2 hours ago, psolk said:

Well once again you should do some research on what RSR actually said rather than assuming...

Ive seen what they say, but you seem to have missed what followed after

2 hours ago, psolk said:

The DC6 outsold in the first 12 hours total sales of other platforms combined. 

whereby it was subsequently pulled from the store and large numbers of people got refunds.

and those who didnt are still waiting for something I doubt will ever come, the MS execs will never sign off on it imho, not because its hard to get working, simply because the whole concept of wasm is not allowed on xbox.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/pmdg-dc-6-for-xbox-the-silence-is-deafening/502280

To which "dance with the devil sure to get burned" springs to mind.

Its that kind of thing that earns the "evil corporation" title.

Epic games is quite different, project antionette aluded to in the OP does pose a legitimate threat to Laminars business model, but it is also a long way off getting close to XP11, let alone 12, its basically impossible to overestimate the challenges LR have overcome to get to where they are. 

Edited December 3, 20223 yr by mSparks

19 hours ago, GCBraun said:

how are they going to match the absurd visual difference between the two platforms, especially when it comes to terrain. 

Sure, streaming ortho has its benefits, and I do understand someone not wanting to download ortho. XP12 with higher quality ortho than MSFS can supply is amazing.  Not sure how anybody could say this is an absurd difference.

 

13 hours ago, mSparks said:

Blackshark ai is responsible for the default airports in MSFS yes? Are we really expected to believe that is an improvement over xplane that 

 

That's not really what they are doing over in the MS world.  From the bits I've read on here, you yourself have experimented with removing clouds from ortho.

They managed to do to that for the entire planet, automatically, including with constantly updating satellite imagery.

Also, the exclusion of building footprints from satellite data and the removal of baked-shadows.

This sort of stuff is light-years beyond what we have (or will have) in X-Plane.

That's no slam against X-Plane, that's what you get when you hire 200+ top tier developers and throw hundreds of millions of dollars at them.

It's impressive.

15 minutes ago, Gulfstream said:

They managed to do to that for the entire planet, automatically, including with constantly updating satellite imagery.

so they are responsible for deleting the lake from my local helidrome in msfs?

still not an improvement over xplane.

this stuff doesnt delete key points of interest

 

still not 100% decided how that gets distributed, but my plan is to decide once XP12s ortho issues are fixed (looking like shortly after the first full release)

Edited December 4, 20223 yr by mSparks

when I said it they replied: "who needs another replica, systems are more important than pretty pictures, the scenery simulator, it runs on a game box therefore ... ..." ,

lets see what Adam Breed, Strategic Technologies Architect at Lockheed Martin, has to say about their adoption of the Unreal game engine:

“Our customers are expecting those next-generation visuals because the game industry has raised it to such a high level,” Breed says. “What's really exciting is that we can find experienced game artists, and they can take it one level further and enhance it. And that allows us to make much more affordable solutions but much more realistic solutions. It’s the ecosystem that Unreal has put together that facilitates that in many ways.”

In the past, there was a gap between the quality of visuals in games and those in simulations due to the heavy data load carried by simulations. It was easy to make excuses for this gap a few years ago, Breed says, but not so now.

“I don’t think that excuse is there anymore,” he says. “The engines have matured in many ways—from the lighting systems to the physics to the special effects. That’s where that blend between engineering accuracy and photorealism becomes really tight.”

“Unreal Engine allows us to leap ahead and focus on the things that we’re good at—like integrating avionics systems and creating immersive learning environments,” says Adam Breed, Strategic Technologies Architect at Lockheed Martin. “We don't have to worry about the visualizations, or the architecture of the simulation environment. We can focus on the differentiators that Lockheed Martin brings to the table.”

Edited December 4, 20223 yr by turbomax

1 hour ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

XP12 with higher quality ortho

And to a slightly lesser degree the possibility for much higher resolution of the underlying mesh. In most mountainous regions that very much adds to the immersion as well.

2 hours ago, mSparks said:

whereby it was subsequently pulled from the store and large numbers of people got refunds.

RSR said that before it went to the store/Xbox so your point is moot

1 hour ago, Gulfstream said:

200+ top tier developers and throw hundreds of millions of dollars at them

Indeed, Blackshark ai is an impressive effort.

So if the streaming data is squared away and the server backbone belongs to the behemoth parent of the game title, and the real meat of the weather model comes from Meteoblue, where's Asobo in all this? I'm struggling to see what they've done that deserves any praise.

3d clouds? That was old news by the time they did it.

I guess they did the trees and autogen, but not the placement, correct? The fuzzy, blobby, disappearing trees were a new "concept", I guess. If that's to be praised at all. "Shrubery"!!

And they did do the weather CFD model. That's worth some applause. And a few of them got PPLs. A bit more applause. Pretty sure they didn't pay fair price for the Xplane licenses they used early on. No applause there.

So Asobo is essentially the art crew? Made a bunch of textures and 3D models and wrote some new shaders? Took 200+ people to do that??

4 hours ago, blingthinger said:

Way to fly under your own bar there. Coming from someone who publicly brags about their laziness no less...

Is anybody over in your forum forest yapping about XP these days? I did see one thread got locked pretty quick. I totally agreed with that lockage too.

The cap definitely fits

3 hours ago, mSparks said:

whereby it was subsequently pulled from the store and large numbers of people got refunds.

The store release came later and when MS/Asobo realized what happened they actually took the entire hit on that financially so PMDG didn't have to...  That horrible evil corporation huh...

Not to mention that has nothing to do with it outselling all other platforms combined in its first 12 hours long before the store release ever came...  So yeah, your point again about PMDG being unhappy? 

Edited December 4, 20223 yr by psolk

PMDG has probably made more money from their releases on MSFS than LR has made from XP12 😆

3 minutes ago, psolk said:

So yeah, your point again about PMDG being unhappy?

They budgeted the development on selling to XBOX users by now, they aren't, and may never, you think they are happy about that?

Just now, mSparks said:

They budgeted the development on selling to XBOX users by now, they aren't, and may never, you think they are happy about that?

They exceeded their expectations with or without XBox and sold more copies of the DC6 in 12 hours than 10 years... Yeah, I'd say they were pretty happy.

33 minutes ago, psolk said:

They exceeded their expectations with or without XBox and sold more copies of the DC6 in 12 hours than 10 years... Yeah, I'd say they were pretty happy.

In the first few hours of release yes,

Their budget was based on doing that for years. Its debatable if they have even recovered their development costs yet, let alone turned a profit.

Typical, standard ROI graph for this kind of development looks like

At the best of times.

EDIT: actually, they are an LLC, we can just look at what they reported

So MSFS destroyed their consistent growth creating massive continuing losses  and halved their employee count... and you think they are happy with that.....

Edited December 4, 20223 yr by mSparks

51 minutes ago, Krakin said:

The cap definitely fits

Are you referring to my questions about the Asobo flight model from a few weeks ago?