4 minutes ago, SAS443 said:

wanted you to give me the numbers.

right, but those numbers don't get included in their public filings so the best you can do is guess based on what they said in the past.

IIRC PMDGs MSFS investment was in the 7 figure range, and they are currently barely able to afford pay their now 9 staff an average $20-$30k a year based on revenue and office costs.

At that rate it will never result in a positive ROI

While Goran is MIA presumably out spending the 6 figure income Hotstart brings in for them each from 2 years time investment....

9 minutes ago, mSparks said:

right, but those numbers don't get included in their public filings so the best you can do is guess based on what they said in the past.

IIRC PMDGs MSFS investment was in the 7 figure range, and they are currently barely able to afford pay their now 9 staff an average $20-$30k a year based on revenue and office costs.

At that rate it will never result in a positive ROI

While Goran is MIA presumably out spending the 6 figure income Hotstart brings in for them each from 2 years time investment....

Wouldn't that actually make PMDG the altruistic vendor whose devs remain hungry in order to provide the customer with a 737 for 35 bucks and Hotstart the... cough... money oriented vendor, selling a bizjet of 1/3 the size for three times the price?

2 hours ago, blingthinger said:

You need to take a page from this book:

 

Spoken no better than those who know…. one has a mirror, right? 

1 hour ago, blingthinger said:

interacting with you folks

Ahhh you must be a member of the elite? Looking down at us lowly folks. 

36 minutes ago, mSparks said:

right, but those numbers don't get included in their public filings so the best you can do is guess based on what they said in the past.

So, you were guessing? Understood. But why didn't you just say so? Instead of bringing it as an open and shut case that Asobo is in trouble and needed to seek fundings elsewhere because Microsoft has lost faith in MSFS (after roughly 4 months into its introduction to the market in Q3 2020, and the xbox-release was not until march 2022. That's some impressive crystal ballin' by Microsoft, given that sagard-deal went public in January 2021)

So a friendly tip: Just state that you're guessing/speculating. We could've avoided this lap-running ordeal rather easily.

Edited December 4, 20223 yr by SAS443

10 minutes ago, SAS443 said:

So, you were guessing?

I am not guessing that PMDG invested heavily in selling their aircraft to XBOX users and they are not selling their aircraft to XBOX users, these are known things.

The only guessing here was any assumptions that they are happy with that and the size of their company already halving as a result.

9 minutes ago, mSparks said:

I am not guessing that PMDG invested heavily in selling their aircraft to XBOX users and they are not selling their aircraft to XBOX users, these are known things.

But we were discussing why Asobo sold a minority of its company to Sagard. You claimed it was due to missed ROI-goals and a refusal from MSFS to further back them.

What's up with moving goal posts. I was very specific all the time. But you suddenly started to creep elsewhere.

 

11 minutes ago, SAS443 said:

But we were discussing why Asobo sold a minority of its company to Sagard

additionally to PMDGs business choices in terms of what that means to bringing things to flight sim in a profitable manner.

11 minutes ago, SAS443 said:

You claimed it was due to missed ROI-goals

Required by Microsoft for their continued investment under the existing terms.

It almost sounds like you dont understand that Microsoft, Asobo, PMDG and blackshark.ai are 4 completely different companies with different assets capable of making different, independant decisions under the same market conditions?

The current failure of gamepass and WASM led to:

Asobo selling of a chunk of their company

PMDG shinking in value by 50%

Blackshark.ai shifting to Unreal engine

and Microsoft pulling their funding for further development of MSFS.

But we are supposed to believe all is fine on planet copium?

Edited December 4, 20223 yr by mSparks

6 minutes ago, mSparks said:

But we are supposed to believe all is fine on planet copium?

What planet is it you live on? Certainly not the same one as me, reading all of this waffle! 

15 hours ago, blingthinger said:

Fundamentally, "photometric renderer" is the correct term. You've said nothing in your .org thread that proves otherwise. They are using energy conservation equations in the shaders whether you like it or not. 

What you are wanting is some form of ray tracing in the cockpit or something to handle the diffuse scatter and illumination, as well as different dynamic range adjustments that match your eyeball's behavior, to your fancy. And there is a hint of truth in your concerns. 

Is it my fantasy? 😄
In Xp12 they are using the same buggy system as XP11 whether you like it or not.
Here they are your realistic dark cockpits, they already existed in 2017.
https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/122225-very-dark-cockpits/&

Am I looking for ray tracing?
But what ray tracing! 😄
I took these photos with a card that doesn't have ray tracing (GTX960) and with a simulator that doesn't have ray tracing (XP11).

How did I get this realistic cockpit lighting?
Simple, I bypassed the XP11 bug.
XP throws shadows that are too black and destroy light.

XP12 would have transformed that cockpit like this: 🤔

The excess of black shading creates on the cockpit generates a totally unrealistic lighting, it seems to pilot the plane inside a cellar! 🕯️
This bug has been talked about for a long time:
https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/229494-cockpit-shadows-suddenly-go-dark/
https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/226792-cockpit-lighting/

Also read this topic where the plane developers talk about the XP11 BUG of lighting which is ruining the work of the developers:
https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/246558-cockpit-and-cabin-too-dark/

Now you'll probably say: "but the links you provided only mention XP11, not XP12!" 🤭

Exactly, we are talking about XP11 because the XP12 dark cockpit bug has ancient origins, it is identical to the XP11 bug.
Proof?
Just look at the photos of XP12 users!
https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/278307-its-too-dark-to-operate-the-panel-even-in-the-middle-of-the-day/#comment-2458513
This cockpit lighting is a disaster!! 🤦‍♂️ Where is the daylight?? Calling this lighting "realistic" is an insult to intelligence.

