iniBuilds shows a lot of promise. They are quite engaged with the community, and they seem to be learning from their experiences and building on it. They also seem to have a pretty good-sized team and have received a good degree of funding. So, is it possible they can bring together a high-fidelity rendition of one of the most, if not the most, complex, modern aircraft in 18 months? Maybe. Maybe if you have enough resources with the right combination of experience and very capable coordination it could be done. BUT, if they achieve this, it will be a revolution in development within the flight simulation genre.

It took PMDG well over a year to get the 737 into the sim, and they have a lot of experience with the type, a relationship with Boeing, and over a decade of building out the code. And the 737 still needs adjustments to the LNAV, cabin and wheel well texture work; it has no working circuit breakers, no weather radar, the windows do not open, the tablet interface is rudimentary, etc. -- all things I think of when I think of a high-fidelity simulation. Fenix, also a very talented team, launched the 320 in May of 2022, after, I think I am safe to assume, at least a year of work, and nearly two years later they are still working to finish the engine simulation and iron out the last issues. I have never heard of a team finishing a high-fidelity simulation in 18 months. So, if they prove able to do this, it will signify a significant step forward and likely bodes well for even higher-fidelity, more feature rich aircraft in the future. 

Edited December 24, 20232 yr by Cognita

14 minutes ago, Cognita said:

iniBuilds shows a lot of promise. They are quite engaged with the community, and they seem to be learning from their experiences and building on it. They also seem to have a pretty good-sized team and have received a good degree of funding. So, is it possible they can bring together a high-fidelity rendition of one of the most, if not the most, complex, modern aircraft in 18 months? Maybe. Maybe if you have enough resources with the right combination of experience and very capable coordination it could be done. BUT, if they achieve this, it will be a revolution in development within the flight simulation genre.

It took PMDG well over a year to get the 737 into the sim, and they have a lot of experience with the type, a relationship with Boeing, and over a decade of building out the code. And the 737 still needs adjustments to the LNAV, cabin and wheel well texture work; it has no working circuit breakers, no weather radar, the windows do not open, the tablet interface is rudimentary, etc. -- all things I think of when I think of a high-fidelity simulation. Fenix, also a very talented team, launched the 320 in May of 2022, after, I think I am safe to assume, at least a year of work, and nearly two years later they are still working to finish the engine simulation and iron out the last issues. I have never heard of a team finishing a high-fidelity simulation in 18 months. So, if they prove able to do this, it will signify a significant step forward and likely bodes well for even high-fidelity, more feature rich aircraft in the future. 

Agreed.. iniBuilds do seem to have a large team (especially if they've got sub-teams working on different aspects of the aircraft) so let's see. They could be too ambitious with their timeline right now, and end up only releasing very late 2024 or 2025.

DFD is working on one too for MSFS, and I guess the other example of A350s out there for sims after googling yesterday is the FlightFactor A350 for XP.. anyone used this or know about its fidelity levels? Would also be an indirect indication of A350 documentation/information accessible to sim aircraft developers.
 

Edited December 24, 20232 yr by lwt1971

41 minutes ago, ErichB said:

Commercially, I don't understand the A380.   If FBW release their's why would anyone spend on a payware version.

The FBW A380 won’t be on X-Box

Edited December 24, 20232 yr by Tuskin38

41 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Agreed.. iniBuilds do seem to have a large team (especially if they've got sub-teams working on different aspects of the aircraft) so let's see. They could be too ambitious with their timeline right now, and end up only releasing very late 2024 or 2025.

DFD is working on one too for MSFS, and I guess the other example of A350s out there for sims after googling yesterday is the FlightFactor A350 for XP.. anyone used this or know about its fidelity levels? Would also be an indirect indication of A350 documentation/information accessible to sim aircraft developers.
 

The ff350 is only the 900 not the 1000

 

2 hours ago, ErichB said:

Commercially, I don't understand the A380.   If FBW release their's why would anyone spend on a payware version.  Inibuilds are prolific with output lately, but their quality is not Fenix/PMDG-like with regards aircraft.  Loving their sceneries though and looking forward to the A300

Of course people will buy even though a freeware is available. FBW can't even put things on the marketplace 

3 hours ago, ErichB said:

Commercially, I don't understand the A380.   If FBW release their's why would anyone spend on a payware version. 

Because they Inibuilds would make a fortune on XBOX users and the Marketplace while FBW would barely or moderately get donations from users on the P.C. exclusive version. Makes sense to me for Ini to sell to that market (XBOX) and i'm sure P.C. more serious users would be interested in a pw A380 too.

