Microsoft CEO describes the marketplace as "vibrant"

[wlix261 79]

12 hours ago, bean_sprout said:

I totally agree.  There are just way too many scenery addons for this sim.  I'm going back to P3D.

Cheers

bs

No issue with number of available add ons here.
One just pick what one likes, and enables / disables as desired for the day.

All the best

AHS712D Alvaro Escorcia KSGR
AirHispania Virtual Airline

[abrams_tank 7,408]

30 minutes ago, Denwagg said:

How can any game franchise last for 10 years. With constant free server support  for weather and Navdata.  I think not!  Don't kid yourselves after Xbox sales dry up so will MSFS. Flight simulators have always been a fringe industry. Nothing has changed. We simmers that will buy hardware and PC's and support MSFS for the foreseeable future are only in the tens of thousands world wide. What is the average life span on any XBOX game. The grand experiment of "You can fly over your house" will only support XBOX Sales for so long. Add to that the many little things that add to the immersion like, ATC, Traffic, Ground Traffic. Melted buildings. Coastlines, Water mask, Icing, on and on. At this rate many will never be fixed.

Enjoy MSFS for what it is right now. These are the best times for this software.
 

When Asobo says this is a 10 year project, what that means to me is that they will support and develop MSFS for 10 years, but they will gradually shift the people working on MSFS to other projects over the years, and each year, MSFS will have less people working on it.  Of course having 200 employees working on MSFS in year 9 and year 10 is not feasible, if the revenue from MSFS isn't justifying it.  However, even in year 9 or year 10 of MSFS, there will still be people working on it, just not 200 employees.

I am assuming that we only have 200 employees working on MSFS the first 1.5 to 2 years.  When the X-Box version is released, that will be approximately the first year since the release of MSFS on PC.  So perhaps Asobo will keep 200 employees on MSFS for another 6 months to 1 year after the X-Box release. 

The only way MSFS keeps 200 employees working on it is if perhaps, Microsoft is targeting other markets for new revenue, such as the commercial market.  Or perhaps Microsoft wants to make another product out of MSFS, such as combat flight simulator.  In that case, I can see Asobo keeping 200 employees on MSFS because Microsoft/Asobo are trying to gain revenue in a new market.

Edited April 28, 2021 by abrams_tank

[Gilandred 690]

20 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

The only way MSFS keeps 200 employees working on it is if perhaps, Microsoft is targeting other markets for new revenue, such as the commercial market.  Or perhaps Microsoft wants to make another product out of MSFS, such as combat flight simulator.  In that case, I can see Asobo keeping 200 employees on MSFS because Microsoft/Asobo are trying to gain revenue in a new market.

200 employees working on a project is vastly different than 200 people working FULLTIME on a project.  I think most developers tend to quote the former to give the impression of a vaster organizational structure than what they have in reality.  I doubt PMDG has 40 fulltime employees, but I can certainly believe they have 40 people working bits and pieces on contract.

There’s also a subtle difference between “we have 200 fulltime employees working on the project” and “we have 200 employees working fulltime on the project.”  The placement of the word “fulltime” changes the meaning of the sentence entirely.  It’s all in the spin.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Gilandred

[abrams_tank 7,408]

31 minutes ago, Gilandred said:

200 employees working on a project is vastly different than 200 people working FULLTIME on a project.  I think most developers tend to quote the former to give the impression of a vaster organizational structure than what they have in reality.  I doubt PMDG has 40 fulltime employees, but I can certainly believe they have 40 people working bits and pieces on contract.

There’s also a subtle difference between “we have 200 fulltime employees working on the project” and “we have 200 employees working fulltime on the project.”  The placement of the word “fulltime” changes the meaning of the sentence entirely.  It’s all in the spin.

Well, I doubt they would even have 200 employees, even with some working part time on MSFS, by year 9 and year 10, if the revenue doesn't justify it.  Provided there are no other new products branching off of MSFS or other surprises, I could imagine 20 to 30 "full time" workers on MSFS by year 9 and year 10.  Or maybe even less than 20 to 30 full time workers.

