21 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

There were many running around with their hair on fire for any perceived small delays with this 737-700 release even, I was talking about them... I'd say it's not a reach to say that a good majority of customers would prefer the way PMDG is doing it now, in order to get to experience the 737 in MSFS (now, not 2-3+ months from now) at a level which is at par with the P3D version effectively and better visually. The key here is "in MSFS", as there's no 737 at all currently for the sim that's >= medium fidelity. Given that some of these features (i.e. LNAV 2.0) depend on Asobo adding more debugging capabilities for WASM/C++ development, and there is no known timeline from Asobo for this, PMDG's release strategy makes even more sense.

Not Asobo has to go for PMDG, PMDG should go for Asobo so they should fit the new standard for coding that is used witin MSFS , and that Sir is the point..

This release is still the old plane they have used with older sims, shure a bit overworked 

But the best example is the new Fenix, which is completely adapted to the MSFS standard in development and it's really great and you just notice that this addon corresponds to the MSFS 2020 status. 

I don't want to annoy any PMDG fans with these words, not in the least ( I'm one myself ) but in my opinion that's the reality right now.

cheers 😉

Edited May 24, 20224 yr by pmplayer

2 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

Given that some of these features (i.e. LNAV 2.0) depend on Asobo adding more debugging capabilities for WASM/C++ development

I am just curious as to how they were able to put their current LNAV system into MSFS without the debugging capabilities, but can't do that with the new version. I've got no dog in this race though, I own neither the PMDG737 or the Fenix. Waiting out the couple of months to see if PMDG makes good on their plans.

On 5/22/2022 at 5:26 PM, OzWhitey said:

The NGX had some cool new stuff, like the collimated HUGS.

Well even that does not work well in the MSFS version, runway edge line are wrong, because of old or not detailed enough magnetic declination file in the sim, that I can understand. 

But From Robert post it's also the reason why the flight path symbol is not working, which is weird because Aerosoft managed to make it, "the flight path symbol" work with the CRJ.

Edited May 24, 20224 yr by bendead

7 hours ago, pmplayer said:

Not Asobo has to go for PMDG, PMDG should go for Asobo so they should fit the new standard for coding that is used witin MSFS , and that Sir is the point..

This release is still the old plane they have used with older sims, shure a bit overworked 

But the best example is the new Fenix, which is completely adapted to the MSFS standard in development and it's really great and you just notice that this addon corresponds to the MSFS 2020 status.

Well that would be the ideal situation certainly, but it's not practical at all for PMDG since they have a huge well-tested C++ codebase for their aircrafts systems and other areas... if they were to to use the new best-practices way of developing for MSFS it probably only makes sense for new aircraft which they've never developed before.  For the 737/777/747 series, given the existing codebase, their only choice is to develop the WASM/C++ way for MSFS which then means facing certain limitations in that aspect of the SDK (otherwise it probably means years of re-writing everything from scratch).. at least Asobo seems to have acknowledged these specific WASM/C++ limitations and plans to address them soon.

And like I keep saying, it "is still the old plane" only for a minority of customers who've used these birds before on FSX/P3D.. the majority of their MSFS customers have either never flown their 7xx series before in any sim, or are willing to accept a first release for MSFS that is at least at par with previous releases.  And unsurprisingly, PMDG is catering to what this majority wants. These are the facts and the reality of the situation 🙂

I love what Fenix has done, but I also understand they're operating under entirely different circumstances.. for PMDG's circumstances, this release strategy is the best, practically speaking.

9 hours ago, pmplayer said:

Not Asobo has to go for PMDG, PMDG should go for Asobo so they should fit the new standard for coding that is used witin MSFS , and that Sir is the point..

This release is still the old plane they have used with older sims, shure a bit overworked 

But the best example is the new Fenix, which is completely adapted to the MSFS standard in development and it's really great and you just notice that this addon corresponds to the MSFS 2020 status. 

I don't want to annoy any PMDG fans with these words, not in the least ( I'm one myself ) but in my opinion that's the reality right now.

cheers 😉

The Fenix is a first-built addon which gives the developer a lot more flexibility with regards to the design of both the product itself and the development process. It's also built on an existing suite of systems simulations, which saves a lot of time needed to build these systems from the ground up. PMDG are bringing existing products into the new sim, which means they are much more restricted in the decisions they can make. Aamir from Fenix said himself that both developers use different development approaches and are subject to different road blocks.

I think it's important to look at the situation from a resources point of view. It's not practicable for PMDG to rewrite all their aircraft in a different language just to end up at more or less the same depth at which the products already are, to build on top of that only then. It's equally important to remember that Fenix are currently working on a single product, whereas PMDG are working on 4 different products. Yes, they already exist which saves time, but that is a moot point if they were to rewrite all of them and we would be looking at a release for the 747, which comes last, in (my guess) at least 2026, probably later. Other projects like the 757 could even slip into 2030. That is a lot of revenue lost and additional resources put in in the meantime just to get the products to the same level but in a different language, which seems like economic suicide to me. I don't see any other way than the one they're going, but that also means they have to live with ensuing restrictions.

