Randazzo from PMDG on demand for P3D products

[Tim_Capps 474]

1 hour ago, F737NG said:

Post hoc ergo propter hoc = After this, therefore because of this.

IIUC, Tim_Capps is suggesting that RR's assertion that PMDG's sales are massively down due to the arrival of MSFS, might not be the true cause. Rather, the reason for PMDG's poor sales in P3D may actually be because there have been no new PMDG products for the older sim since the NGXu was released and the market has bought all it wants at the current asking price.

In other words, correlation does not equal causation.

I sometimes revert to my native tongue, legalese, but you got the gist. And an interested witness is someone who may have a dog in the fight. I think there are more reasons than relate to PMDG (whose products I have greatly enjoyed in the past; in fact, I recently bought their DC-6 to use in v5). I suspect there would have been a slowdown in P3D sales even without MSFS for several reasons, not the least that P3D was probably not attracting a lot of new tubeliner fans I think those of us who aren't into glass are probably older and have whatever we're ever likely to have. Even Captain Sim abandoned gauges long before MSFS--I think that's just the market. And, yes, many who already had P3D probably have what they want. (There, are, after all, a ridiculous number of compatible airplanes and airports for P3Dv5.) So, I think it is reasonable to develop for a brand new, non-saturated market and wish them well. Personally, I might hedge my bets (which wouldn't require amazing PR skills) but that's just me.

Has Navigraph chimed in on all of this? Is Navigraph going under too, with P3D's demise, or are they making all their money off of MSFS like everyone else?

I don't doubt MSFS sales are doing well in some segments of the market. And I'm not denying its arrival dampened P3D product demand. When developers who have shifted resources away from P3D to MSFS never seem to tire of repeating just how dead P3D is, I'm just saying I don't buy it at face value. And I think there is a lot of psychology going on here. I don't think it's going to take 40 years of wandering in an MSFS wilderness (should that happen, who knows?) before a lot of people recall the fleshpots of P3D with fondness.

[F737MAX 5,608]

14 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I bet you don’t get posts like this on the Fortnite forums! 😁👏👍

But, but, with 34.676 times the number of Fortnite stream watchers to Flight Sim stream viewers, there would be 34.676 times more lawyers / Latin linguists / fans of 'The West Wing' TV series to make such comments and 34.676 times more frequently... 🙃👍

[Tim_Capps 474]

Deleted repeat of post. Fortnite... LOL. Probably a higher percentage of lawyers or at least those familiar with logical fallacies use P3D than play Fortnite. What is Fortnight other than "two weeks" in England? (A rhetorical question--lawyers love those, too.)

[BostonJeremy77 519]

I love P3D v5 and use it alongside XP and MSFS. The only way I'd abandon P3D is if LM says they are stopping development. As long as they are going, so am I. As long as the thousands of dollars worth of aircraft work on it, I am OK. I don't own ANY airports and am happy to stay that way. The one thing that P3D does that is the absolute DEALBREAKER for me to kill it off? Vectoring. I l fly with default ATC and I feel that P3D has the best default ATC out of all the sims. The fact that they actually meaningfully vectoring me to the assigned runway is HUGE. MSFS doesn't vector AT ALL. XP DOES vector, but not as good. I fly mostly airliners on P3D. If I were to fly them WITHOUT ATC, it becomes a matter of using VNAV and then it's more boring. The fact that towards approach, the P3D ATC deviates from the programmed flight plan waypoints makes it more interesting for me. They control altitude in descent pretty well too. 90% of flights, if I actually follow ATC instructions, they will get me down low enough in time and below GS for me to then do a landing and handfly it in. If in those rare cases, I DON'T get low enough, I can file missed approach and P3D ATC is smart enough to tell me to get down to a certain altitude, then let them know when I am there and THEN they will vector me in. I think it's great and is BY FAR the most enjoyable thing about P3D, though there are a lot of things to enjoy. UNTIL MSFS can do that, I don't see dropping P3D. The surprise for me is that even though I never used FSX, I think FSX ATC is pretty much the same as P3D (from what I have heard). Why MSFS dumbed it down, I will never understand. Why downgrade something that was enjoyable in the previous version?

