Any clues?

I cared about MSFS so much that I am also concerned with its future. Is the revenue big enough to maintain the cloud server?

I did not have so much concern back in the FSX days. I know even if it is discontinued, we can still play it and even improves on it, as it turns out to be the case.

But not for MSFS. I know there is an offline version, but it makes much less sense. 

Asobo came out and stated over 1 million copies were sold. That is sales, not inclusive of gamepass users.

 

Source Article

 

Safe travels

[Armchair Pilot 261]

accidental dupe submission, cleared it here. mods could delete this that would be great.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Armchair Pilot
duplicate response.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

From what you say, it’s a problem of the plane not being modelled advanced enough (which can be overcome when the SDK gets more advanced), and the ability to simulate advanced failures, which may be possible if MSFS allows 3rd parties to create their own failure engine and interface,

I am sure it is "possible".. The question is whether Microsoft will go that route..

There is a long list of user requests in the pipeline, and XBox waiting impatiently for their version..  😉    

 

[Noel 4,493]

6 hours ago, marsman2020 said:

It was literally dead from 2006 until 2016-ish 

Well me and a whole bunch of others were simming daily between 2006 and 2016-ish.  P3D IS part of the MSFS franchise, ultimately.

[Noel 4,493]

7 hours ago, Manny said:

😁

Actually, I think it may well that MS does a monthly charge it certainly isn't a new idea for online gaming.  In fact I would consider it an unexpected good faith gift for MS to do otherwise.  What I'm noticing now is when I get into certain complex areas there is real risk for that scenario where you have ample CPU/RAM/GPU/VRAM and network headroom, yet start seeing frame rate tank.  I can see a main thread utilization at 65%, VRAM 85%, network bandwith of 200-300mbps when flying into something very complex, then suddenly my vsync'd lock to 30fps stumbles down to 4, 11, 20, 8 fps for a few seconds then back to 30, then back down again.  Perhaps you might pay a higher monthly premium if you need the Ultra Server plan, and less for the Premium Server plan, etc w/ lower total output from the server, commensurate w/ actual need.

[fppilot 4,360]

23 hours ago, fppilot said:

I'd rather see a close match with a live metar.

And that has nothing to do with Friday Night Smackdown or WWF....

 

[icewater5 181]

Over a million sales is a lot in just around 3 months.

I wonder iff that is linear over a longer time, or iff sales go exponential next year with Xbox version as well.

[yanfeng12342000 132]

20 hours ago, marsman2020 said:

It was literally dead from 2006 until 2016-ish (assuming that's approximately when the the tech demos that became MSFS started).  In fact I'd consider what happened with MS Flight to be worse than dead, where they came out with a new thing with my hype and fanfare about all the things it would do and then killed it again. 

Everyone should get out and enjoy this things and buy as much stuff from the Marketplace as you can afford, but I think it's really naive to think that it isn't subject to being killed again at any time if MS decides it's not in the interest of their business to continue it.  And the consequences of such a decision would have a potentially much larger impact on our future enjoyment of the software given that a majority of the content streams down from the cloud.

That's very much my concern. I have been an long time fan of Microsoft ever since DOS era. They seem to have the capacity to create a lot of good things ahead of time, and kill it very abruptly. They have so much money, creativity, and commercial power that they can afford NOT to care much as us.

Just wish it were not the case this time.

[Noel 4,493]

1 hour ago, yanfeng12342000 said:

Just wish it were not the case this time.

Not going to happen this time I'm feeling very sure--it's ultra desirable right now, 3 month post release, and it's barely getting started and before Xbox release.  Whether it morphs into a sim w/ the same sort of SDK interface the other sims got to I think is up for grabs, but I can't see any way they will simply dump it after all of this, after a rather warm reception.  As stated Flight Sims in general have survived a very long time now and this one is the one everyone had always hoped to have since 1982, and now it's here.

[Wobbie 938]

18 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

So my understanding of the problems with flying IFR in MSFS is the plane itself, not that MSFS Isn’t capable of IFR flights.  If the planes can be made “study level” in MSFS, then practicing IFR shouldn’t be an issue, right?  Also, as for procedures, isn’t this also dependent on how advanced the plane is modelled in MSFS?

As for injecting failures into scenarios, I agree with you that MSFS out of the box doesn’t seem to have an advanced interface and engine to simulate and practice failures.

But I wonder if Asobo developed MSFS in a way so that 3rd parties can modify it to add a more sophisticated failure engine and interface.

From what you say about practicing IFR and procedures, it seems to be dependent on how sophisticated the plane is modelled.  So if a 3rd party models a plane sophisticated enough for MSFS, wouldn’t it allow proper practicing of IFR and procedures?

As for failures, if MSFS does allow 3rd parties to create their own failure engine and interface, then wouldn’t students and their instructors be able to train failures properly as well?

