It's the last day of September. I was expecting an announcement in the month of September.

PMDG usually posts their updates at the end of the month, often the last day, and often in the evening Eastern Time [6-9PM]. There's obviously no science to it, just trends on what Captain Robert's gotten into the habit of doing.

Going off of what he's done in the past, because Robert said he'd "likely" have something to show us, I expect an update today either with pictures, or with an explanation for the delay and a new deadline. Again, all going off of historical habits.

You should have an answer within the next 10 hours to which it will be.

I hope he brings good news? 

30 minutes ago, Alaska738 said:

I hope he brings good news? 

Probably more of the same delays, and probably waiting on many things from A-slow-bo.

There's been a noticable silence from all the devs that were bringing new high fidelity aircraft to the sim since SU5. i guess it caused more issues for all of them. Lets hope we still get something this year.

2 hours ago, Car147 said:

There's been a noticable silence from all the devs that were bringing new high fidelity aircraft to the sim since SU5 it was released.

FTFY.

The silence is deafening across the board. I don't understand what is so difficult about being transparent about what's going on. Communication and support was pretty atrocious with the last gen sims but somehow it seems to be getting even worse now. What's really going on with the hobby? Is this thing not as successful as people thought it would be? Why are freeware projects the only folks that seem to be able to adapt to new technologies? I can't believe we're over a year into this thing and haven't gotten some sort of a preview for an A2A plane. Did Flight1 cease operations? What happened to the QW787? Majestic, hello? FSLabs, are you there? TFDi, do you have a pulse? It was refreshing to see Leonardo the other day with a preview of the MD80. At least one of em is alive.

Kudos to those few devs leading the pack right now while the others seemingly have nothing to little to say or show- FlyingIron, JustFlight, Milviz, and a sprinkle of others. Something something... heroes we deserve.

Edited October 1, 20214 yr by kiwikat

Reading info on the forums over at PMDG can put a lot of this speculation to rest...

2 hours ago, kiwikat said:

FTFY.

The silence is deafening across the board. I don't understand what is so difficult about being transparent about what's going on. Communication and support was pretty atrocious with the last gen sims but somehow it seems to be getting even worse now. What's really going on with the hobby? Is this thing not as successful as people thought it would be? Why are freeware projects the only folks that seem to be able to adapt to new technologies? I can't believe we're over a year into this thing and haven't gotten some sort of a preview for an A2A plane. Did Flight1 cease operations? What happened to the QW787? Majestic, hello? FSLabs, are you there? TFDi, do you have a pulse? It was refreshing to see Leonardo the other day with a preview of the MD80. At least one of em is alive.

Kudos to those few devs leading the pack right now while the others seemingly have nothing to little to say or show- FlyingIron, JustFlight, Milviz, and a sprinkle of others. Something something... heroes we deserve.

These people didn't or don't write Xbox software? I don't know.

9 hours ago, WestAir said:

You should have an answer within the next 10 hours to which it will be.

Well, Robert made a liar out of me tonight. 😭 

I can't wait for the day devs get "over the hill" and back into the smoother dev cycles we've seen with P3D.

I think a lot of third-party developers were caught off-guard when MSFS launched.

Many of them were still working on projects for existing simulators and had to decide how to allocate their resources between those existing projects and new ones for MSFS.  I imagine that some of the larger developers also have private customers we don't know about and are obligated to continue working on those projects as well, which also takes away from the resources they'd like to devote to MSFS.

Another thing to consider is that some, if not many, aircraft are not 100% in-house productions.  Developers sometimes hire third-parties to complete some of the work, such as modelling, texture work, sounds, systems programming and so on.  Those individuals and businesses most likely have other customers and projects to work on, so they're not always immediately available.  Some of them might even work on aircraft for more than one company.  Look up 3D Reach and you'll see that they've developed aircraft models for Milviz, Carenado, Aerosoft and Just Flight.  

There's probably a limited amount of third-party talent out there who can work on high-quality aircraft for the amount of money developers can afford, so that limits how much work can actually get done.  Trying to organize everyone's schedules will just add to the project's complexity and amount of time it takes to finish it.  Many developers probably can't afford to take on more regular employees, who would also need to be trained and would take additional time to get up to speed.  MSFS might represent a great financial opportunity, but developers are still constrained by the amount of resources they have.

I get the long wait, and would like to know more about airliners coming to the sim along with you. 

However, I suspect that with the ongoing changes to the development kit, things are pretty challenging for developers, to say the least.  I know that changes Asobo has made with various sim updates have caused problems even for relatively easy projects from end-product developers like us painters.  And I am certain that the problems caused to us pale into insignificance compared to those for aircraft developers.  I have heard several of them comment on having to re-do things they thought were completed but need re-engineering because of SDK changes.

Yes silence is frustrating to all of us.  But the developers' bread and butter depends on successful products getting to market for MSFS - and they are no doubt much more interested in getting that right and having happy customers than anything else.  My experience says PMDG will have something to say immediately they have something to say, and the others mentioned above will mostly do the same. 

We have plenty of toys to play with even if we don't have the ones we are hanging out for!  I've learned new skills and new software for painting liveries.  I've loved doing a whole lot of general aviation now that we have beautiful and realistic scenery to enjoy while flying lower and slower - along with the challenges of better weather, and navigating terrain in poor visibility!  I've also learned to fly helicopters in the sim, and am keen to learn how to create helipads. 

There is no end to how we can enjoy the sim even though we may not yet have the aircraft we would like - lets enjoy the ride!!

5 hours ago, pilatuz said:

Probably more of the same delays, and probably waiting on many things from A-slow-bo.

 Perhaps you should develop a complex flight simulator and show us how its done since you are so critical.

19 minutes ago, CapnOz said:

 Perhaps you should develop a complex flight simulator and show us how its done since you are so critical.

Haha sure I'll get right on that chief. Sorry your jimmies got so rustled. 

Never thought I'd actually miss the common 737 in a flight sim🤣

 

PMDG 737 and Fenix A320 are my 2 most anticipated planes for MSFS. I really hope we will get them before the end of the year.