Edited December 24, 20232 yr by JBDB-MD80

3 hours ago, ErichB said:

Commercially, I don't understand the A380.   If FBW release their's why would anyone spend on a payware version.  Inibuilds are prolific with output lately, but their quality is not Fenix/PMDG-like with regards aircraft.  Loving their sceneries though and looking forward to the A300

FBW probably won't be releasing the A380 in the XBox marketplace. Hence, there won't be a high fidelity A380 on XBox. If you follow the FBW A320, the FBW team removed it from the MSFS marketplace because of issues with GPL licensing, if my memory is correct. Assuming FBW continues to use the same licensing scheme, their A380 won't be available in the MSFS marketplace.

And if my memory is correct, I think the FBW team was looking to use an external process for the A320, because of limitations with MSFS (ie. they wanted to do what Fenix was doing). I don't know if they did go down that route in the end.  But I believe the MSFS marketplace does not allow add-ons to use an external process (ie. Fenix can't list on the marketplace, and the A2A Comanche when it was released couldn't either, but I think A2A is changing the design of it so that it can list in the marketplace). So just being out of the MSFS marketplace allows more flexibility to the FBW team on how they develop the A320 and A380 (if I am wrong on this, perhaps a FBW member can correct me).

Ya plenty of room in the MSFS ecosystem for multiple aircrafts of the same kind be they payware or freeware 🙂 ... not sure if that would drive all the devs to excel even more but I'd assume it would in some ways at least, a bit of semi-competition never hurt.

On a related note, looks like DFD decided to drop some previews of their A350 right after the ini announcement:

https://www.reddit.com/r/flightsim/comments/18pg75m/dfd_released_new_a350_preview/

DFD is freeware and we don’t plan on competing with inibuilds. it’ll release when it’s ready and we plan on simulating flights that go from A to B on release. we just thought it’d be nice to share some previews 😉
we've just been developing the same amount and decided to release some previews today because why not 😊
all i can say is that we've been cooking and i hope the next discover episode doesn't disappoint
 

Edited December 24, 20232 yr by lwt1971

29 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

FBW probably won't be releasing the A380 in the XBox marketplace. Hence, there won't be a high fidelity A380 on XBox. If you follow the FBW A320, the FBW team removed it from the MSFS marketplace because of issues with GPL licensing, if my memory is correct. Assuming FBW continues to use the same licensing scheme, their A380 won't be available in the MSFS marketplace.

And if my memory is correct, I think the FBW team was looking to use an external process for the A320, because of limitations with MSFS (ie. they wanted to do what Fenix was doing). I don't know if they did go down that route in the end.  But I believe the MSFS marketplace does not allow add-ons to use an external process (ie. Fenix can't list on the marketplace, and the A2A Comanche when it was released couldn't either, but I think A2A is changing the design of it so that it can list in the marketplace). So just being out of the MSFS marketplace allows more flexibility to the FBW team on how they develop the A320 and A380 (if I am wrong on this, perhaps a FBW member can correct me).

Im not with FBW, but the issue is that it's open source and that Microsoft doesn't allow that on the marketplace. See link below.

https://flybywiresim.com/notams/marketplace-announcement/

58 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

And if my memory is correct, I think the FBW team was looking to use an external process for the A320, because of limitations with MSFS (ie. they wanted to do what Fenix was doing). I don't know if they did go down that route in the end.  But I believe the MSFS marketplace does not allow add-ons to use an external process (ie. Fenix can't list on the marketplace, and the A2A Comanche when it was released couldn't either, but I think A2A is changing the design of it so that it can list in the marketplace). So just being out of the MSFS marketplace allows more flexibility to the FBW team on how they develop the A320 and A380 (if I am wrong on this, perhaps a FBW member can correct me).

Remote MCDU and terrain map need an external process, everything else is internal. Marketplace inclusion was exclusively down to MS not allowing GPL licenced software.

Unfortunately no Christmas A300-600 release tonight. But the news of iniBuilds now creating an A350 was absolute superb!!

Edited December 24, 20232 yr by JetCat

5 hours ago, ErichB said:

Commercially, I don't understand the A380.

Commercially, no one understands the real A380 either. *runs and hides*

18 minutes ago, threegreen said:

Commercially, no one understands the real A380 either. *runs and hides*

Lol I wish they did! Nothing beats it from a passenger perspective. That said, guess various airliners are bringing theirs out again out of retirement given that passenger demand is back up again. Emirates of course was pushing for a more cost-effective A380neo https://www.flightglobal.com/airlines/clark-reiterates-plea-for-a380neo/153733.article .. who knows, airbus might get back to it if the demand is there.
 

Edited December 24, 20232 yr by lwt1971

40 minutes ago, gdjak said:

Marketplace inclusion was exclusively down to MS not allowing GPL licenced software

I also remember complaints about how long it took to update marketplace addons. This was back when any update to the base A320 could break the FBW, but this is no longer he case.

Yup most A380's are now back out of retirement, due solely to the huge uptake in International flight's since covid. Lufthansa, (A380 and even A340's are back in service) BA's A380's, Qatar's , Singapore airlines, etc, etc.