What would it take for LR and/or LM to win your money back?

[abrams_tank 7,387]

1 hour ago, cepact said:

Bing maps can be used outside of MSFS. Unreal Engine gives the ability to stream bing maps for game developers. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZXTZphgyps) 

So in order to compete with MSFS, one developer might use unreal engine and he would have the same technology available.

But Microsoft can halt all usage of Bing maps for another game, if they decide to.  I can't see Microsoft allowing Bing maps to be used for P3D or X-Plane because it's a direct competitor of MSFS.

[psolk 3,037]

2 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

But Microsoft can halt all usage of Bing maps for another game, if they decide to.  I can't see Microsoft allowing Bing maps to be used for P3D or X-Plane because it's a direct competitor of MSFS.

Depends how much revenue the commercial Bing map usage would bring in...  Its all about the $$$  

[abrams_tank 7,387]

19 minutes ago, psolk said:

Depends how much revenue the commercial Bing map usage would bring in...  Its all about the $$$  

For the commercial market, I can see Microsoft allowing P3D and X-Plane to use their Bing data, since it doesn't affect their sales to home customers, if the price is right.  But I think Microsoft would have very tight restrictions because for example, a lot of home users are breaking P3D's license terms when they use P3D for home usage - Microsoft would not want home users of P3D getting access to Bing data.  And Microsoft would charge LM or LR a lot of money for it.  LM has a relationship with Microsoft since they obtained the FSX code base from Microsoft before.  I can even see LM asking Microsoft if they can license MSFS and use the base MSFS code to build a new flight simulator for its commercial customers, if LM wants to keep MSFS out of the commercial market (it's possible that LM has already approached Microsoft but we don't know about it).

As for LR, I can't see them asking Microsoft for Bing map data. Austin seems to have a lot of pride and it would be out of character for him to approach Microsoft, especially after all the things he has said about MSFS.

Edited September 15, 2021 by abrams_tank

[psolk 3,037]

28 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

For the commercial market, I can see Microsoft allowing P3D and X-Plane to use their Bing data, since it doesn't affect their sales to home customers.  But I think Microsoft would have very tight restrictions because for example, a lot of home users are breaking P3D's license terms when they use P3D for home usage.  And Microsoft would charge LM or LR a lot of money for it.  LM has a relationship with Microsoft since they obtained the FSX code base from Microsoft before.  I can even see LM asking Microsoft if they can license MSFS and use the base MSFS code to build a new flight simulator for its commercial customers, if LM wants to keep MSFS out of the commercial market.

As for LR, I can't see them asking Microsoft for Bing map data. Austin seems to have a lot of pride and it would be out of character for him to approach Microsoft, especially after all the things he has said about MSFS.

I don't think MS would care about LM's licensing issue, that's LM's issue not MS.  If they sell the rights and LM uses them outside the bounds of the agreement there would be legal ramifications.  That's on LM not MS, terms of usage would be agreed upon.

MSFS isn't aimed at the commercial market.  It may be one day but P3D is not a flight simulator for LM, it is a scenario trainer.  Those are VERY different things.  P3D is used for MUCH more than just flight simulation for their commercial customers.  Unless MSFS could provide the scenario training capabilities it's just a flight simulator and wouldn't provide LM with much commercial value.  

Personally I can't see LM licensing MSFS.  They don't sell a "flight simulator"  we used it as an extension of FSX and ESP but it isn't regarded by LM as a flight simulator.  

Quote

 

Prepar3D (pronounced “prepared”) is a visual simulation platform that allows users to create training scenarios across aviation, maritime and ground domains. Prepar3D engages users in immersive training through realistic environments.

Ideal for commercial, academic, professional, or military instruction. Prepar3D can be used to quickly create learning scenarios anywhere in the virtual world, from under water to sub orbital space.       

 

Quote

• Experience a scenario before it happens to increase effectiveness and reduce response time
• Learn and test their knowledge in the same environment in which they will operate
• Re-create scenarios with operational data and experiment with different variables
• Experience a learning lab where science, technology, engineering and math principles are taught in an immersive environment
• Train for scenarios in aviation, air traffic control, ground vehicle operation and disaster response

Prepar3D can be used for a wide range of learning scenarios including vehicle procedures training, cockpit familiarization, flight planning, air traffic controller training and emergency response preparation.

