You think they might give some notice as a courtsey to their customers if this is permanent.  Was toying with idea of getting 747-8 but there you go.

I guess my fault for expecting more of them.

They haven't said it's permanent as far as I can tell. Their 'community manager' posted to say he doesn't know, but they make no profit from P3D sales (I don't believe that myself given the prices they charge). It would have been nice to have some warning but they clearly want everyone to move to MSFS and buy everything again, which is their prerogative, it's just not something I want to do. It's a shame, but they effectively left the P3D market several years ago. The iFly 737 max is actually a better product than the NGXu IMO, but there's still nothing to beat the PMDG Queen of the Skies!

So sad,

my expensive P3D collection of add ons is now basically defunct,

but, I was pleased to support the developers while it lasted,

& in support of LM et al - still have P3Dv5 installed for nostalgic reasons…

Just now, craigeaglefire said:

my expensive P3D collection of add ons is now basically defunct,

You’re the second person to use that word. Why? The meaning of it is defined as “no longer in effect or use; not operating or functioning.”

P3D of any version from 1 to 6 is still useable on any home computer as well as any software you’ve installed. Whilst it isn’t currently possible to buy PMDG software for P3D their servers still allow you to download it although users really should secure their own downloads.

Still no reply from RR. I’ve expressed my disappointment to him and said I’d share my views here. My opinion of them has changed completely over this enquiry.

43 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Still no reply from RR. I’ve expressed my disappointment to him and said I’d share my views here. My opinion of them has changed completely over this enquiry.

It's the PMDG customer service guy who responded so poorly who is at fault, he is known to be very poor at communications and badly suited for the role IMO. I think it's the same person who put me off Aerosoft for life and is working towards putting me off buying any more PMDG products if I do ever move to MSFS. What a sh*tshow.

9 minutes ago, simfan1983 said:

It's the PMDG customer service guy who responded so poorly who is at fault, he is known to be very poor at communications and badly suited for the role IMO. I think it's the same person who put me off Aerosoft for life

Mr Kok I assume. 😉 Strange decision by RR to employ him unless he fits their style of customer support.

I find Captain Kev is the most helpful and he’s just another user like you and I. Possibly a real-world pilot. Clearly he can’t advise on company decisions.

I’ve now pointed my friend to Aerosoft and the iFly 737MAX.

21 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I find Captain Kev is the most helpful and he’s just another user like you and I. Possibly a real-world pilot. Clearly he can’t advise on company decisions.

I agree that Captain Kev is very helpful. I don’t believe he has any r/w pilot experience, though he did work in the transportation industry. He was a professional long-distance lorry driver, but he recently retired from doing that.

Edited July 4, 20241 yr by JRBarrett

17 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I find Captain Kev is the most helpful and he’s just another user like you and I. Possibly a real-world pilot. Clearly he can’t advise on company decisions.

It seems that we still have no idea what is really going on. I assume they are (understandably) pleased with the MFS 777 launch and think they don't really need ex P3D customers, so are happy to treat them like mushrooms. Poor business decision IMO but hardly a surprise.

10 hours ago, C2615 said:

The beauty of P3D is, you can use the discontinued version as long as you wish, no force updating.

Indeed you can, notwithstanding the reference to the forced updating (which I disagree with) of another sim, why would you want to?

I have both V5 and V6 installed but I can't recall when I last used V5. I have experienced very little hassle in getting all my addons working with the currect version. The new lighting and AA engines are IMO superior to legacy versions.

Likewise I have an old PC, in the attic (I think) that has Windows XP on it but I wouldn't say of it -"The beauty of XP is, you can use the discontinued version as long as you wish, no force updating." 😁

 

Edited July 4, 20241 yr by Sparkrite

"It's not over"

I appreciate the sentiment. I've been a massive P3D fan since way before it was cool, back to the days of v1 subscription-only.

I may have been the first to ask Randazzo to port his planes to P3D, to which his answer was "Not going to happen, and if we did you couldn't afford it!"

But let's be honest - we are Her Majesty's 44th Foot standing on a hill at Gandamak, going "Bro, it's fine!". PMDG was the cavalry that was still standing with us, more or less, and they've headed off for safety elsewhere. 

In short, this is not going to end well.

With the niche exception of a certain rather quick aircraft from FSL, the main use case for P3D was long-haul Boeings. And PMDG are clearly telling us "You guys aren't important enough for us to keep a tech support guy around for."

I don't think PMDG's stance is very ambiguous. Short of a miracle, they will never sell a P3D plane again. The idea that they would remove the NGXu and 747 "so customers wouldn't get confused" when buying a MSFS 777 was always...rather wishful, to say the least.

I don't like the way that they've gone about this. I didn't like it when Aerosoft started dissing P3D, and PMDG are being just as disrespectful. There's a bunch of promises they never delivered on, and that isn't exactly good form.

