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abrams_tank

PMDG DC-6 to be released on Friday, June 18th

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I have never purchased from PMDG before, but i am certainly going to buy the DC-6, and likely the others as they come along. The detail like shaking needles in the guages  engine cowlings rattling, the sound. from 4 raidials, , the whole atmosphere this creates is amasing. I don't have a clue on the price, but perfection is never cheap.! And i truly believe this is just the begining of some great aircraft coming to the siim.

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2 hours ago, Gilandred said:

A premium for “prestige” only works if I can show it off to others.  My neighbors are less impressed if I have a PMDG aircraft installed  on my computer than a fire red Ferrari sitting in my driveway.  That analogy falls apart with software.  I think pricing will align with the level of quality, and my guess is it will be around $65.  The real money will be made on their 737, and a slightly lower price can introduce new simmers to PMDG and give them reason to shell out $140 for the Boeing.

I think that the demand curve and the price elasticity with the new cadre that has joined MSFS has changed the playbook. It would surprise me very much if the old rules from the last 10-15 years of people like us here in the forum still apply. So sure - if they think they maximize their profit on 140 - it's their decision. I think that a price of around USD 50-70 would generate more profit. But what do I know. Someone that is willing to pay 60 for a "mod" to a game probably can part with 140 as well as the regular "gamers" would call that hillarious anyway...


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I do not think PMDG pricing is high because of some inflation due to prestige... I believe it is higher because they are actually at the forefront and setting the bar on what "best" quality actually means in practice. For me, as a simmer, it means that I can study the aircraft to learn about the deeper systems. That deeper learning is not available in many of the other aircraft because eventually, it becomes a time and cost issue for the developer. They reach a line where it is "good enough", where at the surface it is realistic and shiny. However, several items will only show a preset value that is not connected to the deeper systems that are actually inside the real airplane, because, as M.Kock at Aerosoft said it, "most players wont notice it, and wont care". 

So if you are a simmer who DO care, then you would like higher fidelity addons. Then you have to contribute to the higher production costs for the developer, and yes - it is no secret that any business that is at the forefront of the market charges a premium. I dont like the Ferrari analogue because as someone else pointed out, it doesnt really work for software. You pay more because you know it is worth more than the other addons at 50 bucks. If you dont like it, and you still want high fidelity, you dont have much choice.

Of course, even PMDG has to have some grasp of what the market is willing to pay. Notice that the going rate for their DC6 for the other sims is half of that of the more popular jetliners. 

Personally, I believe that the DC6 will sell like hotcakes until we get the 737 release. Then it will be collecting a little bit more dust on the PMDG shelves due to many people preferring the more common and well known 738 and 744. Especially new people to the sim I expect dont have a big relationship with the DC6 as of now, but will gladly buy it because it doesnt take long for them to understand the higher fidelity it ships with. And as someone else pointed out, the addon availability is skewed too much to one side now with VFR flying. A lot of people want to fly the planes they actually fly on in real life when on travels. 

Edited by Andreas Stangenes
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Andreas Stangenes

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I totally agree with many of the points made in this thread. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to justify spending more than, say, $50 for an aircraft addon, regardless of its complexity. Sure, I used to purchase tons of more expensive aircraft in the past (for FSX), but that was then, this is now.

I will willingly and happily spend $50 for a superior quality aircraft, or $100 for two fine aircraft, however I will no longer spend that same $100 for only one. For me, those days are over. That being said, I totally get that this approach is not necessarily well-suited to everyone else. They way I look at is this:  "Hey, whatever floats your boat!" (to borrow a phrase from a differing environment lol).

It would seem to me that, from a 3PD's perspective, euphemistically, a haul of 10 dimes ($0.10 each) is better than a haul of 2 or 3 quarters ($0.25 each). There is a lot to be said for a volume versus a net margin approach to business sales. But what do I know, I'm simply a "supply and demand" practitioner in differing industry.