       I mean there is SO much MSFS would have to do to be applicable to the commercial market:

• Professional Plus license enables a suite of additional capabilities for advanced training use cases:
  • Multichannel capability increases performance on multi-screen and dome setups by enabling the ability to run Prepar3D concurrently distributed across multiple systems.
  • Dynamic Weapons System allows the ability to perform weapons-based training. Fully-configurable to support training procedures related to the employment of bombs, missiles, guns, and countermeasures are included, as are examples to show you how to implement them in your training.
  • Customizable AI Behaviors enable the creation of scenarios that provide artificial entity interaction with the user. Behaviors include Attacker, Combat Air Patrol, Close Air Support, Pursue, Search, and Wingman.
  • Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) capabilities can be used to connect to a DIS network session and integrate with other simulators.
  • SimOperator networked Instructor Operating Station (IOS). Instructors can control multiplayer scenarios and modify role-players in real-time.
  • Common Image Generator Interface (CIGI) support providing communication between a Host simulation and an Image Generator (IG). Using this simulation interoperability standard Prepar3D can function as either a Host or IG.

                                                                    

Edited September 15, 2021 by psolk

[abrams_tank 7,387]

21 minutes ago, psolk said:

I don't think MS would care about LM's licensing issue, that's LM's issue not MS.  If they sell the rights and LM uses them outside the bounds of the agreement there would be legal ramifications.  That's on LM not MS, terms of usage would be agreed upon.

MSFS isn't aimed at the commercial market.  It may be one day but P3D is not a flight simulator for LM, it is a scenario trainer.  Those are VERY different things.  P3D is used for MUCH more than just flight simulation for their commercial customers.  Unless MSFS could provide the scenario training capabilities it's just a flight simulator and wouldn't provide LM with much commercial value.  

Personally I can't see LM licensing MSFS.  They don't sell a "flight simulator"  we used it as an extension of FSX and ESP but it isn't regarded by LM as a flight simulator.  

       I mean there is SO much MSFS would have to do to be applicable to the commercial market:

• Professional Plus license enables a suite of additional capabilities for advanced training use cases:
  • Multichannel capability increases performance on multi-screen and dome setups by enabling the ability to run Prepar3D concurrently distributed across multiple systems.
  • Dynamic Weapons System allows the ability to perform weapons-based training. Fully-configurable to support training procedures related to the employment of bombs, missiles, guns, and countermeasures are included, as are examples to show you how to implement them in your training.
  • Customizable AI Behaviors enable the creation of scenarios that provide artificial entity interaction with the user. Behaviors include Attacker, Combat Air Patrol, Close Air Support, Pursue, Search, and Wingman.
  • Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) capabilities can be used to connect to a DIS network session and integrate with other simulators.
  • SimOperator networked Instructor Operating Station (IOS). Instructors can control multiplayer scenarios and modify role-players in real-time.
  • Common Image Generator Interface (CIGI) support providing communication between a Host simulation and an Image Generator (IG). Using this simulation interoperability standard Prepar3D can function as either a Host or IG.

                                                                    

I agree with you that Microsoft/Asobo would have to do a lot of further work on MSFS before entering the commercial market. However, as you mentioned before, it's $$$.  If Microsoft feels they can make a lot of $$$ in the commercial market, they may very well do the necessary further work on MSFS so that it can be used by commercial customers.

One thing Microsoft/Asobo said about MSFS is that it is a 10 year project.  I have always been skeptical of why they said it's a 10 year project because the sales of MSFS and MSFS add-ons in the marketplace will drop off significantly in the first year or two of MSFS.  But if Microsoft had an eye on eventually entering the commercial market, the 10 year timeline makes a lot of sense (10 years would give Microsoft/Asobo a lot of time to make the changes in MSFS so that it's ready to enter the commercial market at some point).

[psolk 3,037]

13 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

I agree with you that Microsoft/Asobo would have to do a lot of further work on MSFS before entering the commercial market. However, as you mentioned before, it's $$$.  If Microsoft feels they can make a lot of $$$ in the commercial market, they may very well do the necessary further work on MSFS so that it can be used by commercial customers.