So whilst you can fly your sim for the foreseeable future while LM keeps the lights on, and even after that until you reinstall, unless P3D v7 is amazing (it won't be) or MS stops the servers (they won't), this is pretty much the end of the adventure.

When MSFS was announced, I greatly increased my buying of P3D addons. A lot of people stopped buying, but I was really hoping that we could make a go of it. God knows how much I spent on it, but I don't regret it.

There is still plenty of flying left in the old girl. But my personal opinion, in a post-PMDG world, is that its days as a living, breathing, evolving sim are pretty much over.

On 7/3/2024 at 4:09 AM, threexgreen said:

Quite the opposite; it would have been the logical decision to abandon development. It's called Sunk Cost Fallacy, whereby the fallacy is the belief that continuing an endeavor that has become obsolete would mitigate the loss incurred by the resources spent on it, while the reality is that it only exacerbates the loss because even more resources are spent on it, and the previous resources can't be recouped (they are sunk).

For example, if I bought a ticket to go see a movie but then realized the movie sucks, the first instinct may be to go see the movie anyway because I already paid for it. However, I'm not going to get the money back, and I'm only making it worse because I sit through a movie I don't even want to see, wasting not only my money but my time, too. So not going would be the logical decision since I would waste my money, but not also my time.

I can't imagine FSL were unaware before release that the Concorde for P3D would turn out to be a loss, so they most likely just finished it out of passion, willing to accept the financial penalty that came with finishing it.

It wasn't only the sunk cost of continuing development either. There obviously was a tremendous opportunity cost there by continuing to allocate resources to that project instead of focusing on development for the other platform.

  

On 7/2/2024 at 1:49 PM, Ray Proudfoot said:

Defunct? Strange as LM are still selling licences. FSL have produced a Concorde for P3D with no indication of when it will be available for any other sim.

Stop this inflammatory talk.

Defunct was probably too strong of a word by the other poster. But I don't see how anyone could argue it is a niche and dwindling product at this point. And the Concorde example is terrible, because nearly everyone other than you universally agrees it was a dumb decision from a business standpoint, including FSLabs themselves to an extent with Andrew's quote in this thread; and I'm saying this as someone that personally bought P3D just for the new Concorde...

Edited July 4, 20241 yr by MrNuke
fix a typo

20 minutes ago, MrNuke said:

Defunct was probably too strong of a word by the other poster. But I don't see how anyone could argue it is a niche and dwendeling product at this point. And the Concorde example is terrible, because nearly everyone other than you universally agrees it was a dumb decision from a business standpoint, including FSLabs themselves to an extent with Andrew's quote in this thread.; and I'm saying this as someone that personally bought P3D just for the new concorde...

Take yourself back to January 2009 and the closure of the Aces Studio. I can remember the anguish on these boards. No more flight sim from Microsoft.

But then in November 2010 LM came to the rescue with P3Dv1. How everyone was overjoyed at that news. Well done to them in creating six generations still using some of the original code which is proven to be solid but transforming the sim beyond expectation.

Then in August 2020 this new sim is released by Microsoft and lots of people jump on the bandwagon. Lots but not all. Some of us have different priorities and P3D just suits us.

It takes a lot of effort and skill to create an aircraft as complex as Concorde. Having started work far earlier than August 2020 and with a limited SDK from Asobo it was probably difficult for FSL to decide how best to proceed. They carried on with development as they saw that as the best way to deliver a 64-bit Concorde.

Yes, sales will be limited but they’re working on the MSFS and that should make up the shortfall. Andrew and Lefteris both love the aircraft. Not all development is done for financial gain.

  

7 hours ago, VHOJT said:

You think they might give some notice as a courtsey to their customers if this is permanent.  Was toying with idea of getting 747-8 but there you go.

I saw your post over there too, and while I have some sympathy, we are talking about a product that has been available to purchase for nearly 6 years (the anniversary will be in September). There had been ample time to buy it, and apparently per this thread you still can from aerosoft... I have it for FSX, well had it as I finally unistalled FSX this past week. That is how long it has been available. As others have said in this thread, if they are discontinuing sales, they've determined that any marginal revenue from additional sales isn't worth the marginal cost to them. That would be why you wouldn't give a "courtesy" notice before hand. They literally don't want to sell any more units in that scenario.

Edited July 4, 20241 yr by MrNuke

I would like to point out that PMDG still sells some of their products through Aerosoft (e.g. the 747-8). I bought both the 777-300ER and the 747-8 to complete my collection. I guess I will miss out on the 737-600/700 but at least iFly also sells that.

Please note that this is no attempt to market products on Aerosoft's behalf (just thought some of you would appreciate it). 🙂

 

53 minutes ago, Blasb said:

I would like to point out that PMDG still sells some of their products through Aerosoft (e.g. the 747-8). I bought both the 777-300ER and the 747-8 to complete my collection.

Hi Blasb,

Did you receive the Basic installer already with the latest version or did you have to upgrade (download) via Pmdg Op Center v2? Thanks!