41 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

I doubt that development of the MAX variants would not take too much work. If Robert Randazzo implied that in any interviews, I am guessing it is because most of the work has already been done in the background. There would be significant differences in the cockpit (with those larger screens as a starting point), and also the 3D model and sounds (particularly where the engines are concerned).

On a side note, that departure in the 737NG Driver flight video on the previous page is incredibly jerky. Even I would not be happy with a framerate like that.

Yes, I agree.  The Max shouldn't be too difficult for PMDG to do, if what Randazzo says is true.  This is directly from the Sky Radio interview that Randazzo said, around the 22:45 mark:

https://pod.co/sky-blue-radio/jt-welcomes-robert-from-pmdg-to-his-show-9-9

Randazzo says that "the Max is not really a terrible difficult airplane for us," and then goes on to explain because they have already done the foundational work with the NG already, which makes the Max easier for them to do. I also think that PMDG probably has done work on the Max already.

 

49 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

On a side note, that departure in the 737NG Driver flight video on the previous page is incredibly jerky. Even I would not be happy with a framerate like that.

In the comments, he said he was having video recording issues.

Boeing didn’t reinvent the wheel for the MAX so why should PMDG 😀

2 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

Let's be honest: PMDG is a legacy company, struggling to keep up with the changing environment in which MSFS 2020 operates. This includes, but is not limited to, new ways of
interacting with your customers: the "good old salad days" where interaction was kept to a minimum and was entirely confined to support forums, tucked away in the dark corners on the Internet, are pretty much over. These days you interact with your customers on Discord, Twitch, Reddit, etc. Just observe the real-time interaction customers have with the support staff of the HJet and the Cirrus Vision jet.

Personally, I'm very disappointed with the BBJ 700. It flies well, the systems are well modeled (which is to be expected from a company that has been doing pretty much the same plane for over 20 years, but the whole thing, especially in the visual department, just feels like a haphazard port from P3D. Just walkk through the cabin of the (free!) inibuilds A310, then do the same with the PMDG 700 variant.

Now, I'm fully aware that some folks are going to pooh paah this by saying: "It's all about REALISM!! This is true, but then, again, most of us are sitting on rickety gaming chairs, staring into  a 2-D monitor, while pushing around a cheap plastic joystick. So much for realism.

I mean, I could just print out a giant poster of a 737 cockpit, maybe hook it up to a Raspberry Pi and press make-believe buttons. Pretty much the same realism effect.

I bought this plane based on PMDG's intention to improve it significantly in the feature. I see no timetable suggesting any of these improvements are forthcoming.

JMHO

PMDG is in many ways, just like the company they are in bed with, Boeing. A company that rested on its laurels and failed to innovate. Now Airbus is cleaning their clock and Boeing can’t get anything done (Max debacle, 777X delays, 787 deliveries stalled for a long time) and has thrown in the towel on a clean sheet design replacement in the narrow body market until the next decade (read up on it). PMDG with zero Discord presence and still using an antiquated forum with the PMDG forum sheep tripping over each other to tell anyone that posts to use their real name, RSR with his word salad announcements and their famous knack for making announcements followed by years of silence. Thank God MSFS brought a whole new wave of developers that are innovating way beyond what PMDG is currently capable of doing.

Edited December 20, 20223 yr by B777ER

22 minutes ago, B777ER said:

PMDG is in many ways, just like the company they are in bed with, Boeing. A company that rested on its laurels and failed to innovate. Now Airbus is cleaning their clock and Boeing can’t get anything done (Max debacle, 777X delays, 787 deliveries stalled for a long time) and has thrown in the towel on a clean sheet design replacement in the narrow body market until the next decade (read up on it). PMDG with zero Discord presence and still using an antiquated forum with the PMDG forum sheep tripping over each other to tell anyone that posts to use their real name, RSR with his word salad announcements and their famous knack for making announcements followed by years of silence. Thank God MSFS brought a whole new wave of developers that are innovating way beyond what PMDG is currently capable of doing.

