Just now, Bigt said:

They have confirmed that the mystery (longer range) aircraft is in fact that A330. It's no longer a secret. And yes, an A330 from them is going to be amazing.

Great.  Do we know how far along it is, or will we have to wait until the end of the MSFS2024 lifecycle to get it.

1 minute ago, ErichB said:

Great.  Do we know how far along it is, or will we have to wait until the end of the MSFS2024 lifecycle to get it.

Well that's a great question. As much as I love their work, it takes them ages to finish things! The A330 is mentioned near the bottom of this update from Lefteris. https://forums.flightsimlabs.com/topic/31971-may-12-2022-a-news-update/

Hopefully it is moving along at a good rate.

 

1 minute ago, ErichB said:

Great.  Do we know how far along it is, or will we have to wait until the end of the MSFS2024 lifecycle to get it.

I don't recall FSLabs mentioning any significant milestones for their A330 for MSFS or showing any photos.  When FSLabs shows you photos of what they are doing, they could still be a long, long, way off from releasing the product. Didn't they show photos of the Concorde for P3D last year? And it's almost July of 2023 and it's still not released yet.

I think it will be 2026 or worse, 2027 or 2028, before the A330 is released (and by then, we may have MSFS 2028).

10 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

I'm pretty sure FSLabs wasn't convinced about MSFS before.  I can only guess by Andrew Wilson's comment about "market research" is that FSLabs went around and asked some other 3rd party developers how their sales in P3D were doing, and how their sales in MSFS were doing.  I'm sure FSLabs was watching data about their own sales of products in P3D, but I think they were really slow to realize what was going on, and they probably got a clearer picture when they looked at more data (ie. asking other 3rd party devs about their sales, checking the Navigraph survey, listening to more of their customers, etc).

Yeah same guess as mine but honestly as a business, you will need to be visionary and take the "risks" for your business in order to be on the top. That is one thing I liked about PMDG, they took the risk and embraced it and now look how much ROI they made out of MSFS (pretty sure nothing they could have dreamt on). Plus the competition in MSFS ecosystem is very tense, it is not P3D or XP, you'd often now find the same plane being developed by multiple developers plus the competition from high quality freeware communities (like FBW).

I hope FSL realizing developing an A320 after Concorde is a bad idea given that we have already pretty good A320(s) <FBW and Fenix>. If I were them, I'd focus on A330 or A340.

Edited June 26, 20232 yr by omarsmak30

2 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

think it will be 2026 or worse, 2027 or 2028, before the A330 is released (and by then, we may have MSFS 2028).

That's what I'm thinking

4 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

I don't recall FSLabs mentioning any significant milestones for their A330 for MSFS or showing any photos.  When FSLabs shows you photos of what they are doing, they could still be a long, long, way off from releasing the product. Didn't they show photos of the Concorde for P3D last year? And it's almost July of 2023 and it's still not released yet.

I think it will be 2026 or worse, 2027 or 2028, before the A330 is released (and by then, we may have MSFS 2028).

You are correct. They made no mention of its progress and haven't shown anything. I'd agree with your estimates knowing them.

From this thread the other interesting bit is about the Concorde: https://forums.flightsimlabs.com/topic/32739-p3d-v6/?do=findComment&comment=259668 where FSL alludes their Concorde is being tested in MSFS: "... we have a brand new Concorde title flying in P3D v5 and MSFS"

This is the first time they've given any indication of how far along their MSFS Concorde even is (as there was some speculation if parallel development was going on between P3D and MSFS), the fact that they are "flying" it currently in MSFS suggest its progression is much further along than I thought, and might not be even far behind the P3D release.

As interesting as the Concorde is, I really really hope they are hard at work on the 330 for MSFS, that's where they stand to differentiate themselves in the market, and also because MSFS doesn't have a deeply simulated high fidelity A330 yet. Please not yet another A32x 🙂 as those are covered nicely by the Fenix (especially the coming v2) and FBW currently.

