10 minutes ago, Nyxx said:

Dont bother even talking about it, people here have clearly made up there minds this is the new best addon aircraft, FSL are burying their heads in the sand or even end of life, ffs its beyond a joke. Some here that I know have never even owen the FSL but love griding them axe's. Becasue Leftiers has always been behind the curve. MD-10, Concord and a End of life A320 that was said could never be done in the FSX platform.

Just a wild guess but Blackbox as he said felt the FSL it could not get any better. He probably wanted a new chanlange and came on board to develope this, a lot more intresting than just slowly polishing something to dead. It's great it realy is that they have him. 

This Airbus hopefully will be fantastic and I will probably buy it. I very much look forward to following its progress but on in this topic.

Am out of here.

David, absolutely what is not being said here; FSL systems depth is beyond question in terms of A320 modelling  - (only reason I occasionally boot up my P3D to fly the bird) but, we appear to be about to be saturated with A320's and what I said earlier in the thread about the "Knee-jerk reaction" for a whole new raft of Simmers - who just want to get airframes in the air and post on Reddit, etc - does, unfortunately, come in to play here - it cannot be denied. Wrong? - yes. Happening - Yes, as well.

It's regrettable - but the factors that decide "study-level"/ quality/ etc, appear to have changed - for the worse - for the time being.

We all know you're passionate about the FSL A320X - and it's a wonderful airframe with systems modelling that should be the envy of all other devs - and give a very high bar set, to shoot for - but, we live in strange times where the quality of an airframe is measured by how good it looks with the sun setting behind it in a Reddit Window.

Nothing can touch FSL A320X development at this time. These guys are young pretenders - but at least - as flyers (Sim, Real or both) - we're going to take a strong interest and hang about on the apron to watch the Alpha flights - right?

 

59 minutes ago, Will Fly For Cheese said:

If I was in charge at FSL - that is what I would do. And I'd stay quiet about it - to prevent copycats punting out some inferior version earlier (probably using the default 747 avionics suite!) making a whole load of moolah and detracting away from a more credible and more lucrative future version.

Staying quiet for a big dog like FSLabs is the wrong strategy, IMO.  If you're a big dog, you make it loud and clear that you are developing a certain product, to dissuade an unknown company and smaller team from making the same product that you are making.  If FSLabs had been upfront in August of 2020 that their first priority was to come out with an A320 for MSFS, it would have possibly stopped Fenix from moving forward with their A320 project.

Now staying quiet for a small unknown company like Fenix is the right strategy. Fenix did not want to alert FSLabs that they were quietly working on an A320 for MSFS.  Now that the A320 for Fenix is in alpha testing, Fenix can disclose now that they have a working A320 for MSFS in alpha testing.  Because Fenix was quiet all along, FSLabs was asleep at the wheel, not knowing that a small startup like Fenix was taking the future market share away from FSLabs in the MSFS market. Fenix played this perfectly, and now, if the A320 for Fenix is a success on MSFS, I wouldn't be surprised if Fenix then releases the A319 and A321 for MSFS, further taking money away from FSLabs in the MSFS market.

Edited July 13, 20214 yr by abrams_tank

FSlabs attitude has being the best and not investing in MSFS will be their demise. I am sorry but if you don't make a move now, you will be in a bad situation.

11 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Well yes, give them a chance. 😉 I imagine they’ll have a zoom conference call to discuss their options. Better to wait a while and make a well thought out decision rather than rush in making decisions based on an unfinished product that may not be a match for theirs.

Oh for sure!   My skeptic-o-meter is leaning towards hopeful, but will not count out FSL if they choose to show us they are still in the game.

Fenix's product I have to admit floored me, if for nothing else for the model.  As a painter I'll always be interested in a good model to paint on (even if I'm "retired"...which seems to be a fluid situation with me as I've been pressed back into painting, doing a project for a friend on the DC-6), and those 2 screens of the spoiler details and the tail had me drooling about what could be done with this model and some lessons in Substance Painter^® 🙂

I painted 19 Buses for FSL before the "situation" and enjoyed giving the community some liveries to fly, but never liked their lack of communication even before the Fenix announcement.  I viewed it as an obtuse attitude and the fact they didn't have to communicate because they were the king of the Airbus hill.  I'd like to hope they have a strategy for MSFS, but you can't deny that this announcement had to have kittens emanating from their nether regions! 🤣

 

19 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Okay.  So based on your information, it appears that part of FSLab's success in the past was because there wasn't a competing A320 that was "study level."  So FSLabs was able to take the market share for a "study level" A320 in P3D.