I'm not sure about how realistic it is to expect the 737 to offer lots of new things, at least now in MSFS. I was disappointed myself in the lack of EFB and new LNAV, even is these are temporary. I would also like a full ACARS simulation like you find in other products. I think the crux of the matter may well be the fact that the goal is to bring 4 products into MSFS rather than one. Even with a lot of the code already existing, bringing all of them into MSFS is probably still a lot of work, which is why resources may be scarce to fit all of these with lots of new bells and whistles simultaneously. I personally think it would be very likely we would see a PMDG aircraft with a lot of new stuff if they developed only one aircraft for MSFS, for example the 757, which would be completely new. I guess the current focus is to bring the existing ones to MSFS and built on it from there.

Edited May 24, 20224 yr by threegreen
Removed quote I wasn't replying to.

1 hour ago, lwt1971 said:

And like I keep saying, it "is still the old plane" only for a minority of customers who've used these birds before on FSX/P3D.. the majority of their MSFS customers have either never flown their 7xx series before in any sim, or are willing to accept a first release for MSFS that is at least at par with previous releases.  And unsurprisingly, PMDG is catering to what this majority wants. These are the facts

Not sure those are facts, more like speculation. 🙂

We don't really know how many of their customers are new. The number of people willing to pay $70 to $240 for a 737 is a lot, lot smaller than the number of people playing MSFS. I suspect a very sizable fraction of the people who acquired the 737 are previous customers. The NGXu sold very well on release because it came with a free MSFS 737. And a large number of people - like me - just cashed those chips.

Some PMDG enthusiasts are assuming that the sales numbers are massive because of the server crash. That was really just a IT fail, it doesn't tell us anything much about actual sales.

Of those who are new customers, many will be coming from X-plane, where they have spent hundreds of hours in the Zibo. There's some pronounced unhappiness from people who are surprised that things present in their freeware 737 are not in the PMDG (EFB, proper VR implementation etc)

If they're new customers, they don't have old PMDGs to compare to. Reading around the internet (Reddit etc), I'd say that 1. People really don't like PMDG much as a company and 2. the 737 gets compared to the Fenix an awful lot. And the Flightsim Street really like Aamir and his team.

So, yeah, not necessary facts. PMDG aren't catering to what the crowd wants, if so they'd take away Randazzo's keyboard and hire a less annoying PR person! PMDG are just doing what they've always done, which is OK right now but may well get them in trouble once a new, leaner Fenix-style developer decides to take on some Boeing projects. 

6 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

If they're new customers, they don't have old PMDGs to compare to. Reading around the internet (Reddit etc), I'd say that 1. People really don't like PMDG much as a company and 2. the 737 gets compared to the Fenix an awful lot. And the Flightsim Street really like Aamir and his team.

So, yeah, not necessary facts. PMDG aren't catering to what the crowd wants, if so they'd take away Randazzo's keyboard and hire a less annoying PR person! PMDG are just doing what they've always done, which is OK right now but may well get them in trouble once a new, leaner Fenix-style developer decides to take on some Boeing projects. 

These are all opinion-laden non-facts too 🙂 We'll have to agree to disagree here... vocal PMDG-disliking folks pontificating on reddit/forums/etc aside, I still think that a greater number actually are quite happy with their 737 release strategy.  And it doesn't have to be a Fenix vs PMDG contest... this pitting of dev against dev is quite silly. The highly personal angst against RSR by some is even sillier and weirder. There are a great many of us who love Fenix and their fresh approach to MSFS, and also quite like what PMDG brings to the table, amongst other devs.

22 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

proper VR implementation

Off-topic question out of interest, what does the Zibo do in terms of VR?

Maybe open a Pmdg bashing topic for people who really need that? Then we can stay on topic here

Edited May 24, 20224 yr by rob0203

53 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

Of those who are new customers, many will be coming from X-plane, where they have spent hundreds of hours in the Zibo. There's some pronounced unhappiness from people who are surprised that things present in their freeware 737 are not in the PMDG (EFB, proper VR implementation etc)

My sentiments exactly on this! Although I used PMDG products before MSFS, it was back in the days of FSX. I think I owned their 747, IIRC. I never used P3D. I've gone FSX-XP-MSFS. And I did have some sort of a love affair with the Zibo mod. The systems depth seemed excellent, and there was even a freeware EFB that really enhanced the usage of the mod. Also the community around the aircraft was excellent. Lol that was back in the day where it was possible to discuss an addon in pretty much one thread. And that thread was several hundred pages long... if not thousands of pages, I cannot remember exactly. 

So naturally a bit of a let down in MSFS, as it's difficult (if not impossible) for me not to compare the PMDG 737 to the FBW and now the Fenix. I still fly the PMDG 737 though, as it's fun to be able to do things both the Airbus and Boeing way. But the Fenix is for sure my go-to airliner in the sim. 