Still both are delivering high quality products other have to do their utter best to even have a chance to compete with.
While Airbus has the upper hand in the short haul market and will keep it this way, the long haul market is dominated by Boeing - production issues aside the 787 sells really well (I think United Airlines just placed an order of 100 [!!] 787s) and - since it's quite a bit cheaper than the A350 - will continue selling well especially outside of the big premium airlines in Europe / US. The A350 was Airbus' last chance to stay competetive in the long haul market after the disasters of the A380 and A340, and yes, they used that chance very well, but now the 777X will give Airbus again a hard time, since it's supposed to have 10% lower operating costs than the A350 and on top of that a longer range.
Don't get me wrong, the MAX debacle was the worst I've ever seen, but Boeing is not as moribund as you make it sound.

Neither is PMDG. While the FSL on P3D and now the Fenix are the better products if you compare one product to one product, the sheer amount of quality study level aircraft and all of its variants is clearly still giving PMDG the upper hand. In maybe 4-5 years PMDG will have three entire aircraft series with all known variants in MSFS, in the meantime - hopefully - Fenix will maybe have delivered the A319 and A321 variants (not the NEO). So if you take not only quality (PMDGs quality is top notch, no debate about that) but also quantity in account there's no doubt.

Still I do agree with your assessment that new devs keep challenging PMDG and this is only a good thing for all of us.

Oh and please us your real name on these forums, thank you 😉

Edited December 20, 20223 yr by Fiorentoni

PMDG....where do I start? This isn't really aimed at anyone and is just some thoughts I have been having recently regarding PMDG. Although I do refer to some things some have said.

There have been several "game-changers" for me over the years. Dreamfleet with their 737-400, PMDG, Flight Sim Labs and A2A spring to mind. But it's PMDG that has done the most to set the standard in systems simulation, visual fidelity and performance. They have been miles ahead of almost anyone and for such a long time. Others seem to have caught up in many regards or are in the process of catching up but have anyone truly passed them, even now?

I feel they get a lot of flack and I'm not entirely sure why they seem to. I see the chap above suggests that they have rested on their laurels and have failed to innovate. In what way, may I ask? And I don't ask to be combative, I'm interested. I suspect much of the innovation has been "under the hood" and in a manner to achieve maximum fidelity with maximum performance as they continue to refine their tech and products. What exactly are they lacking compared to the rest of the market?

So far, there has been only one time that I have thought that PMDG were behind rather than ahead of everyone else and that was when I installed the FSL Airbus and saw how GSX was integrated and how the entire dispatch thing was simulated with the MCDU. That felt like a leap forward. However, that aircraft had its own visual and performance deficiencies. As much as I loved it and was impressed with it it did have areas where it was less compared to PMDG and only really one where it outdid them.

The only other thing I can think of is that we keep getting the same planes. This criticism I understand but only partially. The thing is, we have had 3 sims that these planes have been developed for and can you imagine any of those sims without the 737, 777, and 747? I couldn't. How many of us that bought those planes because we loved them want to go without them in MSFS? I have only just deleted P3D precisely because I have not had any of these PMDG planes in MSFS. I know the 737 has been out a while but I have not been in a position to buy it due to the need for other things. This a situation I will remedy next week.  Before we have any other airliners we must surely have those bases covered.

Having said that, this leads me to the only real problem I see with PMDG and I'm not entirely sure I can even blame them for it. The truth is, even I'm astonished that we have not seen another Boeing from them in all this time. In particular, the 787. That thing has been in service for what must be 11 years now and I'm staggered that we still have not seen one from PMDG. I have heard rumours lately of a 757 which really would be a dream plane for me but all they are are rumours as far as I can tell. It makes me wonder what we would have had from them by now if MSFS had not come along.  Would we have seen a 787 or something in P3D by now if Microsoft had not surprised us as it did? If PMDG had not needed to bring those planes over to another sim yet again, what would we be getting?