One thing Microsoft/Asobo said about MSFS is that it is a 10 year project.  I have always been skeptical of why they said it's a 10 year project because the sales of MSFS and MSFS add-ons in the marketplace will drop off significantly in the first year or two of MSFS.  But if Microsoft had an eye on eventually entering the commercial market, the 10 year timeline makes a lot of sense (10 years would give Microsoft/Asobo a lot of time to make the changes in MSFS so that it's ready to enter the commercial market at some point).

10 years doesn't mean 10 years of development and also doesn't mean there won't be an updated version in 7 years.  We commit to 8 years lifecycle on most of our products.  Development usually stops at 5.  Then it is vulnerability and standard support only but no further dev.  Somewhere in year 4 we will usually introduce the next gen replacement. 

I don't know why you think sales will drop in the first year or two either. with PMDG, Fenix and others just coming to the game and we are already at the end of year 1 there is a positive growth indicator for at least 3 years.  P3D add-on sales didn't deplete after year 1 or 2 I'd wager they expanded vastly as the platform matured, why would MSFS be different?  

They wouldn't ever plan on using MSFS for 'entry" into the commercial market in 10 years, it would be obsolete by the time they got there.  They have never gone directly for the commercial market and with gamepass/xbox they move even further into consumer.  If LM licenses the MSFS engine for commercial usage MS wouldn't try to compete and they don't own the commercial/gov't/military contracts so they are far better served allowing LM to license it to their customers with financial reciprocity than trying to ever compete in that world.  

This has now digressed to far more than what it would take for LM to win me back though 🙂  

 

Edited September 15, 2021 by psolk

[Noel 4,484]

10 hours ago, birdguy said:

We moved down here to New Mexico in1995.  It's not grown much since then.  It's the closest thing to Mayberry I'm ever going to get.  It's great if you like the outdoors but if you're used to the city with fine restaurants and theaters not so great.  Unless you're a teacher or postal worker or would like to work on a dairy farm or pecan orchard or pepper fields you wont find much employment here.  We came here when I retired.

I got my name because I was born on Christmas day.  How did you get yours?

Noel

Me Mum was born in Wigan, England, and liked the name.  I have identical twin daughters and one is named, Noelle ;o)

Noel

[bofhlusr 453]

12 hours ago, JNS said:

OK, for my full disclosure...I have not purchased MSFS, but do plan on doing so.  I realize that it's graphics are fantastic.  My hesitation is based on three things (Nos. 2 and 3 probably being the biggest ones): (1) Not sure that MS is really interested in making a sim like a lot of people here really want ...i.e. super realistic in terms of something more than just VFR flight, (2) I don't like the forced updates, and (3) it seems to me from what I've seen so far is that the MSFS users enjoy about 2 or 3 weeks of flying and then when the next update comes out, they spend another few weeks trying to sort out all of the problems until the next update comes out that fixes at least SOME of the previous problems and creates new ones.  Actually, I was very excited when I first heard about the new MSFS and its approximately 5  years of previous development.  I really thought maybe it would finally be the "perfect" flight sim, but have become somewhat skeptical.   And BTW, I'm now doing new installs of both P3D and XP, mostly so I will have "something" if everything goes south, servers and all.

But, wow, I'm reading all of these comments and all I can say, I guess, is that since it seems like the concensus is that XP and P3D are total low-lifes and not worth using another MB of hard drive space on them....and that there is no way anybody can ever compete with MSFS.......people should really be saying their prayers that MS doesn't have a change of heart if they see their profits fall below an acceptable level for them and then fold their tent and servers and say bye-bye. It's happened before.  Otherwise, simmers will not have this hobby anymore if the other sims are gone.  I don't think MS is here to do any favors for the flight-sim community as such.  If interest in MSFS on Xbox wanes, things could change quickly. I think that, fortunately, LM and maybe especially LR are willing to accept a lower profit standard and have, so far, decided to stay in the game all these years.

I don't know what the answer is.  I agree that most people don't want to spend their money supporting older technology.  And I admire the patience exhibited by many in the community in supporting MSFS during some rough times.  Maybe the "perfect" flight sim is not possible for the price many people are willing to pay.