[Ray Proudfoot 8,961]

10 minutes ago, F737NG said:

But, but, with 34.676 times the number of Fortnite stream watchers to Flight Sim stream viewers, there would be 34.676 times more lawyers / Latin linguists / fans of 'The West Wing' TV series to make such comments and 34.676 times more frequently... 🙃👍

Hmmm. I’ll take your word for that. 😁

[DChockey08 299]

2 minutes ago, BostonJeremy77 said:

I love P3D v5 and use it alongside XP and MSFS. The only way I'd abandon P3D is if LM says they are stopping development. As long as they are going, so am I. As long as the thousands of dollars worth of aircraft work on it, I am OK. I don't own ANY airports and am happy to stay that way. The one thing that P3D does that is the absolute DEALBREAKER for me to kill it off? Vectoring. I l fly with default ATC and I feel that P3D has the best default ATC out of all the sims. The fact that they actually meaningfully vectoring me to the assigned runway is HUGE. MSFS doesn't vector AT ALL. XP DOES vector, but not as good. I fly mostly airliners on P3D. If I were to fly them WITHOUT ATC, it becomes a matter of using VNAV and then it's more boring. The fact that towards approach, the P3D ATC deviates from the programmed flight plan waypoints makes it more interesting for me. They control altitude in descent pretty well too. 90% of flights, if I actually follow ATC instructions, they will get me down low enough in time and below GS for me to then do a landing and handfly it in. If in those rare cases, I DON'T get low enough, I can file missed approach and P3D ATC is smart enough to tell me to get down to a certain altitude, then let them know when I am there and THEN they will vector me in. I think it's great and is BY FAR the most enjoyable thing about P3D, though there are a lot of things to enjoy. UNTIL MSFS can do that, I don't see dropping P3D. The surprise for me is that even though I never used FSX, I think FSX ATC is pretty much the same as P3D (from what I have heard). Why MSFS dumbed it down, I will never understand. Why downgrade something that was enjoyable in the previous version?

+1 I think the default ATC system in P3D is the best available. 

Add EditVoicePack to that with the accelerated voices and it's incredible. 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,961]

3 minutes ago, BostonJeremy77 said:

I l fly with default ATC and I feel that P3D has the best default ATC out of all the sims. The fact that they actually meaningfully vectoring me to the assigned runway is HUGE. MSFS doesn't vector AT ALL.

I wasn’t aware LM had spent any time on the ATC since they inherited the ESP code. But assuming they have I’d be very surprised if it compared favourably to a mature 3rd party ATC program.

Why don’t you try Radar Contact v4? Free here...

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/547732-radar-contact-and-jdtllc-in-transition/

 

[Tim_Capps 474]

3 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Why don’t you try Radar Contact v4? Free here...

Because some of us have limited skills with computers. I was a big fan in the day, but wasn't easy to get to work in v5 for me. P3D ATC isn't the greatest, but it does work well enough to get me vectored to the right runway in a classic jet. You can certainly do procedures using radio navigation, but it's not a hassle I usually take on by myself in a cockpit. It occasionally does weird stuff, but I give it due credit.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,961]

1 minute ago, Tim_Capps said:

Because some of us have limited skills with computers. I was a big fan in the day, but wasn't easy to get to work in v5 for me.

If you can handle P3D and Windows I’m sure RC4 won’t be that difficult.

It works exactly the same with P3D (all versions) as FSX. The principals remain the same. Run MakeRwys to generate the data and point RC to it. Load a plan, enter your callsign and off you go.

If you have a spare computer then the free ShowText is better than the default Simconnect window. Sounds are separate from P3D too. Just need a WideFS licence. Moving maps like LittleNavmap make taxiing easy.

Fly your plan until 40nm from your destination when you have a choice of vectors or fly the STAR. Easy easy. 😉

 

[Patco Lch 1,465]

31 minutes ago, Tim_Capps said:

I don't think it's going to take 40 years of wandering in an MSFS wilderness (should that happen, who knows?) before a lot of people recall the fleshpots of P3D with fondness.

LOL Gotta love that one. There are some eloquently articulate dudes here.

[BostonJeremy77 519]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I wasn’t aware LM had spent any time on the ATC since they inherited the ESP code. But assuming they have I’d be very surprised if it compared favourably to a mature 3rd party ATC program.

