Well, seeing as MK thinks development for P3D is dead, I went and bought a couple of add-ons (not from Aerosoft of course) just to support another Dev directly.

A list of scenery developers who still actively support P3D would be welcome, so that we know what to look forward to. 

MK has sadly been talking many bad things about P3D V5 ever since the moment it got released. I think he simply doesn't like the sim personally.

MSFS is great but way too unstable. Their CRJ was unsuable for like two weeks when sim update 5 was released and a lot of AS customers were angry.

Quite frankly aerosoft has never made too many products that I consider must have. Most are below the quality line I seek out. Further while it’s obvious significant sales have moved to msfs. However in there case they haven’t made anything for p3d in forever. So there sales should be what they are. Next to nothing. 

I use their Airbuses and EDDK scenery. I am satisfied with it. Altough they are constantly saying there will not be any update for P3D, in reality there were already two or three updates for P3D for busses during version 5. But as a customer I find such strong language / opinion against P3D very strange. But at least they say it :). But if they´ve decided to make their products compatible with P3DV5, they should simply do it. Otherwise I feel like name of the developer could be harmed and people might become cautious if we should buy. Anyway I must say their Simple Traffic for MSFS is simple joke. For me it is cash grab. 

This is either a backtrack or miscommunication on their behalf, but I contacted them directly (being one those to buy a product from them on black friday before this announcement). Their initial response to me was 'We sure support the product sir, we just do not do any further development on it.  We also assume it will be compatible with the new P3D, we just have not tested it.'

I followed this up with: 'Just to be clear, there will be no further development in terms of adding new features, but the existing product will be made compatible with V5.3?'

To which they responded 'Correct Sir.'

So it seems they are continuing to support the products and it will be made V5.3 compatible, but they won't be 'developing' it further in terms of adding new features. Hope this clears things up a bit!

Aa I said in the other thread, haven't been their customer in a while, simply don't like their attitude towards customers, and I am not making business with them for MSFS also.

4 minutes ago, MacSalisbury said:

So it seems they are continuing to support the products and it will be made V5.3 compatible, but they won't be 'developing' it further in terms of adding new features.

Interesting. Why did Koks state something different?

Edited December 2, 20214 yr by d.tsakiris

Just now, d.tsakiris said:

Why would Koks state something different?

I'm not sure, he replied directly to my email (and very promptly to his credit). I might suggest they clarify publicly, as they did for me, to avoid backlash which might be based on a miscommunication

To me, his public statements (which all seem to be half-true at best) are be geared to undermine P3D. For obvious reasons.

Luckily, his statement "And just look around, almost nothing new has been released for P3D in the last 18 months." is not true. 

There are several new releases and updates for P3D, even from mayor developers. But I can see that this might be a way to scare off people new to P3D to MSFS, in order for them to get more sales for the MSFS platform... 

Exactly...

50 minutes ago, MacSalisbury said:

I followed this up with: 'Just to be clear, there will be no further development in terms of adding new features, but the existing product will be made compatible with V5.3?'

To which they responded 'Correct Sir.'

Legally they could have been on thin ice if they advertised a product as compatible with P3D v5 but then stated they wouldn't be updating it for v5.3. The contract between buyer and seller is entered into at point of sale. You probably don't want extra features - you just want the product you purchased to work with all versions of v5. An extirely reasonable expectation.

Loyal P3D customers for almost a decade, did really anyone expect Aerosoft care about that? Well, I am not surprised. 

If they can't test any products with 5.3., they should consequently remove all declared P3Dv5 compatible products from their store. But I bet that won't happen. 

Mike

Edited December 2, 20214 yr by mikealpha

26 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Legally they could have been on thin ice if they advertised a product as compatible with P3D v5 but then stated they wouldn't be updating it for v5.3. The contract between buyer and seller is entered into at point of sale. You probably don't want extra features - you just want the product you purchased to work with all versions of v5. An extirely reasonable expectation.

I'd imagine this would be the case, you wouldn't want to buy something advertised for v5 only to find it incompatible because the developer(s) dropped support after 5.2.

My interpretation is that they won't drop support entirely for existing v5 Products, but I expect they will do the bare minimum (i.e. ensure it installs/ loads correctly), If optimisation for example were to become an issue because of an added feature I imagine it would be a stretch to expect them to fix even that.

There are some Aerosoft Sceneries that I may still pick up for v5 (am missing EDDF & LIMC unless somebody has any high-quality non-Aerosoft alternatives). But I'm certainly not enthusiastic about purchasing any future products from them. I always found their customer support a bit rough to say the least. And the attitude towards P3D post-MSFS I think is highly disrespectful from a consumer perspective regardless of any Commercial realities.

Edited December 2, 20214 yr by SimeonWilbury

@SimeonWilbury, Aerosoft is primarily just a shop. Their Airbus aircraft carry their name so they are responsible to ensuring compatibility with v5.

When it comes to airports it's down to the programmer if they want to update their work. Some will, some won't. I wouldn't have thought a point release would break any airport in v5.3. I'm still using FSX airports and they work fine albeit in a rudimentary way.

I have both EDDF and LIMC from SimMarket which are both Aerosoft products. The blurb for both says v4/v5 compatible so you should be fine. I'm not aware of any other versions for P3D.