Now let's talk seriously, how much more evidence do you need to convince yourself that XP11-12 dark panels are a BUG?
How much more proof do you need to convince yourself that XP11-12's dark panels are absolutely not realistic, and anyone who calls them "realism" is either lying or a victim of XPlane advertising that has conditioned their brain into believing the most absurd things ?

I have spent a lot of time observing and trying to fix this bug.
But first I had to figure out what was causing it, and I found out that it's due to the lighting system misrepresenting the internal shadows, and I found that by removing the shadows (via LUA script) the panel is finally more visible and can be admired in all its beauty.
https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/122225-very-dark-cockpits/&page=2#comment-2094117

That small script  lua also demonstrates that Xplane's lighting system is buggy, it generates wrong and too dark shadows.
Now you understand (I hope) how I managed to give light to XP11 panels without using ray tracing or other sci-fi technologies.

Have I convinced you?
I'm sure not. 🤷‍♂️
By now I have a lot of experience with this bug, and I know that no xplane fan will ever admit it.
On the contrary... as always happens... this topic will probably be blocked because people don't like the truth.
Discussing this bug is a real "taboo", it is impossible to discuss it, but above all there is no hope of making xplane fans understand it.

 

 

12 minutes ago, efis007 said:

ray tracing

photometric rendering has absolutely nothing to do with raytracing. 

https://developer.x-plane.com/2021/11/photometric-lighting-what-is-it-and-why-do-we-need-it/

2 hours ago, mSparks said:

IIRC PMDGs MSFS investment was in the 7 figure range, and they are currently barely able to afford pay their now 9 staff an average $20-$30k a year based on revenue and office costs.

PMDG didn't sell much if anything since 2019 - little to no revenue. They continue operating - costs remain - their worth shrinks. MSFS development starts, no products in MSFS - still not much revenue, development costs go up - their worth shrinks even faster. MSFS products are released, overshoot expectations in sales - business starts growing again (green graph). In the long run, stronger sales than ever before return growth faster than ever before - on PC. Conclusion: MSFS is a viable platform to produce for. Additionally, several other developers have publically confirmed the same thing.

And ALL of that is before any real Xbox sales. Would Xbox sales drive their profit up even more? Most likely. MSFS however has proven before any Xbox returns that it's more than viable.

This doesn't require a business degree to understand. It's simple business economics and logic and the very graphs and data you posted show exactly this - the phenomenon of shifting production to a different market and how it manifests in a business's economy with the first market running dry. 

You keep making up a purely fictional scenario with regards to the role that Xbox plays. PMDG are keen on selling for Xbox, but it bears by far not the existential significance you're making up in your imagination. There's hard data you posted yourself and a multitude of developers attesting to it. At this point you're just being word not allowed and arguing for the sake of having an argument.

3 hours ago, blingthinger said:

You xbox kids wouldn't remember that.

The most baffling thing is XP people going on and on and on about MSFS and Xbox while XP's largest "sales" numbers come from smartphones.

And yet you don't see anyone trying to discredit XP because it's available on smartphones. Shows you where the lack of reasonable argument and the elitist attitude is.

Edited December 4, 20223 yr by Nixoq
Remark about market running dry

30 minutes ago, efis007 said:

Is it my fantasy?

Ray tracing in the cockpit is a fantasy. I said ray tracing or something 'like' it. Not implying that it was already there.

There's always this pic from Janov, again, measuring photons in a cockpit. You don't need to measure photons unless you're making a photometric renderer. So, while I totally understand where you're coming from, I also can't deny that they really are being as physically accurate as possible.

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/278420-live-show-–-x-plane-12-early-access-update-nov-27-2022-1900-utc/&do=findComment&comment=2459764

Austin told you, yes you, personally, that changes are coming:

And here's another one from Janov, for you personally:

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/278897-lighting-ist-still-way-off-in-relase-candidate/&do=findComment&comment=2463971

13 hours ago, turbomax said:

"Took 200+ people to do that??"

so true. Bruce Artwick, developer of the very first pc flight simulator ( "... a few of them got PPLs",) he did not have a PPL at the time, wrote the code all alone by himself.

"a bunch of textures and 3D models and wrote some new shaders?"

true, just add a bunch of textures and shaders, it's that simple.

I agree, typical waste of Microsoft shareholder's hard earned money.

what do you expect from a 59 $ game store product?

an apology is due. I forgot to include my "Attention. Irony" sign. Never expected to be taken serious by anyone. 😅

3 minutes ago, Nixoq said:

elitist

Says the braggar d 3090/HP Reverb G2 owner.

 

4 minutes ago, Nixoq said:

The most baffling thing is XP people going on and on and on about MSFS and Xbox while XP's largest "sales" numbers come from smartphones.

I don't mean to trigger by using 'xbox'. Nor hide the fact that XP mobile is a huge chunk of what keeps LR all employed. In fact, that they are optimizing the code for ARM SOCs on smartphones is far more impressive to me than anyone optimizing for even the lowliest version of x86 Xbox. XP12 is far far more efficient on a CPU-clock cycle basis than any other sim. In part because of their work on mobile.

In this case 'xbox' was tied to age assumptions.