Why don’t you try Radar Contact v4? Free here...

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/547732-radar-contact-and-jdtllc-in-transition/

 

It so happens, I have 2 days off. I am about to try it out. Shall report on results. Is it easy to uninstall without a trace should I choose to stick with default ATC? And is there a severe performance penalty?

Also, yeah, from what I heard the ATC in P3D is the same as FSX. Which means Microsoft HAD a decent ATC and did away with it in MSFS cause what's in MSFS right now is a pale comparison of the P3D one. It atrophied any vectoring capability. It just says "expect vectors" and those will never come, unlike P3D which continues to vector you until you are there. 

 

Regarding PMDG and poor sales - well, I think an earlier poster hit the nail on the head - perhaps that market has been exhausted. Anyone who was a target buyer for PMDG aircraft for P3D already owns all their stuff (as I do)... I even bought the latest 777 Expansion. There is nothing else to buy! Should they roll out a non-DC 6 addon (cause I have that one in MSFS and it's great), such as a 757 or anything along those lines, I will be the first to buy. If they do 737 MAX, I will buy it for P3D ON release date. Same with FSLabs and Concorde. Regardless of Dean's Concorde for MSFS, the FSLabs' P3D version will definitely surpass in fidelity. That's not a question, that's a fact. I love Dean and will buy his for the lack of FSLabs' in MSFS, but... I pledge no allegiance to "newer and shinier"... I do pledge allegiance in what I can get from it and for furthering my own knowledge of operation on various aircraft. Scenery is great, but... give me the aircraft I want to buy? I will buy it for ANY simulator - be it P3D, XP, or MSFS. 

Edited February 9, 2022 by BostonJeremy77

[Ray Proudfoot 8,961]

9 minutes ago, BostonJeremy77 said:

It so happens, I have 2 days off. I am about to try it out. Shall report on results. Is it easy to uninstall without a trace should I choose to stick with default ATC? And is there a severe performance penalty?

Very easy. Just delete the RC4 folder. No performance penalty. The trickiest bit is registering some DLLs. You may also be missing one which was supplied with W7 but not 10. Send me a PM with your email address and I’ll make it available.

And RC is the only ATC program with a “Speedbird Concorde” call sign when you buy the FSL version. 😉

Turn voice level for default ATC sound down to zero. Don’t disable it.

[JRMurray 214]

2 hours ago, F737NG said:

In other words, correlation does not equal causation.

^^^This ^^^

The post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy in a nutshell. Basically ... "A happened before B, therefore A caused B."

[cowpatz 243]

2 hours ago, BostonJeremy77 said:

Regarding PMDG and poor sales - well, I think an earlier poster hit the nail on the head - perhaps that market has been exhausted. Anyone who was a target buyer for PMDG aircraft for P3D already owns all their stuff (as I do)...

I guess, like a lot of other simmers, we are waiting for LM to show us their hand. If they communicated their intent (as in a proposed development roadmap perhaps) then it would give us (and developers) an idea of whether or not it is worthwhile continuing investment in P3D. Their lack of communication may not be "hurting" them but it sure is for those associated with them.
At present I'm playing a waiting game. I purchase very few P3D addons because I can no longer be assured that the developers will update their product line with the next P3D dot point upgrade. Hardly surprising then that P3D addon sales are way down.

So I remain on P3D4.5. I need a PC upgrade to go to V5 (with all the issues of choosing what hardware is needed and what is, or will soon be available), and MSFS is not yet mature enough to meet my tubeliner needs and the massive bandwidth required for enforced updates is an issue without a fibre connection.

 

Edited February 9, 2022 by cowpatz

[Ronaldo1978 26]

On 2/9/2022 at 12:07 AM, YMMB said:

This time around Microsoft has spent a fortune buying other gaming businesses (e.g. Activision for $US69 Billion) so maybe history won't repeat because it's investing massively into content development.

Maybe. But I see the risk of Windows 11 become the new Windows ME, Vista or 8.x. Big companies or organisations will not update to 11 if they are already on 10. Together with declining economy, ongoing inflation and maybe the blow of the speculation bubble at the markets the rates getting worse and the game investments will be the first ones to devest again. Then history will repeat.