4 hours ago, JonathanC said:

While I appreciate Jorg for sure, and think he's a great leader for MSFS, I think the real impact is Microsoft itself.

No, we literally have Jorg to thank for MSFS. He was working on the MS HoloLens tech when he discovered that modern Bing data could be paired with photogrammetry and produce the next generation in flight simulation. It was literally him, all him, that we find ourselves in such an advanced time of flight sim. 

The last day in Vegas is tomorrow and the main item on the agenda is explaining the changes coming to the marketplace.

The one dim thing on the horizon is that for a few months now, Seb has been saying he will soon retire. I wonder who will next be CEO at Asobo? Martial Bossard?

What I like most about Jorg is that he is a humble guy. I have never heard him bash the competition, and from my understanding, when the competition released a new version, I read from other accounts that Jorg was even there to congratulate them in the live stream chat.  All Jorg does is he puts his head down, does the work, and he lets his work speak for itself.  The flight sim market and community has taken notice of his work, even the most hard core flight simmers in our community have taken notice of his work (ie. the 70.8% market share that MSFS has in the Navigraph survey, and Navigraph subscribers are definitely some of the most hard core flight simmers out there).  This is the attitude of a great leader, IMO. Just stay humble, be polite, don't trash talk the competition, and put your head down and focus on your product.

What I also like about Jorg is that because he is a humble person and realizes his own team can't do it all, he is willing to reach out to other experts and other teams who can do it.  Like his hiring of Working Title is still one of the best decisions he made.  I remember how much of the community was laughing at MSFS default avionics on its release in 2020.  Now MSFS is the gold standard for default GA Avionics because of Working Title's work.  What amazes me the most is that you can't buy a better G1000 (NXi), G3000, G5000, and G3X add-on, than the ones in MSFS, even in the payware market.  This all happened because Jorg had the foresight to realize the value of hiring Working Title. And boy, did that value ever pay off.

I am really glad that Jorg has brought flight simulation to the 2020s.  What we had before MSFS was released was so far behind in technology.  But now MSFS is at the forefront of technology. One of the best examples of this is frame generation.  When NVidia announced frame generation for the NVidia 4000 series, MSFS was one of the initial games to use frame generation. The CEO of NVidia, during the NVidia 4000 series announcement and presentation, used MSFS as an example of frame generation. And frame generation has turned out to be one of the best features ever for flight simulation - it's as if frame generation was made for flight simulation.  And Jorg had the vision to realize this, and incorporate this into MSFS from the very beginning. Who would think that a flight simulator, would beat out so many game companies, to incorporate something like frame generation from the very start?  That is what impressed me the most, that a flight simulator has the latest technology like frame generation, and now you have other game companies gradually incorporating frame generation. But MSFS was there first, it was among the first companies to implement frame generation!

Imagine a flight simulation world without MSFS?  I can't.  I have said before that after FSX, I was out of flight simulation for about a decade. There was nothing revolutionary in the time I was away from flight simulation. But these last 4 years, I have kept involved with flight simulation because I really like the huge leap in advancements that MSFS brought. And I think MSFS 2024 will advance flight simulation even further.

Cheers to Jorg and I look forward to what MSFS 2024, MSFS 2028, etc, brings in the future.

Edited June 23, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

It’s sad to see only one mention of the person who started it all. The concept of a flight sim program running on a home computer was devised by Bruce Artwick.

His naming of the files used survives to this day - BGL. Bruce’s Graphical Language.

More info here… https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/626496-bruce-artwick/

Without his imagination it would never have turned into what we enjoy today whatever sim you use.

Of course there are more historic names. Austin Meyer is one of them also (never used XPlane, but we cant ignore its role).

But never there was one person, one producer that included all of the industry and community around one vision.
I dont know if I ever sow such a good example of product management. I'm a software product manager for 15 years now and Jorg is for sure a role model.

And we cant forget how hard and complicated our community is. Incredibly hard work

9 hours ago, Dankovic said:

Jorg Neumann could just be the biggest name in Flight sim history.

It could be, if not for Bruce Artwick who is the founder of Flight Simulator. Way back in the '80s.

 

1 hour ago, hvw said:

It could be, if not for Bruce Artwick who is the founder of Flight Simulator. Way back in the '80s.

 

There seems to be a tendency to concentrate too much on recent contributors and forgetting the sim's history.

This is just mind blowing.

The money required for all of this is so much beyond any business case for a flight simulator. There must be so much more behind the scenes and Jörg seems to be the driving force.

Microsoft has big pockets, but if a product or genre does not meet expectations...

Maybe one day Jörg will write his memoirs, then I will understand. Or when he retires and returns home to Heidelberg I will invite him for a beer… but for now, best times are ahead of us.

Edited June 23, 20241 yr by urthgental

9 hours ago, bluescast said:

Bruce Artwick

started it all. therefore he is on wikipedia. everything after him is evolution. a fantastic one though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Artwick

Edited June 23, 20241 yr by turbomax

4 minutes ago, urthgental said:

Or when he retires and returns home to Heidelberg I will invite him to a beer…

äpplewoi would be more appropriate 🤣

but only one drink won't cut it to sift through all the N.D.As he signed during his time with Microsoft. 😄

23 minutes ago, turbomax said:

äpplewoi would be more appropriate 🤣

but only one drink won't cut it to sift through all the N.D.As he signed during his time with Microsoft. 😄

Sorry to correct you - Jörg is from Offenburg and studied in Freiburg, which both are rather traditional wine regions (Ortenau + Breisgau, state of Baden). Appelwoi is a a hessisch ding  😜

Edited June 23, 20241 yr by MaGer1965

I still prefer Dua Lipa... She makes me fly even higher .... But yes, Jorg 's been great... And... as mentioned above Bruce Artwick and then Bill Gates who also embraced flight simulation...

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

There seems to be a tendency to concentrate too much on recent contributors and forgetting the sim's history.

This is not meaning to denigrate any individual's contribution, nor is it an attempt to kick off any sort of row, but I do seriously wonder what the current and future of flightsim would be looking like right now if MSFS hadn't come along.

I can't believe the likes of P3D v5/6/7 etc, or even XP12/13 (and don't get me wrong, I still have XP in use on my system although I've stopped with P3D) would have achieved any sort of growth, and may not even have maintained their existing audience levels. In comparison with all the stuff going on in other arenas of the graphical environment, simming was certainly looking a bit behind the times. And while I know looks aren't everything, there probably aren't that many potential serious cockpit types out there who aren't / weren't already engaged in their chosen activity.

I suspect that without MSFS and the team behind it, the terms "sim" and "history" may have been heading towards mingling.

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

There seems to be a tendency to concentrate too much on recent contributors and forgetting the sim's history.

I can just say that if it weren't for me, at least I would never enjoy flight simming!

😉

 

23 minutes ago, andy1252 said:

I do seriously wonder what the current and future of flightsim would be looking like right now if MSFS hadn't come along.

The visuals wouldn’t be as good, obviously. Certainly that’s the case when compared to P3D as LM seem to be slowing the rate of improvements. I suspect support for v6 would be the same as previous versions simply because many people want the latest variation.