13 minutes ago, kand said:

that is a really good point, and would absolutely kill p3d for me. I guess we can only hope that Microsoft open up their platform to allow 3rd party weather devs a market share (quasi support p3d) or accept that the end of ASP3D is inevitable on diminishing return v costs.  

It's widely speculated that they can't do so due to their licensing agreement with Meteoblue. Also the live weather simulation is one of the big selling points for MSFS and allowing third parties to basically replace it undermines that message.

However... REX manages to inject weather into MSFS by some back-door method with Weather Force; again, there's speculation about what that method is, and of course they're not saying, but it seems to require fixing every time there's an update so I suspect it's directly tweaking a value in memory or calling a private method that keeps moving about when the executable gets re-built. If REX can do it, HiFi could do the same. If it was an existential risk for them not to have an MSFS product, you would think they'd be willing to take that risk. Of course, MS could close the loophole at some point and make REX's method impossible, but since MS seems happy enough with REX while not directly supporting them, HiFi could do the same. It probably wouldn't be as good as ASP3D functionally, but it could work.

 

I would not worry about LM abandoning P3D. They have a HUGE and very solid, very well paying customer base, who pay much much more for LM then for any other Simulation platform in the market. They have higher incomes than MSFS has. 

Of course I would like to see LM "listening" more to us, hobby users and enthousiasts, corresponding more and give us hints and some teasers. 

But, nobody has the right to claim that. Because it´s not part of the contracts "we" have agreed on. Simple as that. So it is 100% useless to talk about this. It won´t happen. 

LM does probably not need this to exist at the actual market. And on top, they are not allowed to either.

They even do not have a support contract with us! 

BUT they still have P3D older Versions available and you are allowed to use them, even years after release. 

Marcus  

22 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

But isn't P3D's customers supposed to be commercial customers and military customers?  From my understanding of the agreement between LM and Microsoft, LM isn't even supposed to be targeting the home consumer market, or as you say, the "retail market," with P3D.

You are 100% right! 

23 hours ago, Chapstick said:

That doesn't make them immune to criticism or pointing out how the market is responding to their policies.  

Actually, it does! Because that´s exactly how their contracts work and are setup. 

The MARKET, you are referring too is NOT their market. Their market is commercial and military, and THAT market has solid contracts with very strong rules, especially regarding communications and feature (and future) insights.

Who says, that the P3D Version you and I are running on is the version those markets are using? Ever thought about the possibility, that the licence and software we are using is not the same "they" are using? And I am not talking about the academy and prof licences (NOT going into further details here because its against AVSIM rules).

But I hope you understand what I am saying here.

WE are NOT their prefered customer base. We are customers yes....but they won´t earn enough with us.

You can google and do some research about the sums some contracts have when they sign between military and commercial. I can assure you, that even one single contract is much much higher then what MS earns with MSFS

Edited July 28, 20223 yr by mpo910

3 minutes ago, mpo910 said:

Actually, it does! Because that´s exactly how their contracts work and are setup. 

The MARKET, you are referring too is NOT their market. Their market is commercial and military, and THAT market has solid contracts with very strong rules, especially regarding communications and feature (and future) insights.

I am well aware of ALL of this. I've stated it myself several times on this forum. But P3D also serves an enthusiast market that is rapidly shrinking (not according to me - third party devs are saying this based on dropping revenue since MSFS was announced). There's nothing that prevents them from communicating to this market (again, see their appearance at FSExpo) except their own policies. 

Here is a article about the amount of money their contracts have, partly described for what "Part" (here aeronautics) of the LM business (NOT P3D).

Link LM Article about contracts May 2022

And now think about LM Prepar3D, being a training plattform, for a company with this amount of revenues AND for some of their customers incl many governances, who are training pilots, missile usage, weapon system, firefighters, ground troops, tanks, etc. with LM P3D. Yes, because it is not only a flight sim. It is a huge training plattform for many many more things then flying "PMDG", QW or Caranado.

In fact, WE are not even a little bit "noticeable".  😏

Edited July 28, 20223 yr by mpo910

5 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

But P3D also serves an enthusiast market

No, they are NOT serving such a market. You are completely wrong here. Sorry to say this. They are a training plattform and read the EULA. No enthousiasts at all. Just training. 

They offer the abillity to use a plattform for training purposes WITHOUT serving! Really. Serving is support, and they do NOT support.