But perhaps by year 9 or year 10, Microsoft/Asobo will be working on MSFS 2 and that is where they shifted most of their manpower.  Who knows.

Edited April 28, 2021 by abrams_tank

[MDFlier 2,031]

The problem that we have here is that Avsim members are not "typical" users, even amongst the overall population of simmers. We strive to reproduce entire flights in their entirety using the proper numbers, correct procedures, and in the correct environment. We need to realize that large numbers of people that buy MSFS are going to be perfectly happy tooling around enjoying the scenery, which by their standards is absolutely fabulous even in the sims' current state. There are more people like that than we on Avsim think, and none of them come here. MSFS can be a huge success without us and I predict it will be a very big seller on xbox.

For us, our time will come. MSFS will eventually facilitate the mechanisms required for the 3PDs to add in the missing pieces that take it from 'almost sim' to 'full sim'. MS & Asobo aren't going to do that. "Full sim" is just too darn complicated, time consuming, and frustrating for the masses. MS & Asobo are not going to focus on adding functionality that would further frustrate the non-pilot, non-simmer. Why spend time and energy adding things that would in effect, make the product less attractive to the users they are targeting?

All of that being said, the key for us is patience, grasshopper. After the sim has been released on xbox, and most 'regular' PC (non-simmer) users are happy, then and only then will we see MS & Asobo start addressing the deficiencies that we all see, but regular users don't care about. The platform needs to be installed, stabilized, and able to support itself first, and then we'll start seeing what we want appearing in the sim. If they had launched the perfect simulator our very small community would have been thrilled, but the title would have gotten shellacked in the post launch reviews for releasing an overly complicated game that most people couldn't get airborne for 5 minutes in. It would have died a fiery death in a couple of months. Our user base simply cannot support the sim on our own. There aren't enough of us. So like it or not, we have to back a back seat until the masses are satisfied before we can get the cherry put on top of our simulator. 

Until then, I'll enjoy MSFS as much as I can. I'm having a blast in developer mode. I took some time to learn Blender. I've been playing around with textures, lighting, animation, etc. and I've been having great success. I've been reading all of the dev forums learning as much as I can. Yes, there are issues. There is also progress. 3PDs will eventually have what they need to add what is lacking. They're figuring it out. Every day, there are new "Hey... I figured out how to..." posts. The SDK is evolving. Good things are coming. 

P3D v5 is running really well on my system so when I'm in need of a "real' flight, I can get my fix. Overall, I think we're in a good place. It is definitely going to get better. I hope xbox sales go straight through the troposphere. That will ensure that we get what we need, which is time for the sim to develop and it will.  

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

1 hour ago, Gilandred said:

200 employees working on a project is vastly different than 200 people working FULLTIME on a project.  I think most developers tend to quote the former to give the impression of a vaster organizational structure than what they have in reality.  I doubt PMDG has 40 fulltime employees, but I can certainly believe they have 40 people working bits and pieces on contract.

There’s also a subtle difference between “we have 200 fulltime employees working on the project” and “we have 200 employees working fulltime on the project.”  The placement of the word “fulltime” changes the meaning of the sentence entirely.  It’s all in the spin.

Asobo may well have employees who solely work on Flight Simulator, it does seem to be their main and potentially only project.

The MS side of things is different and works, by all accounts, exactly as you say. MS do not assign developers permanently to any one project they are given tasks suited to their expertise on a project and then moved to a new task often on a completely different project. This does make managing a large team of thousands of developers more efficient but has the major downside that most of the people working on a given project at any point in time do not have a grasp of the "big picture" for that project and will often not even be aware of where the particular bit of code they are creating fits or what long term it even does.  Unless your project management is flawless some really weird issues can arise.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[Baber20 1,438]

If people think that they went into so many partnerships and have the entire planet to explore just so that it can be used as an amateur simming platform, well you are so wrong. There HAS to be some commercial application of MSFS in the near future once the sim is stable enough. That will earn them a lot of revenue to keep the ship afloat for many years to come. Also Xbox will earn them a huge ton of money.