I have not tried any of those multi million dollar simulators but only seen videos of how they work.   However, I am interested in learning why MSFS can’t become a key software for commercial simulators so I am interested in this discussion to see what are the shortcomings of it,  From what you say, it’s a problem of the plane not being modelled advanced enough (which can be overcome when the SDK gets more advanced), and the ability to simulate advanced failures, which may be possible if MSFS allows 3rd parties to create their own failure engine and interface,

In general, if FSX served as the basis for a commercial product (commercial version of P3D), and X-Plane also has a commercial version, I see no reason why MSFS cannot be altered into a commercial product, assuming there are no legal hurdles for MSFS.

 

Well, let's call these so-called 'study level' aircraft exactly what they are.. Complex aircraft!!

MSFS, as a general broadly based game that simulates a simulator would be problematic to be used as a professional commercial simulator, as the simulator software must match the hardware that must match the particular aircraft being simulated, then it can be licensed as a proper pro commercial simulator. MSFS if so far from that. Have a look at www.frasca.com  That could be an eye opener for you.

At the moment, MSFS is licensed as an entertainment product. So, legally, it cannot be used in a professional commercial training environment. 

I'm sure that a simple license change is not legally viable.

[abrams_tank 7,397]

59 minutes ago, Wobbie said:

Well, let's call these so-called 'study level' aircraft exactly what they are.. Complex aircraft!!

MSFS, as a general broadly based game that simulates a simulator would be problematic to be used as a professional commercial simulator, as the simulator software must match the hardware that must match the particular aircraft being simulated, then it can be licensed as a proper pro commercial simulator. MSFS if so far from that. Have a look at www.frasca.com  That could be an eye opener for you.

At the moment, MSFS is licensed as an entertainment product. So, legally, it cannot be used in a professional commercial training environment. 

I'm sure that a simple license change is not legally viable.

So I am aware that MSFS isn't certified.  And maybe we should also be differentiating between the most stringent of simulators (level D simulator?) and other lower  grade simulators that aren't as stringent.  For certification, it's possible that Asobo would have to make some changes until it meets the requirements for certification.  As for why MSFS can't be used as a building block for less stringent simulators, I can't see why it cannot be used for the less stringent simulators.  

Concerning matching the hardware, isn't part of that the actual model of the plane?  Because, as I understand it, the hardware communicates to the model of the plane, and the model of the plane communicates with the simulator.  The model of the plane is what bridges the hardware and the simulator.   I think you'll need to be more specific and point out what part of the core simulator of MSFS can't service the hardware, via the model of the plane which is the middle man.  However, I could be wrong in that the hardware communication must go through the core of MSFS before it reaches the model of the plane - meaning the middle man is the MSFS core simulator - in which you would be right that this is a design impediment to MSFS working with more advanced hardware systems.

The other thing is, are you assuming that there is no commercial future for MSFS only because it can't be used on the most stringent simulators, such as level D simulators?  Because if XPlane and P3D (P3D being based on FSX) can be altered to commercial products, I can't see why MSFS can't be altered to a commercial product (aside from any legal agreements between Microsoft and Lockheed).  MSFS can still find commercial success without being used on the most stringent simulators (what about the less stringent simulators, don't they count as part of the commercial market?).

Edited November 18, 2020 by abrams_tank

[Wobbie 938]

We going in circles.. Basically, at this stage, MSFS is licensed as an entertainment/game product 

Yes, the plane model in a pro sim is modelled to the hardware & visa versa. It is not a modified general aircraft sim thats modified to fit.

Maybe Microsoft is NOT looking to the commercial market & wants to keep the game in the mass market/Xbox arena. Maybe their contract with Asobo is games only.

Far too many ifs, buts & maybe's. Actually, a pointless supposition for a 3 month old game that is basically still in Beta.

[pmb 5,137]

44 minutes ago, Wobbie said:

We going in circles.. Basically, at this stage, MSFS is licensed as an entertainment/game product 

Why does MS need a license for MSFS at all? I thought the underlying technology is Microsoft's own intellectual property and as such they are free to do with it what they want.

Lockheed Martin (and Dovetail time ago) certainly were in another position as they had to license the code for a certain use. 

Kind regards, Michael

 

[Wobbie 938]

1 minute ago, pmb said:

Why does MS need a license for MSFS at all? I thought the underlying technology is Microsoft's own intellectual property and as such they are free to do with it what they want.

Lockheed Martin (and Dovetail time ago) certainly were in another position as they had to license the code for a certain use. 

Kind regards, Michael

 

Indeed, Michael.. They dont need a license, They have licensed the product as an entertainment product, for legal reasons. LM did not need to license the product, they used ESP, that was licensed as a 'not for entertainment' product, & Dovetail used FSX, which was, as we know, licensed as a entertainment product. Microsoft hold, & has held the various licensing's for their products.