Jeff

 

@JNS I'm with you. I had the same thoughts as you have now when I pondered and agonized trying to decide on whether I should give up MSDOS 6.22 in favor of Windows instead, Mac to Linux to Windows, FSX to FSX Steam to P3D, Falcon 4 to DCS, and more recently P3D to MSFS.  I don't even want to think about what it was like jumping from one text editor to a multitude of other text editors. 

Arrggh,.... the 'crazy' things we do in the name of progress. Perhaps I'm getting too old for this sh*t. 🙂

 I hope Microsoft does not abandon MSFS by remembering the early years when MFS was the standard used to measure CPU compatibility, and their motto "As Real As It Gets". 

Edited September 15, 2021 by bofhlusr
Correct typos.

[Noel 4,484]

18 minutes ago, JNS said:

Not sure that MS is really interested in making a sim like a lot of people here really want ...i.e. super realistic in terms of something more than just VFR flight

I haven't done one VFR flight since Day 1.  I think you have to appreciate their goal, from before Day 1, was to release the product on two different platforms, though they share similar operating systems, and this would be far easier to support than say Win 10 and OSX would be out of the same producer.  Because of this and other factors, they felt the need to solve the biggest, by far hardest to get right piece of the simulator for both platforms, and that of course is the core engine now affording incredibly good performance for the most complex, best real-world matching scenery, lighting, ambient occlusion, atmospherics present today.  That was the really challenging part to get right, and it needed to work well on both platforms, and largely does today.  The rest of what makes a flight sim more fully functional, is really the easy part by comparison.  Why?  It's been done many times already, hardly anything innovative to that part of it including improving the depth offered thru the SDK.  We read from RR that PMDG's second offering, their 737 NG is right around the corner, and this is their 2nd offering, and their first offering was very well received in MSFS.

26 minutes ago, JNS said:

it seems to me from what I've seen so far is that the MSFS users enjoy about 2 or 3 weeks of flying and then when the next update comes out, they spend another few weeks trying to sort out all of the problems until the next update comes out that fixes at least SOME of the previous problems

This has been true apparently for several people but really the vast majority, especially after WU6, have found things improved substantially in that regard.  Since Aug 2020, I've really only a couple of weeks where I wanted to wait until something was fixed so avoided flying and went back to P3D.  But that has been a long time now since having that happen.  And CTD's have been minimal for me.  Unlike FSX/P3D, there really isn't a lot of fixing, tweaking etc.  In fact there's really none in large part, unlike in FSX/P3D historically, at least for me.  Sometimes we've needed to wait for an urgent hotfix, but often it's just a case of coping with something that wasn't right, or was quite wrong, but ultimately every update has been a net plus, some more than others, the last one being substantially positive.

 

 

[birdguy 3,943]

10 hours ago, Noel said:

Me Mum was born in Wigan, England, and liked the name.  I have identical twin daughters and one is named, Noelle ;o)

My Mum was born in Antwerp Belgium and my father was first generation Norwegian.  My granddaughter's name is Havana Noel.

Noel

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

Xplane is no longer a flight sim, it's a dying tech company sim.

If I were LR, I'd see the only choice as offering the base product free with a premium version upgrade, making it nearly 100% open source, and they are going to be forced to develop the land imagery out with land-class type technology. The landscape of games is changing tech-wise, and it's very possible (not easy) to beat aerial imagery with land-class. Look at Star Citizen or Death Stranding as an example of what can be done with just textures and mesh, no aerial imagery in either of those. There are other games coming out with even better graphics than those two as far as mountains and mesh go, so yes it's do-able. It's their only hope, aerial imagery isn't going to win anyone over at this point as they cannot compete, even if they tried. 

Problem is, I doubt they can find the talent willing to do it in their budget and attract that talent away from the larger gaming companies, as there is only a handful of people that can develop land-class type scenery at that fidelity in the entire world right now. The talent pool is growing slowly, it may happen, who knows, but seems unlikely.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Alpine Scenery

[akita 429]

2 hours ago, Alpine Scenery said:

The landscape of games is changing tech-wise, and it's very possible (not easy) to beat aerial imagery with land-class. Look at Star Citizen or Death Stranding as an example of what can be done with just textures and mesh, no aerial imagery in either of those. There are other games coming out with even better graphics than those two as far as mountains and mesh go, so yes it's do-able. It's their only hope, aerial imagery isn't going to win anyone over at this point as they cannot compete, even if they tried. 