Edited May 24, 20224 yr by Cpt_Piett

It's pretty funny to see people trying to find all kinds of excuses or speculations.

 

As a customer, I really don't care which code they are using, what debugging software is used, or what limitations one claims that they are facing and their strategy. 

 

Those are just distracting points to cover weaknesses or inabilities in their development process.

 

Both started almost at the same time.

 

New platform for both.

 

One is blaming or complaining almost about everything while the other is not.

 

One has been producing software for many years with the same type of airplane. During this time, they jumped from a few platforms to another with almost the same unfixed problems and claim that they will fix them. Not after so many years.

 

One comes on the market with all this technology that was also available for the other one, with more features, many fewer bugs, and almost the same price, and is acknowledging and says sorry for the mistakes (bugs).

 

The other one brings (ports) on the market the same product they developed before, not from scratch, with fewer features and so many bugs. And by the way, I didn't see any apologies.

 

At this point, it really doesn't matter if you are familiar or not with the product, like it or not.

 

As one says rightfully so, these are the facts and the reality of the situation.

 

5 minutes ago, LRBS said:

As one says rightfully so, these are the facts and the reality of the situation.

 

Lol sure ok then... More rightfully, all your points are the reality of *your* situation. Seems like you'd be best served to not bother with PMDG's products at all and wait for some other dev to develop some Boeings? No matter how much time you waste time on these threads distilling all your talking points about PMDG it's not going move the needle an inch for all those of us who do see the actual "reality of the situation" 🙂

2 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

The highly personal angst against RSR by some is even sillier and weirder.

I'm not sure it is that silly or weird.

Perhaps there are cultural differences at play, and RSR's wafflings don't personally bother me, but I can see how they'd irritate others.   There is a common theme of self-congratulation, blaming of others for shortcoming, divine sense of self-worth of the business, and .....well..... a lot of dithery, waffly, word play.

I love PMDG products and have bought (I think) just about everything, on all platforms (incidentally, their BAe JS41 is still my absolute fave!).... I'm just making the point that I don't think those Reddit responses and reactions to RSR's communication style are that weird or unexpected.

Edited May 24, 20224 yr by JYW

3 minutes ago, JYW said:

I'm not sure it is that silly or weird.

Perhaps there are cultural differences at play, and RSR's wafflings don't personally bother me, but I can see how they'd irritate others.   There is a common theme of self-congratulation, blaming of others for shortcoming, divine sense of self-worth of the business, and .....well..... a lot of dithery, waffly, word play.

I love PMDG products and have bought (I think) just about everything, on all platforms (incidentally, their BAe JS41 is still my absolute fave!).... I'm just making the point that I don't think those Reddit responses and reactions to RSR's communication style are that weird or unexpected.

I would love their js41 in Msfs. Oh well one can dream. 

We have to analyze the facts impartially and fairly. I have always been a fan of PMDG and have purchased their products over the years. But unfortunately they are going down a path that I, as a fan and customer, cannot agree.

With the arrival of MSFS, everything changed. The platform has evolved absurdly, bringing thousands of possibilities to be explored, and this is very good for us - consumers.

Since the Fenix A320 announcement, I see that PMDG is going the wrong way. During the development of both aircraft, in the same week, I read Randazzo blaming Asobo for some problems in the PMDG and Amir writing that everything went very well within the possibilities available on the platform.

I understand that PMDG has built its fame very justly through the products launched in the past, but today the world of simulation is different, with much more information and possibilities. Nowadays, due to the evolution of everything that involves this simulation world, the public is more demanding. I am a real pilot and I am very sorry for the decisions made by PMDG.

It is no longer possible to carry aircraft from old platforms. It's enough! I think we deserve a product made from scratch on the new platform, capable of taking advantage of every feature made available by MSFS.

Anyone who isn't a pilot can observe certain things on a real 737 through youtube and realize that it's very different. Today we no longer accept that. The trim command response, for example, is very disappointing, the flight physics is practically the same as in P3D, there's no way to accept it anymore. First of all I want to remind you that I was a real 737 pilot and I know what I'm talking about.

In addition to having flown the 737, I have always been a Boeing guy, but now we have the Fenix A320 that behaves completely differently. I know that a homemade simulator will never pass the full fidelity of the real world, but, as far as possible, Fenix is a monstrous evolution and gives the feeling of taking advantage of the features of the new platform much more. And the PMDG 737, unfortunately, doesn't give us that same feeling.

As a fan and customer of PMDG, I really hope that Randazzo will review his decisions and decide to start from scratch, even out of respect for us. First, things changed with the release of MSFS, and then with the arrival of the Fenix A320.

Now expectations increase much more, which is a sign of a great evolution. But there is still time for PMDG to think about it and give us what we really want and deserve. Amen, PMDG.