It sure seems quiet lately on news and new releases in P3D. I guess the anticipation of the FSlabs sharklets update kept me interested for quite some time.  At the risk of getting shot here at avsim what is there to look forward to in P3D? 

Is development drying up? 

Edited August 2, 20214 yr by rocketlaunch

I think it is drying up.  I'm sure you noticed many developers switched their efforts to MSFS since that platform has or will have more customers than P3D, more so now that it's available for Xbox.  If you look at any sim site, most news are about new plans or releases for MSFS products.  This exodus will increase as soon as payware tubeliner developers start releasing their products on MSFS.  I see LM focusing on features that make P3D more usable for their defense clients, and that makes sense.  

I’m not convinced this trend will hold. MSFS is still a hot mess, and with every update the development team seems to alienate more users. I was a beta tester and bought the ultimate edition on launch and I fully uninstalled the sim after the 4th sim update. Just unusable.
 

In the meantime my spending for P3D has actually increased, compared to the last 2 years, and I’m spending a fair bit on my hobby. 

PMDG LNAV update, GFO and maybe the 737 MAX somewhere on the horizon.

Whatever FSL is working on. 

Majestic Q400 visual update + Training edition.

FlyTampa Amsterdam and Corfu.

Orbx scenery: Prague, Boise, Palm Beach, ... 

Plenty of stuff, actually. Not a comprehensive list even. 

I get that but if you look at say the news feed on fselite it is all MSFS or xplane, even here the forums are pretty barren of new developments for P3D. I had high hopes for the enhanced atmospherics and the direction that may go but at the rate LM put out releases I will be too old and past it.

Tfdi md-11, Q400 update

What’s to look forward to? My next flight in one of my PMDG birds between two of my dozens of beautiful addon airports with FS2Crew, AS weather. I could go on but I think most people understand where I’m going. I look forward to flying instead of waiting on developers. In other words using a sim that has evolved into a wonderful virtual world over the years. 

4 hours ago, rocketlaunch said:

It sure seems quiet lately on news and new releases in P3D. I guess the anticipation of the FSlabs sharklets update kept me interested for quite some time.  At the risk of getting shot here at avsim what is there to look forward to in P3D? 

Is development drying up? 

Not much unfortunately. You can tell the waning interest in P3D by looking at the timestamps in this forum. They grow longer between posts with each passing month.

3 hours ago, thepilot said:

PMDG LNAV update, GFO and maybe the 737 MAX somewhere on the horizon.

Whatever FSL is working on. 

Majestic Q400 visual update + Training edition.

FlyTampa Amsterdam and Corfu.

Orbx scenery: Prague, Boise, Palm Beach, ... 

Plenty of stuff, actually. Not a comprehensive list even. 

In the grand scheme of things, that's not very much at all. A trickle at best. But I have a ton of good P3D airports to get me by while I wait to see how the FS landscape pans out.

Edited August 3, 20214 yr by B777ER

6 hours ago, rocketlaunch said:

I get that but if you look at say the news feed on fselite it is all MSFS or xplane, even here the forums are pretty barren of new developments for P3D. I had high hopes for the enhanced atmospherics and the direction that may go but at the rate LM put out releases I will be too old and past it.

I agree on that. I check Simmarket regularely and new addons for P3D come slower and slower. I still spend too much money for this hobby, because I can still buy addons. I even bought P3D4 addons and installed them, risking they will maybe refuse to work. I don´t think I´ll lose interest in flying P3D because there are no new addons. I started actually flying into airports, I have bought but not visited since or long time ago. I try to fly more with all what I have.

I fear the next big update from LM, since it may brake all my addons one day. I thought about switching to MSFS but as long as I read from people like @alepro21, that he gave up MSFS, I´ll certainly not do that. 

TFDi MD11 🙂

 

I was looking forward to JF742, but now I'm on felis' one for XP11

For me the main thing I’m looking forward to is the release of 64-bit Concorde from FS Labs. To have that aircraft modelled to a very high level in a modern simulator will be a dream.

v5 is extremely stable which is something we take for granted these days.

And I always have control over whether I want to install the latest release of P3D. Something users of the other sim can only dream of. Mandatory updates are so off-putting.

If you fly IFR most of the time you’re monitoring your aircraft systems and flying the aircraft. Where do you get the time for looking out of the window admiring the scenery?

Plenty of life in P3D for this user.

57 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

v5 is extremely stable which is something we take for granted these days.

And I always have control over whether I want to install the latest release of P3D. Something users of the other sim can only dream of. Mandatory updates are so off-putting.

This is probably the most inportant point on this thread for me.

I'm currently sitting on a supremely reliable v4.5 install where I can run 7+ hour flights in the PMDG 744 and barely have to worry about stability in the slightest. Something I never achieved back when I used FSX. v5 is something I can move towards getting at my own pace while still enjoying what v4 has to offer.

May not look as good as MSFS but I can look past it for most of the flight - and if I fancy a visual treat there are still sceneries like FlyTampa's Kai Tak where the approach is breathtaking every time.

P3D Development is drying up but there is still enough to keep it alive for a while yet. The TFDI MD-11 & FSLabs Concorde will be enough to keep me simming on P3D for a few years to come by themselves. And the beauty with P3D is we can still take what we have and enjoy it for years to come without having to worry about them being broken by mandatory updates or servers shutting down!

bottom line .... P3D is for Class A.