Highly agree with what I quoted; MSFS is a great leap forward for bringing pretty much the same quality of landscape easily accessible for world wide coverage, it is not possible with current hardware to store everything on your home machine.

But it's, as I said, more of the same. Flight simulation is still very much behind for what industry standart games offer for terrain. Those orthos and photogrammetry look great 3000 feet above, at lower altitudes it won't surpass any of those games quality management. Now you say this is a flight simulator so this is what we need, but aviation comes in many forms and types that we pretty much need most of the scene looking great even when looking closely. a Procedural approach can offer "infinite resolution" whole with orthos you are stuck at a 10X+ lower resolution considered "the holy grail" of graphics for flight simulation...leaves a lot to be desired.

As for the rest, especially the Xplane part, I really recommend looking at the SDK for scenery and understand that what it offers out of the box is nothing compared to what can be done with it.

Use UHD meshes, the aipilotx one, the landscape is very close to orthos even with Xplane current ground textures. Then Xplane offers a great autogen system in which one can create "infinite" variety of art assets, you can even animate your dog on the backyard if you choose to as part of "an autogen scene", it is also very optimized performance wise and highly uses instancing and LODS. For Ground texures you have a very nice decaling system, which can blended as layers exposing stuff like grass, rocks etc...

But there are no terrain shaders to really make them shine (i.e. To make those rocks actually generated in 3D with tessellation/some shader) and you are stuck at a mushy 2D repeating texture + the current Xplane art assets look to be from a decade ago so it is also low res (hence Xplane11 recommends a 4GB GPU)

So the same story, they need rendering pipeline, but for the bottom line I disagree, I think they are definitely capable of bringing an outtera like quality terrain driven by real data, 9 more days to know if this is true or at least more about what they are doing now and plan for the near future...

Edited September 16, 2021 by akita

[mrueedi 702]

1 hour ago, Alpine Scenery said:

Look at Star Citizen or Death Stranding as an example of what can be done with just textures and mesh, no aerial imagery in either of those.

Fantasy worlds vs. a recreation of the true globe. That is a huge difference.

There is no better datasource, to recreate the whole globe procedurally, than aerial images. In MSFS aerial images are not primarily used to show them. They are hardly visible. But they are used as datasource for vegetation, buildings and a ton of other things.

For those, who think fantasy worlds are the future for flight simulation, here is your matching aircraft:
Flying Donut » Microsoft Flight Simulator

 

[mrueedi 702]

8 minutes ago, akita said:

But it's, as I said, more of the same. Flight simulation is still very much behind for what industry standart games offer for terrain.

Different requirements. What you call "industry standart" is for creating fantasy worlds. In fligth simulation a fantasy world is useless.

8 minutes ago, akita said:

Those orthos and photogrammetry look great 3000 feet above, at lower altitudes it won't surpass any of those games quality management.

That is not true, Take the Fokker Dr. I from flightsim.to and land somewhere on a meadow. You will be able to see every blade of grass. You have full hi-res PBR details from 0ft altitude. 

[jcomm 5,886]

20 minutes ago, mrueedi said:

Different requirements. What you call "industry standart" is for creating fantasy worlds. In fligth simulation a fantasy world is useless.

That is not true, Take the Fokker Dr. I from flightsim.to and land somewhere on a meadow. You will be able to see every blade of grass. You have full hi-res PBR details from 0ft altitude. 

Only problem being, that Fokker Dr. I not feeling anywhere near what a Fokker Dr. I should because of, among all:

- lousy grounf physics in MFS;

- no way to even implement a biplane, what more a tri-plane;

- very poor simulation of a reciprocating engine, even more a radial engine...

MFS has those ASTOUNDING looks, colours, even sounds, weather rendering... They illude, butthey can't trick me ...

Edited September 16, 2021 by jcomm