[Krakin 5,757]

The pessimistic attitude of some of you guys is just exhausting. It's like you want the sim to fail. MS has been releasing sales flops for a while now and the CEO never felt the need to soften the blow by talking up in-app purchases. It's all about getting people in the ecosystem and getting them to spend money in new ways. If Nadella says he's seeing a vibrant market in the 3rd party sim space, it's because that's exactly what he's seeing. And yes, it does bode well for the future of the sim no matter what you curmudgeons have to say.

Wake up and smell the digitized jet fuel, boys, the reentry of MS into the sim market is a good thing for ALL OF US. Users and developers alike. Ask Orbx and Aerosoft if I'm lying. While you're at it, ask Working Title, FBW and a bunch of newcomers that are doing amazing things and making a name for themselves. Everyone is entitled to their opinions of course so I'll use mine to say I think some of y'all need to chill.

[Krakin 5,757]

3 hours ago, Denwagg said:

How can any game franchise last for 10 years.

Planetside 2 came out in 2012 and is still going strong and still getting big updates. Should I expect it to go belly up next year? That's just one example without me mentioning obvious examples like WoW of FF14

[pmb 5,137]

45 minutes ago, Krakin said:

The pessimistic attitude of some of you guys is just exhausting. It's like you want the sim to fail. MS has been releasing sales flops for a while now and the CEO never felt the need to soften the blow by talking up in-app purchases.

Totally agree. And what surprises me most is the fact, those guys think a failing MSFS would help "their" beloved simulator. This would be the first time that missing competition would stimulate technological progress for the rest. Just to the contrary, any of the main sims (with their different strengts) failing will reduce incentive for the rest to innovate. As we've seen during the several years of stagnation after closure of FSX.

Kind regards, Michael

Edited April 28, 2021 by pmb

[Bobsk8 12,697]

2 minutes ago, pmb said:

Totally agree. And what surprises me most is the fact, those guys think a failing MSFS would help "their" beloved simulator. This would be the first time that missing competition would stimulate technological progress for the rest. Just to the contrary, any of the main sims (with their different strengts) failing will reduce incentive for the rest to innovate. As we've seen during the several years of stagnation after closure of FSX.

Kind regards, Michael

Frankly, I think we are lucky that after FSW went down the tubes so quickly, MS didn't bail out of MSFS. 

[Amon1973 1,421]

17 hours ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

I’ve never seen so many scenery addons in all of my 23 years of flight simming. I can’t keep up with them all. But there is still something from keeping me using this sim, and I just can’t put my finger on it. I’ve fired it up now only a handful of times in the last few months. 
I might re visit it in the winter when the dark nights come back. Always interesting to check in to Avsim to see what’s going on though. 

I'm definitely flying less than I did, but I'm not using P3D and Xplane11 at all, to be fair I haven't had much spare time to fly but I haven't had the enthusiasm to fire up the sim as much, I think all the sims current problems have caused my lack of enjoyment of MSFS, but once Asobo iron out it's issues, all will be forgiven, and I'll be a regular in the sky's again.

[Amon1973 1,421]

13 hours ago, ryanbatcund said:

It might be vibrant but the delivery/update system is a disaster.  Still can't download the Carenado Seminole update (or waco).

Can you not delete the aircraft in the sim aircraft folder, and then redownload it, that's what I done when having problems updating the care do Seminole. It worked great.

[omarsmak30 4,068]

12 minutes ago, pmb said:

Totally agree. And what surprises me most is the fact, those guys think a failing MSFS would help "their" beloved simulator. This would be the first time that missing competition would stimulate technological progress for the rest. Just to the contrary, any of the main sims (with their different strengts) failing will reduce incentive for the rest to innovate. As we've seen during the several years of stagnation after closure of FSX.

Kind regards, Michael

Indeed, never understood folks here in Avsim, they are taking these sims like football teams where things just end up in heated arguments. Really I would be honest, despite MSFS shortcomings, we should be grateful for that and hope other sims can step up their competition.

[ryanbatc 12,839]

6 minutes ago, eaim said:

Can you not delete the aircraft in the sim aircraft folder, and then redownload it, that's what I done when having problems updating the care do Seminole. It worked great.

I tried that.  Three times. 

I know it worked for some people.  But to even have to go through that is silly.