Edited by RustyFlyer

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Worth bearing in mind that whilst some people in crusty old flight sim circles may go around whispering the name of PMDG in hushed tones of reverence, there'll be a ton of people new to flight simming who've never heard of them. Now granted that will change, but you can't just turn up somewhere that people have never heard of you and go: 'don't you know who I am!?' demanding instant respect. Old gits like me who've been into flight simming for years know what PMDG and A2A etc have done, and we've also been gently persuaded over the years to accept that add-ons used to be a tenner for FS98, then they started being twenty quid, then thirty and so on, until we saw the PMDG 737 NG tip up for FS2004 and start pushing that 60 quid price tag, and it eventually became acceptable because of the fidelity and the slow process of acceptance to the point that we might not exactly be thrilled to pay 130 quid for an FSL A320, but we know that we are getting what we pay for, and we were with those developers every step of the way to get to that point of acceptance. 

Aerosoft got this one right and priced their first airliner add-on at a level which reflected the fact that it was a cut above the rest of the things that were available, but they didn't come in at a price level which traded off what to many viewing the MSFS market, as unknown past glories. The PMDG DC-6 for MSFS will demonstrate this to people who've never heard of them, and they'll doubtless learn more of the company when having coughed up for their first product from PMDG, and then they will be accepting of the fact that you're getting something which warrants a higher price, but for many, they'll have to be eased into that notion, just as all us old farts were years ago, because you do actually have to make the leap and buy something in order to know that what you bought was worth it. A good example of that is the Lexus brand, where it took a while for people to accept that this wasn't just a Toyota with a lot of fancy marketing and the made up Kudos of some badge you'd never heard of, in the hopes that it would instantly have the century-old gravitas of Mercedes, Daimler, Jaguar, BMW etc.

So we might not balk at a high price tag for this thing, but that's because we know the score and there's only so much second hand reverence you can expect people to take on board. We also have to bear in mind that whilst a lot of us regard the DC-6 as a classic, to lots of people it's just 'some old airliner which doesn't fly around much any more', so it's a bit tricky for PMDG and I wouldn't want to be the one naming the price, but if I had to do so, I'd take a leaf out of Aerosoft's book and maybe bang it out there for sixty quid, as a loss leader which sets out their stall, then hope that people new to that kind of pricing and fidelity will see the youtube vids and reddit posts etc where those in the know will be vocal in saying why it's worth it, and want to join the club, but it'd be a brave developer who'd stick a 737 on the MSFS market for 140 quid without first having established their credentials with the many new flight simmers, that's for sure.

Edited by Chock
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Alan Bradbury

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True @Chock, but I dont feel that that is what PMDG is doing. Ie, for this release they have embraced a new media platform: Youtube. That's a first for them. The bossman himself is making the videos. I dont think it is a concidence that it happened now with this release with so many new people coming in to the sim ecosystem. 

Then again, we can only praise PMDG for their current achievements. So it remains to be seen what status they will have come post-launch. I suspect people are going to love it, but quite a few people will probably feel estranged by the old prop. As soon as we get the 738 they will hopefully have two major victories under their belts, and as I said above, even new people will soon pickup who is the best at their game. 

By then, PMDG is going to be renowned for their high fidelity aircraft. For all I know, many of the new people coming to the sim want to fly with a game controller, but I do belive that some will still want to have "as real as it gets". 

Edited by Andreas Stangenes

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5 minutes ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

True @Chock, but I dont feel that that is what PMDG is doing. Ie, for this release they have embraced a new media platform: Youtube. That's a first for them. The bossman himself is making the videos. I dont think it is a concidence that it happened now with this release with so many new people coming in to the sim ecosystem. 

Then again, we can only praise PMDG for their current achievements. So it remains to be seen what status they will have come post-launch. I suspect people are going to love it, but quite a few people will probably feel estranged by the old prop. As soon as we get the 738 they will hopefully have to major victories under their belts, and as I said above, even new people will soon pickup who is the best at their game. 

Yes, that is true, but for most people who meet you the first time, you are what you do, not what you have done. So you have to demonstrate that and gain respect, rather than just demand it from past glories. It becomes obvious soon enough if you are what you say you are, but it's not simply a switch you can flick on at will. The proof of the pudding may be in the eating, but if the pudding is so expensive that you don't even want to try it, then it's all for nothing.

Someone who thought a Carenado GA was a bit steep for DLC at 25 quid because they had no knowledge of them, might have thought 'oh well, here goes' and spent the cash, and now they know what they get for their Dollar, but that's a bigger leap of faith when you are looking at spending a pretty large chunk of your wages. 