Well, if that's true, then it explains why FSLabs could take their sweet time on P3D.  Unfortunately, with the Fenix announcement, FSLabs may not have the same luxury of taking their sweet time with MSFS.

Well, I don't  think this is 100% accurate. They have never aimed the masses, so it never was about marketshare, afterall it's a 140 dollars aircraft, they were aiming a top tier add-on that would sell the right ammount to make profit. They were on top, not because of the lack of other players, but because they were good and because no one could get closer to what they have achieved.

That said, for the MSFS market, if the Fenix airplane end up being everything they are saying, I think (my opinion), FSLabs is pretty much done. The Fenix A320 will cost less, and apparently will be  better (visuals and systems), and will probably arrive soon. Although FSLabs can always develop a new product, they are talented enough.

 

 

I'm assessing everything based on what happened on the past. It comes to my mind what happened to PMDG and X-Plane, when they thought X-Plane 11 was good enough for their planes, ZIBO was thriving already. Competing with a freeware, in the X-Plane enviroment, was probably too risky for them. It could be the same for FSLabs here.  

10 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

I think you can have a passion for something, but if your rent, bills, and food depends on money, then passion can only get you so far but in the end, you got to do something that will pay the bills and keep the food on the table.  For example, the FBW development team have their own jobs that earn them money, but then they devote whatever left is their time on the FBW A320 project.  The Fenix team was able to get so far and implement so many features for this A320 because it's their full time job and they expect to make money out of this to pay for their work over the last year (I would be curious to know if they received an initial round of funding last year to pay for all their salaries before the Fenix A320 was released). Because the Fenix development team is treating this as their full time job and they expect to be paid for it, they have surpassed the FBW team in the depth and fidelity with the Fenix A320.  But of course the Fenix A320 team was able to surpass the FBW A320 team, because the Fenix team is working on this full time, as compared to the spare time the FBW development team has.   Also, people with a passion for something may sometimes take a lower wage, if they really like what they are doing, but they still need a living wage after all.

All this matters because money is shaping the the home flight simulator industry as the months go by.  More and more developers are abandoning P3D for MSFS because they can no longer make a profit (or a large enough of a profit) on P3D sales.  Then you have some people that argue Austin is a nice "philanthropist" and he is so passionate about X-Plane that he will spend his entire fortune on X-Plane - I don't believe this for a second.  While I believe Austin can be passionate about X-Plane, he is not going to bankrupt himself and waste away his entire life's fortune just to save X-Plane.  At the most, I think if Austin is still very passionate about X-Plane, he may keep a small developer team working on it through the years (even if he makes a loss on future X-Plane sales for the home market), but not enough to bankrupt himself or waste away his entire life's fortune (or he may refocus all his X-Plane developer resources purely for the commercial market, if there is money to be made there).  

 

I think the fact X-Plane are making a big thing about previewing a graphical enhancement for their next version shows that they are concerned about MSFS

IMO, XP and MSFS could co-exist, it's P3D that's doomed at the consumer level

1 hour ago, Jeff Nielsen said:

Well, unless LM or XP can get something like BlackShark and Bing going, I don't see any way for them to feasibly come up with a graphics solution in any amount of time.  The partners that MS has are enabling them to move at light speed.  
What's even more mind boggling is, what could be year 2 or 3 bring?  I have a feeling we've only seen the tip of the iceberg.  

I suspect by years 2/3+ we'll be finding out Microsoft's funding model to continue allowing us to stream satellite imagery

19 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Staying quiet for a big dog like FSLabs is the wrong strategy, IMO.  If you're a big dog, you make it loud and clear that you are developing a certain product, to dissuade an unknown company and smaller team from making the same product that you are making. 

If you're a big dog - and FSL most certainly is - then you come in, when - and only when - you've got something to bark about. After all - the poacher who shoots at rabbits might scare big game away!

