On 2/17/2022 at 8:19 AM, jarmstro said:

Three men in a shed will no longer cut it.

If they were just starting, absolutely your comment would apply.  But it's well developed now so they can now modify it w/o a massive crew of programmers and managers.

A perhaps more important reality with a very small shop many sorts of events could kill it outright unless there are others in the ready able to maintain and further develop it.  For example, all 3 men (or however the team is configured) could die in a plane or car crash, or some other untoward event and really impair things in a hurry.

Edited February 18, 20224 yr by Noel

36 minutes ago, Noel said:

A perhaps more important reality with a very small shop many sorts of events could kill it outright unless there are others in the ready able to maintain and further develop it.  For example, all 3 men (or however the team is configured) could die in a plane or car crash, or some other untoward event and really impair things in a hurry.

Everything could happen to everyone.

For example, it's statistically more likely that a big software corporation decides on a whim to cease the development of their flight simulator product for whatever reason (financials? Shift of focus? A new CEO that hates flight sims?), rather than the hypothesis you made (shake my head...).

After all, the first hypothesis already happened multiple times in the past.

Oh, by the way, I don't know why there's still this idea that LR is "3 people in a shed"... They hired a lot of new people during the course of the V10 and V11 runs, and some of them are developing the main code of X-Plane.

 

25 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Everything could happen to everyone.

Of course, and for every decision by a big software corporation deciding on a whim to cease development there are a hundred smaller companies that fold.  LR is small enough to where a few key players for any one of a number of reasons could indeed spell it's slow demise.

49 minutes ago, Noel said:

Of course, and for every decision by a big software corporation deciding on a whim to cease development there are a hundred smaller companies that fold.  LR is small enough to where a few key players for any one of a number of reasons could indeed spell it's slow demise.

History is proof that the more likely thing is MS deciding to stop development of its flight sim.

As I said, multiple people are currently working both on XP rendering engine and on XP main code (physics, systems, etc.). Very unlikely a person leaving the team could spell its demise.

Edited February 18, 20224 yr by Murmur

14 minutes ago, Murmur said:

History is proof ...

And not only in the flight sim genre. As I have written already several times: e.g. in F1 big car manufacturers come and go. BMW, Honda, Toyota, Porsche, Mercedes, ... In the sports car championship: Audi, Porsche, Peugeot, Toyota, Aston Martin, ... Rallye: Toyota, Audi, Ford, Lancia, Subaru, Mitsubishi, ... and so on.

For the same reasons as Murmur wrote above

1 hour ago, Murmur said:

... a big ... corporation decides on a whim to cease the development of ... for whatever reason (financials? Shift of focus? A new CEO that hates ...?)

I add one reason ... In German there's a saying "having a fart sitting crosswise" 😄 and that also applies to CEO's.

Only the teams/companies whose business case is flight simulation/racing/whatever, stay for decades. History is proof.

 

4 hours ago, uwespeed said:

And not only in the flight sim genre. As I have written already several times: e.g. in F1 big car manufacturers come and go. BMW, Honda, Toyota, Porsche, Mercedes, ... In the sports car championship: Audi, Porsche, Peugeot, Toyota, Aston Martin, ... Rallye: Toyota, Audi, Ford, Lancia, Subaru, Mitsubishi, ... and so on.

For the same reasons as Murmur wrote above

I add one reason ... In German there's a saying "having a fart sitting crosswise" 😄 and that also applies to CEO's.

Only the teams/companies whose business case is flight simulation/racing/whatever, stay for decades. History is proof.

 

What's your point then?

4 hours ago, Murmur said:

History is proof that the more likely thing is MS deciding to stop development of its flight sim.

As I said, multiple people are currently working both on XP rendering engine and on XP main code (physics, systems, etc.). Very unlikely a person leaving the team could spell its demise.

Well good luck with it I hope they continue to thrive.

17 minutes ago, Noel said:

What's your point then?

You didn't get the point? So ... what can I do any more about it? I won't repeat it, you simply have to read it again and try to understand. It can't get easier ...