Edited by Chock
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Alan Bradbury

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Yes, we are basically saying the same thing, except I obviously believe they will demonstrate their superior skills in raising the bar for what is considered best quality for plane addons. There are historically only a handfull of devhouses that have achieved that the last decade, and one would have lived under a rock not to acknowledge that PMDG is one of them 🙂 

As you say, we shall see when the pudding is served!

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Andreas Stangenes

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11 minutes ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

Yes, we are basically saying the same thing, except I obviously believe they will demonstrate their superior skills in raising the bar for what is considered best quality for plane addons. There are historically only a handfull of devhouses that have achieved that the last decade, and one would have lived under a rock not to acknowledge that PMDG is one of them 🙂 

As you say, we shall see when the pudding is served!

But that's the point. Lots of people coming to MSFS cold from never having had Fly!, FS2004 and FSX, and probably never even having heard of P3D, they essentially have been living under a rock as far as the PMDG name is concerned. Personally, and like many others, I can appreciate the joy of having an add-on aeroplane with a radial engine which behaves like a real one and demands proper operation, but back when I was first getting into flight sims, it was a long time before anything like that was around, and so I had the benefit of growing with the capabilities such fancier add-ons eventually demonstrated.

Recall if you will the original FS2004 737 NG when it first came out; you couldn't move for people who were posting on bulletin boards and forums about how they couldn't get the second engine started because they knew nothing of systems such as bleed air. This is the kind of thing you have to slowly get into when starting out with flight sims, and its where many of us on Avsim are. But it's not where a lot of people new to flight simming are, and to them, it would be easy for them to view what we revere as wonderfully complex and detailed, as simply expensive and not easy to start up, and you can well understand that viewpoint if you think back to your own early days with flight sims of fancy airliners with a ton of switches.

Edited by Chock

Alan Bradbury

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Yes, I remember, @Chock 🙂 I too was one of those who often would sit and get frustrated because I forgot my bleed air. Thankfully, the world has evolved since you and I were young and blonde. There are going to be a ton of guides and tutorials available on day one (or at least shortly thereafter) on youtube and everywhere else. The forums here are full of knowledgeable people, and if they dont come here, many of us frequent the official forums as well. And word gets around. 

We, the dinosaurs, haven't gone extinct yet, and will help spread the word Im sure. 


Andreas Stangenes

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Oh, and by the way, I would hate for new people, dumb and i gno rant as they are, going over to the aerosoft "customer support forum" and claim their product isnt working. I bet they'll never do that mistake twice if they should... 😄

Edited by Andreas Stangenes
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Andreas Stangenes

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Everybody seems to be trying to guess the price for this addon, as an owner of one copy for X-Plane, I know this addon have lots of polygons, what is the hardware requirements for MSFS? is it posted anywhere? Can we guess on that too please?


Alexander Colka

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2 minutes ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

Oh, and by the way, I would hate for new people, dumb and i gno rant as they are, going over to the aerosoft "customer support forum" and claim their product isnt working. I bet they'll never do that mistake twice if they should... 😄

Yup, I know there's a lot of people who've been to the Aerosoft forums once, but I bet the number drops off significantly when asking for people to put their hand up if they've been to it twice. Then again, there are people with that opinion about Avsim too, which is why I usually go out of my way to give people a thumbs up and a welcome when they post that they are a new member. 🤣

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Alan Bradbury

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1 minute ago, alexcolka said:

Everybody seems to be trying to guess the price for this addon, as an owner of one copy for X-Plane, I know this addon have lots of polygons, what is the hardware requirements for MSFS? is it posted anywhere? Can we guess on that too please?

From my understanding reading the forums over at PMDG and seeing the youtubes, I think this addon shouldn't be too demanding. One of their premiere testers said something along the lines of "dont worry, it will do good". 


Andreas Stangenes

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1 minute ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

From my understanding reading the forums over at PMDG and seeing the youtubes, I think this addon shouldn't be too demanding. One of their premiere testers said something along the lines of "dont worry, it will do good". 

Ah! great, thanks for sharing.

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Alexander Colka

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