Orbx products in 2022

[MySound 408]

4 minutes ago, Konterhalbe said:

I've always wondered who buys this kind of stuff?

 

 

I bought Dubai and Singapore after being there on holiday and enjoy low and slow flights to remember the times. 
 

Konterhalbe - yeah. Greets from lower Bavaria 😉

[pmb 5,138]

1 hour ago, Dominique_K said:

 Interesting to note that they don't sell enough city packs to make money 

"We made a few city packs a bit "out of context," like Cape Town, Dubai and Mumbai, and despite being great executions, with lots of research done and great POIs, they do not seem to be very popular so it is a hard decision for us to keep doing loss-makers."

There's not much in the surrounding, no interesting addon airports worth a 1 h flight in a business jet. Plus, I guess, relatively few users come from these regions. Notably VFR pilots need a certain interesting region to discover, a cityscape alone doesn't keep them busy.

Despite, I bought all of them and they are nice. And I made several flights from/to Dubai OMDB or the smaller Dubai airports and over the city to desert destinations not too far. Granted, the other two are left a bit lonely indeed.

I think Cityscapes in well-visited regions, including Honolulu, would sell well.

Kind regards, Michael

[pmb 5,138]

42 minutes ago, Konterhalbe said:

Jarrad Marshall did an outstanding job developing Innsbruck and Palm Springs for P3D V4.5.
Really loved flying to both airports, since they were exceptionally well done!

Jarrad doesn't work with ORBX anymore, as was stated by one of the officials, Anna or Ed. I really miss him and was looking forward to seeing a good Palm Springs or Monterey in MSFS.

My very personal conjecture is he invested a huge effort for ORBX into AeroflyFS2 which turned out to be a non-starter. This might have contributed to making him quit.

Kind regards, Michael

[Kaboki 441]

I feel Orbx really lost it after John stepped down. Anna seems more like a bean counter than someone having passion for the hobby. The quality and innovation(e.g people flow) has dropped significantly except a few products, and the small cozy airports that brought me to their site they stopped developing, not counting the terrible ports of the old ones. Actually I dont know where to go anymore to find the small airports with great quality wich im mostly intrested in. 

But sure stepping up from being a developer to become a publisher probably made sense from a biznis perspective but sadly something got lost in the endevour.🙄

[bernd1151 6,031]

2 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

 Interesting to note that they don't sell enough city packs to make money 

"We made a few city packs a bit "out of context," like Cape Town, Dubai and Mumbai, and despite being great executions, with lots of research done and great POIs, they do not seem to be very popular so it is a hard decision for us to keep doing loss-makers."

That surprised me too. MSFS default scenery is so good, that I always use Mumbai as my starting point to explore new parts of India. The same goes for Cape Town and Dubai. But maybe us old farts, who have been to these places, are too few to justify the development costs for ORBX. How about Jakarta next?  

[RW1 615]

Orbx is no longer the power house it was. They have become a Simmarket for 3rd party software. Not sure what to think of the new CEO. I can think of 3 other talented designers who no longer work with Orbx now. Jarrad being the best of them!

[FrankPilot 124]

5 hours ago, Konterhalbe said:

I've always wondered who buys this kind of stuff?

People who live there, or have visited, or are curious, or want to be educated etc.  Cheers.

[brucewtb 250]

Pleased to see they are working on YMML (Melbourne International AKA Tullamarine or just Tulla) as the current rendition even after the Oz update is pretty basic!

Bruce

[Dominique_K 10,152]

12 hours ago, pmb said:

Notably VFR pilots need a certain interesting region to discover, a cityscape alone doesn't keep them busy.

A good point. Concerning Dubai, the Jebel al Harim on the NE and the coastal jebels towards Mascate are worth flying. But on the other side (SW) , the last time I flew there, the watermasks were unfortunately not yet done.

[steve310002 1,198]

They had Dublin city landmarks in their 2021 timeline. Since then there has been no updates on it and now I see it is missing from their 2022 timeline. What a pity! I was really looking forward to that one. It would be nice if from time to time they provided updates on the timeline status especially if something has been cancelled or postponed. I had been checking in on their forum all last year hoping to see Dublin was being worked on but zilch.

[AviatorMan 253]

I am a bit confused. Before MSFS2020 I was a huge fan and buyer of Orbx products. I purchased Global, the OpenLC products, and just about all of the regions for Europe and Western USA and installed them in P3Dv4+. But do we really need these products with MSFS2020? Yes, the airports and city landscapes, I can see continuing to buy them, but hasn't MSFS2020, especially with photogrammetry, made these general regional scenery products at best redundant and in some cases inferior? For example I lived in the French Loire Valley area for several months and have continued to travel there and know it well, and flying MSFS2020 along the river and by Amboise Chateau - it is strikingly detailed and realistic! Likewise the area around Cambridge where I now live  - Everything is detailed and realistic, except the airports. 

[sal9000 210]

For me, ORBX is going from a creator to a reseller sadly.

John has sitting on a very high horse and take, a few years ago, his mouth full with the whole Landclass of the world in only a year.

So it is only fair to nag him about that.

Sometime ORBX sell good stuff and there Central is a masterpice, sadly that there is no choice to intgrate software from other seller.

So he had the chance to get the leading company for FS-stuff, but he loose it-my point!

Edited February 12, 2022 by sal9000

[pmb 5,138]

8 minutes ago, sal9000 said:

John has sitting on a very high horse and take, a few years ago, his mouth full with the whole Landclass of the world in only a year.

So it is only fair to nag him about that.

Not possible to nag John anymore as he's no longer reponsible for anything ORBX does. He only sits at home or drives in his Ferrari and counts the money he gets via his shares.

Kind regards, Michael

[teletom 98]

14 minutes ago, sal9000 said:

sadly that there is no choice to intgrate software from other seller.

Good point. I bought a few airports directly from the creator(s) which are now also available through ORBX.
Would be great if you could register that copy with their Central, so all in one place.

[Dominique_K 10,152]

51 minutes ago, teletom said:

Good point. I bought a few airports directly from the creator(s) which are now also available through ORBX.
Would be great if you could register that copy with their Central, so all in one place.

What you want, you guys,  is to buy elsewhere but use, free of charge, their delivery/storing tool 🤦‍♂️  ? Or are you ready to pay a subscription for it 🤣? 
 

54 minutes ago, pmb said:

Not possible to nag John anymore as he's no longer reponsible for anything ORBX does. He only sits at home or drives in his Ferrari and counts the money he gets via his shares.

Kind regards, Michael

Gosh I missed an episode ! I am still with him driving a Porsche.

I wonder whether Orbx is doing as well these days as  before June 2019.

If I read well the post at Orbx, they practically leave the XP market and have a limited number of projects for the other two sims. And one leading line of products fails to sell.  I hope that the MS subcontracting will help to go through the rough waters if this is the case.

So Ferrari ? Porsche ? Or Honda ? 

15 hours ago, RW1 said:

Orbx is no longer the power house it was. They have become a Simmarket for 3rd party software. Not sure what to think of the new CEO. I can think of 3 other talented designers who no longer work with Orbx now. Jarrad being the best of them!

John V has built Orbx thanks to his acumen and young scenery designers (high school students, young adults). They left to have their life after finishing college I suppose.  The difficulty of the addon market  the last two years and a half was not specially encouraging anyway.

Is there a problem of having Orbx be a reseller ? Since MSFS announcement, the scenery market has shrunk  or so it seems and Orbx certainly needed to diversify ! And Simmarket does not fund software development if I am not mistaken.

Edited February 12, 2022 by Dominique_K