I don't blame them for getting their current fleet out the door in this sim. Frankly, I would be disappointed if they didn't. I need those planes. I miss them but I would be lying if I said I wasn't also ready for something new from PMDG. And a 757 or 787 would be lovely. I suppose I'm ready for another new "WOW" PMDG moment like the first time the 747 and 737 was released. At the moment it just feels like we are filling our cupboards with the necessities of old to make us comfortable before we get the new and never before seen toys.

Now, I have said all that without having even tried the MSFS version of the 737 and it is also true to say that I have not yet experienced the likes of the FENIX Airbus. So I am at the mercy of others' experience with these two and maybe I am actually behind with my opinions. I will soon find out for myself though, I suspect. But I will say this, I will buy the 737-800 but it's unlikely I will buy the 900/700/600 as I did before. I will buy the 777-200 but won't be buying the 300 as I did before. I will buy the 747-400 but may miss the 8. I will buy one of each and that will be the end of it until something new comes along that we haven't had from them before.

And just a thought about the lack of PMDG Discord. I can see that once you are a certain size as a developer that a presence on there, certainly a support presence, isn't a practical reality.

2 hours ago, B777ER said:

PMDG is in many ways, just like the company they are in bed with, Boeing. A company that rested on its laurels and failed to innovate. Now Airbus is cleaning their clock and Boeing can’t get anything done (Max debacle, 777X delays, 787 deliveries stalled for a long time) and has thrown in the towel on a clean sheet design replacement in the narrow body market until the next decade (read up on it). PMDG with zero Discord presence and still using an antiquated forum with the PMDG forum sheep tripping over each other to tell anyone that posts to use their real name, RSR with his word salad announcements and their famous knack for making announcements followed by years of silence. Thank God MSFS brought a whole new wave of developers that are innovating way beyond what PMDG is currently capable of doing.

Couldn't have said it  better.

Edited December 20, 20223 yr by ErichB

2 hours ago, B777ER said:

RSR with his word salad announcements 

Brilliant 🤣

29 minutes ago, Jazz said:

I feel they get a lot of flack and I'm not entirely sure why they seem to.

what we see here on avsim, there's a pattern: the same tired kast of karacters harping on the same thing on anything pmdg related.  not entirely sure what the problem is, but there's no holding back grown men with grievance.

Edited December 20, 20223 yr by kdfw__

27 minutes ago, kdfw__ said:

what we see here on avsim, there's a pattern: the same tired kast of karacters harping on the same thing on anything pmdg related.  not entirely sure what the problem is, but there's no holding back grown men with grievance.

I hate to break it to you, but that's not just PMDG discussions on here... that's every other avsim post.

1 hour ago, Jazz said:

And just a thought about the lack of PMDG Discord. I can see that once you are a certain size as a developer that a presence on there, certainly a support presence, isn't a practical reality.

Discord was never supposed to be a big scale support avenue. Its idea is communication for people playing games together, study groups and so on and its design shows that. The different channles only separate topics in a very rudimentary way such as general discussion, live streaming or announcements and it only really works with smaller groups of people.

When you have a server with several thousand members and many are trying to get support and questions answered in one channel like "v1.1 support" you inevitably end up in chaos with most questions being drowned unanswered in loads of other, unrelated newer chatter and sort of cross-comment-zig-zag conversations where people are replying to comments prior to the previous one and several unrelated conversations end up merged in the same place. Also, as soon as your post has moved up out of the screen only few people will ever even scroll up to see it. It's basically a chat group with hundreds of people or more.

It works for announcements like Instagram and as a resource repository etc. but not to get quality support for hundreds or thousands of customers.

4 hours ago, Fiorentoni said:

My guess is that the IFly for MSFS will either never come because they go bankrupt before or in 2024 at the earliest.

3 hours ago, Fiorentoni said:

you better have a huge cash reserve or secondary income from commercial/military projects - or you'll go bankrupt

 Those “secondary income from commercial/military projects” are exactly why they have continued to develop for P3D, long after most other developers have moved onto other platforms.
They won't go bankrupt. The only concern is whether they can handle working with what MSFS has to offer.

As pointed out by @level7, iFly's modus operandi is to initially continue to develop for 'dead platforms' then move to where the real party is for home users. They'll do their own thing and fingers crossed bring a very good rendition of the MAX to MSFS sometime very late 2023 or early 2024 (if we're lucky).