I'm in no doubt - that if FSL are still in the game - and with what Ray said earlier - they surely are - they'll arrive in a timely manner with something very good to get our teeth in to.

Look how Scott of A2A has gone Public - then Quiet - Public - then Quiet. Same depth of quality of Dev. 

They have plans but they're not throwing them about all over the place like confetti. I like that. More importantly - I respect it, and I'm far more likely to buy an airframe off them as a result.

Edited July 13, 20214 yr by Will Fly For Cheese

12 minutes ago, EGLD said:

IMO, XP and MSFS could co-exist, it's P3D that's doomed at the consumer level

I think Laminar will entrench themselves on the mobile version and MacOS. The Windows version will eventually get hit. Laminar saw their numbers rise a lot on Steam, I think that will shrink with time. The turning point, from my point of view, will be X-Plane 12. How much people will move to the version 12 or will chose to go to MSFS?!

Edited July 13, 20214 yr by ca_metal

25 minutes ago, EGLD said:

I think the fact X-Plane are making a big thing about previewing a graphical enhancement for their next version shows that they are concerned about MSFS

IMO, XP and MSFS could co-exist, it's P3D that's doomed at the consumer level

I suspect by years 2/3+ we'll be finding out Microsoft's funding model to continue allowing us to stream satellite imagery

 

I'm not sure why we would suspect that could dry up.  FS is just one of the many applications being used by the data.  Also, it keeps getting new imagery, so again, not sure why we should be questioning that.

34 minutes ago, fogboundturtle said:

FSlabs attitude has being the best and not investing in MSFS will be their demise. I am sorry but if you don't make a move now, you will be in a bad situation.

Well - there is a name for it. Fat and happy. That's what happens in markets with a lack of competition... Suddenly fat old kings like IBM, Sun, Kodak and whatnot realize they where sitting there on the throne while hordes of competitors passed them in the open. They still didn't react. Some did after a while like IBM and managed to survive...

Any ETA for release? I looked on their website but didn't find anything.

Not sure if I want to get into the FSL demise or not speculation, but what has been forgotten in the conversation so far is that they don't only have the current A320 series out there and the Concorde in production (?), but are apparently also working on the A3XX project in the background. If I remember correctly, a hint they dropped was that it burns a lot more fuel than an A320 which - I think - makes it rather obvious it's an Airbus widebody. Obviously, no one but them knows the development roadmap for this one (P3D only, perhaps MSFS?), but assuming for a moment that it's not too far into P3D development at this point, maybe this might be their way of getting into MSFS at last and quicker so than with the A320.

Hypothetically speaking, if Fenix were to blow the FSL A320 out of the skies or FSL might never even put it into MSFS in the first place for whatever reason, an A330 or A350 (A340 seems too old to me at this point to sell a lot; A380 perhaps is a bit of a niche (?) and others have been announced from what I know) would surely be welcomed with open arms by many and that way Fenix and FSL could both co-exist nicely in an MSFS environment by offering two very different beasts.

I agree that it's somewhat irritating from a consumer perspective that FSL haven't really declared any clear stance on MSFS thus far, but the silence doesn't necessarily have to suggest the worst - they might actually have one up their sleeves...

35 minutes ago, Jeff Nielsen said:

I'm not sure why we would suspect that could dry up.  FS is just one of the many applications being used by the data.  Also, it keeps getting new imagery, so again, not sure why we should be questioning that.

yes, but all those applications have to "wipe their own a**s" as we say in the UK

it's why I've always been surprised MS didn't go down the sub route

How long will all of our £100 purchase prices sustain pulling down satellite imagery before the men in suits start to question who's covering the on-going costs - I assume we'll get a new version before then

11 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

Any ETA for release? I looked on their website but didn't find anything.

No ETA

40 minutes ago, Jeff Nielsen said:

I'm not sure why we would suspect that could dry up.  FS is just one of the many applications being used by the data.  Also, it keeps getting new imagery, so again, not sure why we should be questioning that.

With all the people using MS servers day by day, simmers are a neglectable fraction in that equation. It'd be more damage to ruin your image by shutting down the streaming and getting bad reports in news magazines which more people read than just simmers.