 

Edited June 26, 20232 yr by lwt1971

If FSLabs was able to release an A330 up to their standards say by end of 2023, they will be fine. I for one would buy it in an instant. Now if they release an A320, I can confidently say no, I would not as we have Fenix for ceo and FBW for neo. Now if it’s an A321 than that would also be a home run. So either an A330 or A321 would definitely get my attention. I have zero interest in and will not be buying their Concorde. 

Edited June 26, 20232 yr by B777ER

I mean what took them so long? Now after like 3 years they come out and say "well, market research has shown MSFS sells better than P3D", come on. Why these words now after v6 was announced? Were they really hoping for a new competetive P3D up until now?

I would buy the fsl a320 series even though i have the fenix.  The fenix is great but the fs labs simulation of the a320 is on a whole different level.  And we still have no a321 or a319 with or without sharklets on the horizon.

16 minutes ago, Pilot53 said:

I would buy the fsl a320 series even though i have the fenix.  The fenix is great but the fs labs simulation of the a320 is on a whole different level.  And we still have no a321 or a319 with or without sharklets on the horizon.

Not to start a FSL vs Fenix discussion here again, but given what the Fenix is currently and especially what's coming in V2 (detailed in https://fenixsim.com/blog/) I really don't think FSL is going to differentiate itself or stand above the Fenix in any appreciable ways. Even as the Fenix stands now, no the FSL is not "on a whole differently level" IMO given what I recall of it during my P3D days (and we don't even know what FSL are able to do with an aircraft in MSFS yet whether it be visuals/3d-modelling or the systems & flight model simulation, etc). I'd much rather FSL focus on the A330 where there definitely is a void currently in MSFS.
 

 

Edited June 26, 20232 yr by lwt1971

1 hour ago, B777ER said:

If FSLabs was able to release an A330 up to their standards say by end of 2023, they will be fine. I for one would buy it in an instant. Now if they release an A320, I can confidently say no, I would not as we have Fenix for ceo and FBW for neo. Now if it’s an A321NEO than that would also be a home run. So either an A330 or A321NEO would definitely get my attention. I have zero interest in and will not be buying their Concorde. 

I would love to have a A321 from them in 2020.

Edited June 26, 20232 yr by Wise87

As much as I enjoy their products in P3D, I have little sympathy for their secrecy in regards to future developments for MSFS. Why can‘t they simply say what they are developing and in what timeframe? I mean PMDG has had the 737 released for more than a year now…

27 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Not to start a FSL vs Fenix discussion here again, but given what the Fenix is currently and especially what's coming in V2 (detailed in https://fenixsim.com/blog/) I really don't think FSL is going to differentiate itself or stand above the Fenix in any appreciable ways. 

 

I do agree with that, but what we dont have is a good a321, a321NEO, a321 SL, a319 or a319 SL from fenix.  Nor has fenix announced any development plans for those aircraft.  With the amount of time it has taken them to still not have v2, the a320SL, or the IAE variant ready I expect many many years before we see a new fenix aircraft.  I think it would be a wise choice for FSL to bring those variants into msfs first.  But I would also be equally happy if they brought in an a330 first and it would probably sell better than the 321 or 319.  I just think it would be more work on their end to release the a330 first since they already have a fully complete  a320 series of aircraft in p3d.

Edited June 26, 20232 yr by Pilot53

4 minutes ago, Pilot53 said:

With the amount of time it has taken them to still not have v2, the a320SL, or the IAE variant ready I expect many many years before we see a new fenix aircraft.

While it's your prerogative to think that, I believe you are missing a key point.
The lengthy development of Fenix's A320 v2 does not correlate in a linear fashion to other follow-up versions of the other A32x variants. Once this new external engine modelling, flight model, visual model, etc. is complete, other A32x family aircraft can be made far quicker than we've seen so far, as the groundwork would have already been achieved.
(Plus, the situation in Ukraine may be slowly improving? But that's a political discussion).