When FS2020 came out, developers like FlyTampa, FSDT, Drzeweski Design, Flightbeam all had 3-4 airports that came out really quickly.   Years later and nothing was really released.  Why did QW stop the 787 for MSFS? It seems progress has come to a halt.  Even PMDG is dragging on their estimates (though we are at least kept in the loop). But other scenery/ Airport developers seemed to pack up and go home.  Many of my MSFS add on payware airports are by companies I never heard of - but thank God for them as my big favorite airport developers have fallen asleep

Edited July 6, 20232 yr by paulyg123

Those early releases were using existing products that they brought over from previous versions, if you look back at FSX that was first released in 2006 it wasn't really until 2010 to 2011 that we saw worthy new development, so about 5 years. Currently we are only 3 years into a new platform. Development by third party has always taken years, mostly because the developers have full time jobs and lives and do development on the side when and where they can. Very few can make a full time job out of this.

Edited July 6, 20232 yr by Matthew Kane

I think the WT-augmented 787 pretty much let out whatever wind might have been in QualityWings' sails, if they're even still a going concern at this point.  But yes, airplane add-on development in MSFS isn't breaking any records.

As far as airports...I have over 140 add-on airports already in MSFS, which I think is pretty decent coverage in just three years.

 

19 minutes ago, Bob Scott said:

I think the WT-augmented 787 pretty much let out whatever wind might have been in QualityWings' sails, if they're even still a going concern at this point.  But yes, airplane add-on development in MSFS isn't breaking any records.

As far as airports...I have over 140 add-on airports already in MSFS, which I think is pretty decent coverage in just three years.

 

What is the WT augmented 787?  Please explain that. I love to fly a 787 and default is not to my liking.   Wow 140 Addons. But the old big 4 [flightbeam, flytampa, dry design, fsdt] did seem to stop.  

22 minutes ago, paulyg123 said:

What is the WT augmented 787?  Please explain that. I love to fly a 787 and default is not to my liking.   Wow 140 Addons. But the old big 4 [flightbeam, flytampa, dry design, fsdt] did seem to stop.  

If you haven't looked at the default 787 since the last update a few weeks ago (AAU2) you might want to revisit it...the Working Title guys put a bunch of work into it, as well as the B747-8.

Flightbeam already has Denver, Washington Dulles, Auckland, Wellington, and Toulouse out, and he's working on San Fransicko now.  FlyTampa has Copenhagen, Boston, Las Vegas, Athens, and Corfu out and is apparently working on Amsterdam now.  Drzewiecki has a bunch out, including Moscow Sheremetyevo, Talinn, Washington Reagan, Newark, Chicago Midway, Krakow and he just released Gdansk within the last couple days.  Doesn't look like they're slackin' to me.

I am all up on the latest of the big 4. I only buy North American airports so FT never did St Marteen, Tampa, KMDW, Montreal,   Drz never did KSEA or KPAE or KMIA.  FSDT never did KDFW, KIAH etc. many airports were never done.  

10 minutes ago, paulyg123 said:

I am all up on the latest of the big 4. I only buy North American airports so FT never did St Marteen, Tampa, KMDW, Montreal,   Drz never did KSEA or KPAE or KMIA.  FSDT never did KDFW, KIAH etc. many airports were never done.  

FSDT just released Houston a few weeks ago... Latin VFR released Miami.. probably over a year ago this point - Drzwiecki has released KMDW a long time ago as well. Seems odd to complain nothing is being released yet you seem completely unaware of what has actually been released?

Forget the airports. I have what I need. Oh and Stravos, I am  aware what is out there, I have been a member here for 18 years and up on the latest  airports. My point is there is much still not out there from the big 4.  So let’s move on

I only fly PMDG and QW planes and it seems a QW or PMDG 787 is so far away.  That leave me with 2 options for a 787 I see.  Default or this Kuro 787. Which  is a better 787. The default one that was just updated or Kuro which I just discovered?  

Edited July 6, 20232 yr by paulyg123

18 minutes ago, paulyg123 said:

Forget the airports. I have what I need. Oh and Stravos, I am  aware what is out there, I have been a member here for 18 years and up on the latest  airports. My point is there is much still not out there from the big 4.  So let’s move on

I only fly PMDG and QW planes and it seems a QW or PMDG 787 is so far away.  That leave me with 2 options for a 787 I see.  Default or this Kuro 787. Which  is a better 787. The default one that was just updated or Kuro which I just discovered?  

The default is a 787-10, the Kuro is just a mod to turn the 787-10 into a -8. They have the same avionics and systems modelling.

Pauly, you'll need the Premium Deluxe edition to access the 787's. The included one is the 78X and the freeware Kuro 788 piggybacks off of it.

27 minutes ago, paulyg123 said:

My point is there is much still not out there from the big 4

Curious who you consider the "big 4" to be apart from PMDG and maybe Orbx?

My take has been that the previous sim market was so small as to be unattractive to any but a relatively niche "cottage Industry" of dedicated hobbyist/developers, few of whom were making enough profit for it to be thier only source of income.

The explosive event that was the release of MSFS brought with it a surge of interest that drew in creative talent that had previously been active only/mostly in other, more popular genres.

A few years ago, I remember remarking to a developer friend that if MSFS became as popular as I was suspecting it might, there could be a flood of new and perhaps surprisingly experianced designers from the game-modding and other communities, which might result in a flood of new/unknown creatives and a surge of releases that could eventually meet or even exceed the quality of some existing developers.

He doubted it at the time, but at this point we're doubtless all aware of the flood of freeware from Flightsim.to and other venues, often of a quality as to make a the time and effort of creating payware versions chancy.

Which, doesn't even take into account Asobo/Microsofts proclivity for abruptly yanking the rug from beneath developers feet by releasing freeware versions of planes/places/things/airports that the community would previously have had to wait for a third party to release....

It's probably a pretty uncertain time right now, especially for legacy developers, wondering what to put thier valuable time and effort into, when somebody could release a competing project at any moment, hamstringing any hopes of a profit.

 I was very interested in the implications of the multiple versions of KPHL that suddenly appeared recently, and how that must have affected the profit margins for the creators.

The current market finds itself in a situation where its not that uncommon to have multiple versions of a particular airport both in freeware and payware versions, with the freeware version of almost Identical quality to the payware.....

9 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

I was very interested in the implications of the multiple versions of [...] and how that must have affected the profit margins for the creators.

Gone from being stratospheric, for the very in-demand add-ons, to *only* good.

IMO, given the huge numbers of flight simmers (even including the casuals), we're a long way from the legacy flight sims where a second developer on the same project would make it financially incredibly difficult and a third would guarantee a loss.

Someone may gazump Flightbeam and release a KSFO first, yet Mir will still make a lot of money.
Aerosoft will do extremely well with their A330, due to Xbox compatibility. Still, I'm expecting FSLabs' version of the A330 will do far better than they ever thought possible.

Why do I think this? Some developers have stated that their sales numbers are up to a hundred times greater for their MSFS products than their legacy sim counterparts.

To a certain point, MSFS2020 is becoming a mature product. After the MSFS 2024 announcement, the 2020 is even more mature. I think it's normal that the add-on development is slowing down a bit, nothing to worry about since the development continues even at a slower rate.

3 hours ago, F737MAX said:

given the huge numbers of flight simmers

I became used to that kind of statement as a way of whistling past the graveyard in the previous era, but I'm gradually becoming used to the idea that nowadays there may actually be (in truth) relatively huge numbers of Flight Simmers....

Edited July 7, 20232 yr by HiFlyer