On 2/18/2022 at 4:31 AM, jarmstro said:

Jeff Minter wrote Revenge of the Mutant Camels for the C64 single-handedly in just two months! It sold in shed loads and is still rated to be one of the top games of all time.🤣

Mind you, it took forty years for him to fix a collision detection bug which he finally did in 2021.😂 True story.

Haha, Thanks for sharing. Appreciate this kind of information. I remember playing this game as a kid. Brought back some memories. Slightly off topic here but thanks anyway!

Ignoring the fact that this thread is made to mock others, here is my take:

I love the stability and polish of X-Plane. I use many other simulators and I am happy with all of them, but X-Plane manages to shine with its simple, intuitive and straight-to-point architecture where everything just works, both from a developer and user perspective. So I am with @Bjoern on that one.

Edited February 19, 20224 yr by BiologicalNanobot

9 hours ago, Noel said:

No I appreciate your point and I I think it's reasonable, but there is uncertainty in all of it regardless of how we calculate odds of an outcome.  I certainly wouldn't bet on the future of LR nor any other flight sim.

XP11 isnt getting updated anymore. its finished. What future were you thinking of betting on?

LR are also a fair bit more than just Xplane. they have several apps on the mobile stores - some not even aviation related. Austin also has X-Avionics. They get so many requests for commercial support they have to turn people away.

Also many XP customers actually go to 3rd parties like precision flight controls or torquesim/realsimgear for their final product.

So while you are sat in the corner wondering if the world will end if a few awesome people unexpectedly die, LR is building an entire industry from the ground up.

I wouldnt bet on scenery simulator getting a scenery gateway anytime in the near future, but thats more to do with how hard it is these days to find good people to work for evil corporations, than the loss of people they already lost.

Edited February 19, 20224 yr by mSparks

I am sure Austin has already shared his "secrets" on codinng X-Plane flight dynamics with the rest of the Team, specially with Phillipp.

In my live, with age and although not yet up to the level I would like to achieve, I am trying to concentrate the most in the Present, avoid as much as possible to cry for the worst in the Past, and don't get stressed building ( worst ) scenarios for the Future.

The Present for me, now, in as far as Flight Simulation goes, is pretty much shared by 3 tittles: IL-2 Great Battles ( just for the pleasure of enjoying their flight dynamics and overall physics modeling ), Microsoft Flight Simulator which doesn't cease to bring good moments of enjoyment scenery and even weather wise, and X-Plane 12 which I expect to see released as soon as possible, and enjoy at least as much as I enjoed X-Plane 11. When Austin commented he no longer even stores the original XP11 code, I uninstalled XP11 for good and set "waiting mode" active for the ext version.

I think we all have good reasons to feel confident that X-Plane 12's cycle will, just like X-Plane 10 and 11, bring as excellent reasons to use and support the developers behind the project.

Not being ( not even by far ) a fan of air combat, or actually any sort of combat at all, I still decided to buy "Tank Crew" for IL-2 simply to support their Project, and I endedn up enjoying quite a lot operating the tanks in that sim. The ground physics are simply astounding ! I can easily support even more any good projects for X-Plane 12, MFS ... provided I can see developers of quality offering their products.

18 hours ago, Murmur said:

History is proof that the more likely thing is MS deciding to stop development of its flight sim.

 

MS is a monopoly. Part of a cartel of multinational companies that needs to be broken up into a million pieces! I am not a lawyer but I am sure MS have violated plenty of antitrust laws. Will MSFS survive a monopoly breakup if it ever happens?    

1 hour ago, strider1 said:

MS is a monopoly.

Just being a monopoly isn't so much of a problem, before patents became so much of a scam they played a vital part in technological development.

Edited February 19, 20224 yr by mSparks

3 hours ago, strider1 said:

MS is a monopoly. Part of a cartel of multinational companies that needs to be broken up into a million pieces! I am not a lawyer but I am sure MS have violated plenty of antitrust laws. Will MSFS survive a monopoly breakup if it ever happens?    

MS is a multinational corp just like all of the corps representing all of your hardware in your flight sim rig.  It certainly isn't a monopoly--they have ample competition in OS software, consoles, Office software, tablets, laptops, etc etc etc.