Don´t get me wrong, I understand what you are trying to state here. I would like to see them doing this indeed too. But it is not going to happen.

 

11 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

There's nothing that prevents them from communicating to this market (again, see their appearance at FSExpo) except their own policies. 

I think (opinion), that LM needs a solid test base.......(it´s just not called BETA).

And at the latest EXPO, they even have stated they are not allowed to do some things like "gamish" looking features etc. 

And giving us some infos without really clear background, feature promisses and without telling us about their plans, is useless to me. 

And that they act like that has a reason.

At those Expos actually are some "students" that use P3D to train. 😉 

Edited July 28, 20223 yr by mpo910

10 minutes ago, mpo910 said:

No, they are NOT serving such a market. You are completely wrong here. Sorry to say this. They are a training plattform and read the EULA. No enthousiasts at all. Just training. 

They offer the abillity to use a plattform for training purposes WITHOUT serving! Really. Serving is support, and they do NOT support.

Don´t get me wrong, I understand what you are trying to state here. I would like to see them doing this indeed too. But it is not going to happen.

I think you're reading a bit too much into the word "serving." Insert whatever vocabulary is appropriate, but the fact is that the third-party flight sim market* relied on P3D for years. The part of the market that depended on P3D is rapidly shrinking. Lockheed's last significant release was now nearly eight months ago. They can choose to communicate with their customers. They have chosen not to. 

*here's a list of LM's "Developer Network" on their site which includes many vendors who have nothing to do with training/commercial/government

50 minutes ago, neilhewitt said:

However... REX manages to inject weather into MSFS by some back-door method with Weather Force; again, there's speculation about what that method is, and of course they're not saying, but it seems to require fixing every time there's an update so I suspect it's directly tweaking a value in memory or calling a private method that keeps moving about when the executable gets re-built. If REX can do it, HiFi could do the same. If it was an existential risk for them not to have an MSFS product, you would think they'd be willing to take that risk

Whilst some form of injecting live weather into the sim might be feasible where does that leave Historical weather? That is essential for me when I fly in time zones far from my own. Hopefully that would remain an option.

The other problem is MSFS appears to be in a permanent state of beta. How long before it settles down to maybe one or two updates a year? Each update will probably break weather injection as you allude to.

5 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

The other problem is MSFS appears to be in a permanent state of beta. How long before it settles down to maybe one or two updates a year?

I've yet to have any issues with the way updates to MSFS are deployed. They issue a target release date for the next patch, publish an opt-in public beta, and give devs time to test their products in the beta before it goes live. And there's plenty of time between updates that this doesn't become a hassle. 

1 minute ago, Chapstick said:

I've yet to have any issues with the way updates to MSFS are deployed. They issue a target release date for the next patch, publish an opt-in public beta, and give devs time to test their products in the beta before it goes live. And there's plenty of time between updates that this doesn't become a hassle. 

You're speaking as a user. I'm talking about developers who will probably have to fix their product with each update. Assuming it can be fixed. Look at how MilViz gave up with the radar gauge for P3D when the latest hotfix was released.

9 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

You're speaking as a user. I'm talking about developers who will probably have to fix their product with each update. Assuming it can be fixed. Look at how MilViz gave up with the radar gauge for P3D when the latest hotfix was released.

Of all the issues I have with MSFS right now, this one barely bubbles to the surface. It’s just not a huge concern. Even complex aircraft from Leo and PMDG work fine in the SU10 beta. There’s less panicking about issuing compatibility patches and it’s more along the lines of adding features that the new updates can unlock.

@Chapstick, aircraft have an SDK to assist developers. No such luxury for those wanting to tap into the weather engine. They have to use trial and error. Time consuming and prone to being broken for each update.

And that’s even assuming they have a desire to try it.

One thing Hi-Fi might consider for ASP3D is a subscription service for the weather. Navigraph seem to do okay with it.

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@Chapstick, aircraft have an SDK to assist developers. No such luxury for those wanting to tap into the weather engine. They have to use trial and error. Time consuming and prone to being broken for each update.

And that’s even assuming they have a desire to try it.

One thing Hi-Fi might consider for ASP3D is a subscription service for the weather. Navigraph seem to do okay with it.

Really hope HiFi doesn't go to a subscription service, but I'd rather they do that than go out of business.  Active Sky has been rock solid addon for a very long time I can't imagine simming without it.  

Hopefully XP12 will help them generate some new business.