It wouldn't be the first time both iFly and PMDG 737s have been out for the same platform so I don't see why it would be that much of an issue now either. 

The IFly 737 is not really a study level aircraft, so there will be room for PMDGs version. I'd say it's probably gonna be a bit like on P3D when there was already the Aerosoft A320 and then came FSL with their own study level A320, which became a huge success.

9 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

The IFly 737 is not really a study level aircraft

The term "study level" is a meaningless marketing term. 

I, for one, thought that the ifly 737 always offered great value for $$.

Looking forward to what they are bringing to the table. 

9 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

The IFly 737 is not really a study level aircraft, so there will be room for PMDGs version.

As far as I remember from my previous-sims times, they were on a similar level of complexity (iFly even had some features PMDG did not).
But I can also recall this issue having always been, for some reason, a sensitive topic, so I will stop here. All in all, I'm flying airbus in the sim. 😁

1 minute ago, Ricardo41 said:

The term "study level" is a meaningless marketing term. 

I, for one, thought that the ifly 737 always offered great value for $$.

Looking forward to what they are bringing to the table. 

Yup, a poster of a cockpit panel is 'study level' if you use it to study.

It's worth noting that there were quite a few things the iFy 737 did better than the PMDG 737, and for less money too. I liked 'em both for different reasons and bought them both, but of the two I tended to favour the iFly.

17 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

The IFly 737 is not really a study level aircraft, so there will be room for PMDGs version. I'd say it's probably gonna be a bit like on P3D when there was already the Aerosoft A320 and then came FSL with their own study level A320, which became a huge success.

The comparison between Ifly 737 and Aerosoft A320 is not fair. The ifly is waaay more advanced than the Aerosoft A320. 

19 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

The IFly 737 is not really a study level aircraft, so there will be room for PMDGs version. I'd say it's probably gonna be a bit like on P3D when there was already the Aerosoft A320 and then came FSL with their own study level A320, which became a huge success.

To insinuate iFly is the equivalent of Aerosoft to FSL is nowhere near an accurate comparison and does a huge disservice to iFly.  Not even going to get into the "Study LeveL" debate.  

As others have mentioned there are pros to both PMDG and IFly and I also ended up using the iFly more largely due to it's HW support and performance at the time. 

If nothing else IFly will get all the users who despise RSR so much that they refuse to ever buy anything from PMDG LOL!!  (Only half joking)  

I always enjoyed the iFly 737 and flew it a lot until PMDG released theirs.  It’s been a while but I remember their level of fidelity being in the same ball park as PMDG so I’ll look forward to what they bring to MSFS in the MAX.

8 minutes ago, psolk said:

If nothing else IFly will get all the users who despise RSR so much that they refuse to ever buy anything from PMDG LOL!!  (Only half joking)  

I bet he could get even those people back on board if PMDG did a DC-3, although what would make me laugh uncontrollably, is if PMDG actually did a DC-3, but A2A released one of their own a week before. 🤣

I flew the I-Fly B737 in FSX and enjoyed it.  If I remember, the performance / frame rates were very good, and better than the PMDG at the time others said.

Having said that, I am enjoying the PMDG 737's in MSFS, with barely any frame rate / performance drop.  A combination of better 'programming', and better hardware (multicore etc.).

A more drastic comparison between iFly and PMDG differences with similar aeroplanes, would be the Boeing 747-400s for FSX, which again, both developers had a stab at. PMDG's FSX 747 remains one of the best complex airliners anyone ever made for that sim, managing to squeeze every ounce of performance out of a 32-Bit sim which was notorious for going out of memory with complex airliners, yet this rarely occurred with the PMDG bird even on long flights in and out of complex add-on airports; it was undeniably better than the iFly one for a lot of reasons, not least this one. And yes, I had both of those too and quite liked the iFly one for the value it offered, but what PMDG achieved with their FSX 747 was some genius-level optimisation. PMDG can still turn it on when they really put their minds to it and that was a prime example of it.

Edited August 22, 20223 yr by Chock

Based on what everyone is saying about the fidelity of iFly, I'm just happy that they are bringing a 737 MAX to MSFS.  Now that PMDG has overcome all the technical hurdles of the MSFS SDK, and they also understand the MSFS SDK much better, and PMDG having done much of the hard coding to interface with the MSFS SDK (I assume they will reuse much of the MSFS code they wrote for the 737, in their 777 and 747),  I think PMDG releasing the 777 in 2023 is definitely possible.  And if the PMDG releases the 777 in 2023, PMDG releasing the 747 in 2024 is also possible.  

In the best case scenario, if they stay on the schedule above, the earliest PMDG could start on doing a MAX for MSFS is in 2024. But I don't know how much code they have actually written for the MAX yet. If they haven't written any code for the MAX, it could well take PMDG 2 years to release the MAX for MSFS.  This means, in the best case scenario, a PMDG 737 MAX would come in 2026.

I'm sure iFly would release their 737 MAX way before 2026. So I think it's a great thing if iFly makes their 737 MAX for MSFS, since for those who want a 737 MAX in MSFS, you get it much sooner from iFly, maybe in 2023 or 2024, rather than 2026 or later from PMDG.

Edited August 22, 20223 yr by abrams_tank

Interesting news definitely... but I'd much prefer news about a Fenix Prosim MAX or -800.

It's interesting how nostalgic folks are concerning the iFly 737 family product line. Some even seem to compare it to that offered by PMDG, which really surprises me, as I can't even recall the iFly product. I was about to chalk that up to my admittedly shaky memory, soI thought it would be useful to look for an objective comparison of those two product lines. For that, I chose the number of search returns in Google's video section. Here is a brief list:

iFly 737-->1,930

iFly 738-->12,100

PMDG 737-->127,000

PMDG 738-->42,300

Honestly, I never had access to the iFly model, but I did enjoy the Zibo freeware add-on in XP. There was much discussion in their forums concerning how the Zibo compared to the PMDG and vice versa, but I don't recall any such conversation about the relative merits of Zibo to iFly. None of this is meant to denigrate previous iFly products, but the data do seem to suggest that its impact on the broader flight sim community can in no way be deemed comparable to that of PMDG's. 

If (and this is a big "If") these video search results in any way mirror actual sales figures, this raises an important question. Which of these vendors is likely to have access to the amount of capital required to create a high fidelity MAX from scratch? It could easily take a million dollars to create such a product. Who has the bucks/euros/pounds to make this happen?

PS The Google video search for Zibo 738 returns roughly the same number as the iFly 738, for what it's worth. 

 

 

Edited August 22, 20223 yr by jrw4
typo

@jrw4 In my opinion IFLY is more akin to a FBW or Zibo that went payware.  It is more akin to a very small group of devoted individuals than a "heavyweight" payware FS company whose primary business is FS Add-Ons.  

I hate to say one does it for love and the other for money but that's sort of what IFly has always been.  They do it for their own love and devotion to FS and have developed high quality add-ons with very little fanfare or publicity.  

Where do you come up with $1M dollars to develop an FS-Add-on?  IFly just released a 737 for P3D to very little notariety and here they are doing a MAX for MSFS and P3D.  Money doesn't seem to be an operating limitation.  I actually think they all have alternative well paying jobs to afford to do what they do for so little return LOL. 

Also, how many of those PMDG videos are in MSFS where there is no IFLY or Zibo for comparison?

You just seem to be grabbing at speculatory straws with your only reference being YouTube views?  

 

Edited August 22, 20223 yr by psolk