 

50 minutes ago, Jazz said:

I feel they get a lot of flack and I'm not entirely sure why they seem to.

They get deserved flack for long promising and not delivering on:

• LNAV re-write (finally arrived this summer after years of 'coming soon'™ on other platforms and MSFS)
• EFB ('coming soon'™)
• RF legs

Also problematic are:

• jerky animations
• low quality texturing in a number of places
• some weak sounds in their soundpack
• not using the MSFS sound engine capability
• windscreen wipers not interacting with rain
• lack of interactivity with winter effects
• personally have problems with 737-600 where engines will randomly spool up during descent and approach
• unrealistic launch dates every single time.

Remember, RR said that “The PMDG 737-900 for MSFS is currently being prepped for beta testing” back on 9th October and had an anticipated release date of mid-November.
 

30 minutes ago, Nixoq said:

Discord was never supposed to be a big scale support avenue. Its idea is communication for people playing games together, study groups and so on and its design shows that. The different channles only separate topics in a very rudimentary way such as general discussion, live streaming or announcements and it only really works with smaller groups of people.

When you have a server with several thousand members and many are trying to get support and questions answered in one channel like "v1.1 support" you inevitably end up in chaos with most questions being drowned unanswered in loads of other, unrelated newer chatter and sort of cross-comment-zig-zag conversations where people are replying to comments prior to the previous one and several unrelated conversations end up merged in the same place. Also, as soon as your post has moved up out of the screen only few people will ever even scroll up to see it. It's basically a chat group with hundreds of people or more.

It works for announcements like Instagram and as a resource repository etc. but not to get quality support for hundreds or thousands of customers.

Exactly how I see it.

22 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

They get deserved flack for long promising and not delivering on:

• LNAV re-write (finally arrived this summer after years of 'coming soon'™ on other platforms and MSFS)
• EFB ('coming soon'™)
• RF legs

Also problematic are:

• jerky animations
• low quality texturing in a number of places
• some weak sounds in their soundpack
• not using the MSFS sound engine capability
• windscreen wipers not interacting with rain
• lack of interactivity with winter effects
• personally have problems with 737-600 where engines will randomly spool up during descent and approach
• unrealistic launch dates every single time.

Remember, RR said that “The PMDG 737-900 for MSFS is currently being prepped for beta testing” back on 9th October and had an anticipated release date of mid-November.

Have any of those things been enough to objectively say that they have not consistently made the best product on the market though?

For example...the LNAV thing....from my perspective. Yes, it took a while but what was the problem with it? Obviously there were issues or they would not have taken the time to fix it but I don't know what they were (or I can't remember) If I ever had a problem with a PMDG LNAV it was so long ago that I don't remember it. I vaguely recall some iffy path drawing on occasion back whenever but that is as close to an LNAV issue that I can recall. Apart from that any LNAV in any of their planes that I have used has behaved as I would have expected.

Anyway, you have provided some objective examples of what has been a trouble for you. I suppose I was thinking more of the kind of flack firing I have witnessed over the years which does no such thing and comes over as personal axe-grinding and a bit bitter somehow. Some seem to behave as though they are unreliable rip off merchants when by any objective measure they have been the best in the business.

Just a thing on "unrealistic launch dates" though. Now, I admit, I don't scour their forums hanging on their every word. In fact, I don't think I have been over there for a year or more but I don't ever recall PMDG giving out launch dates until they give out launch dates. By that I mean, that I have seen them give rough schedules as they see them at a given time that are then misinterpreted by some to be definitive dates. In my experience they have just flat-out refused to give such deadlines preferring the "it's ready when it's ready" line. I see it a bit in what you wrote "had an anticipated release date of mid-November."......"Anticipated".....it doesn't mean definite, does it?

RSR doesn't engage in 'word salad' announcements. He might be expansive, conversational (or verbose if you feel uncharitable) and he might digress from the topic at hand - but that's not what the expression 'word salad' means.