No need of a crystal ball to understand the whole picture here.

The products took so long that it couldn't be completed before the release of msfs2024 and Aerosoft was smoked by the fact that a complete A330 (200/300) from Asobo/Ini is going to be included in the standard version. Maybe even better than their!

This Aerosoft A330 project was killed in the egg.

Now Aerosoft had three options:

1) Kill the project for good and take a loss

2) Work even harder on the project and come back with a complete and better product next year, something better than the default Ini.

3) Release it now to cash in as much as possible knowing that the aircraft will be impossible to sell in less than two months but at the same time trade what was left in term of reputation in the company.

They apparently chose the latest. Time will tell if they will pay the consequences in the future.

My question is:

Nobody like to take a loss (and it might be a big one considering the time invested in this project). But, is Aerosoft is a such bad shape financially that by no mean they cannot afford to take this loss? it seems very worrying

11 minutes ago, sdirand said:

No need of a crystal ball to understand the whole picture here.

The products took so long that it couldn't be completed before the release of msfs2024 and Aerosoft was smoked by the fact that a complete A330 (200/300) from Asobo/Ini is going to be included in the standard version. Maybe even better than their!

This Aerosoft A330 project was killed in the egg.

Now Aerosoft had three options:

1) Kill the project for good and take a loss

2) Work even harder on the project and come back with a complete and better product next year, something better than the default Ini.

3) Release it now to cash in as much as possible knowing that the aircraft will be impossible to sell in less than two months but at the same time trade what was left in term of reputation in the company.

They apparently chose the latest. Time will tell if they will pay the consequences in the future.

My question is:

Nobody like to take a loss (and it might be a big one considering the time invested in this project). But, is Aerosoft is a such bad shape financially that by no mean they cannot afford to take this loss? it seems very worrying

From the comments I read from Mathjis Kok, the scope for the original A330 release had a much more narrow scope. There weren't multiple engine variations, and I don't think there was a NEO planned. But when he left Aerosoft, Aerosoft and the new project lead decided on a much more wider scope, and a much more ambitious release.

It seems if Aerosoft had stuck to the more narrow scope when Mathjis Kok was the project lead of the A330, maybe Aerosoft could have released a decent A330 by now. Seems like they made the wrong decision in hindsight, but they probably didn't know Jorg was going to give a contract to iniBuilds to make an A330 for MSFS 2024.

Edited October 7, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

2 minutes ago, Abriael said:

At that point, just how good does the aircraft have to be to beat one that is completely free and given to literally everyone, and that even if it isn't 100% study level, people may have already modded by when they can release? 

This project was doomed long before the MS announcement. Fenix had no problem competing with the free FBW. IFly, I think has handled the same bad hand very well. They have really busted their behinds recently to show ways their MAX may be better than the 2024 version.

The a330 space is already crowded, even taking out the Headwinds. LFVR is also releasing a330s.

Someone made the decision to release now, and now the front end staff have to deal with that.

2 minutes ago, BrammyH said:

It was at the end as an aside. I've time-stamped it.

Gavin isn't prone to clickbait, and tends to be a fairly positive reviewer. I don't think he's ever really slagged something, and certainly not to this level.

Chewwy94 also the same. Hes critical of products.

Edited October 7, 20241 yr by carlanthony24

From what I've seen of the LVFR 330 that released well it can do everything the aerosoft can't

4 hours ago, Abriael said:

They went for the "cheap and simple-ish" way.

And what excuse do they have for that after 5 years of development and 1 Million € in government subsidiaries?

 

I have been happy with Aerosoft as a publisher over the years, but their decline as a developer of the last 10 years is staggering. Their management has flushed it all down the drain.

Edited October 7, 20241 yr by Farlis

OK, sports fans, I am reopening this massively-redacted thread.

It's fine to have and to articulate an opinion, positive or negative, about the topic.  What is *not* fine is to state your opinion over and over and over and over again.  So...don't.  Repeating yourself 50 times does not negate the opinions of 50 people that disagree with you.

The topic is the Aerosoft A330 release.  Please stay on topic, and avoid further personal sniping and browbeating.

What I don't understand is how can Aerosoft take 4 years to produce something vastly worse than their preexisting P3D version?
Surely a portover with an update to make the systems work in MSFS would've been better than this.

As for the cabin... better to release without one compared to the abomination that currently exists.

6 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

What I don't understand is how can Aerosoft take 4 years to produce something vastly worse than their preexisting P3D version?
Surely a portover with an update to make the systems work in MSFS would've been better than this.

As for the cabin... better to release without one compared to the abomination that currently exists.

You would think they would of tested it before even releasing given if you change the time/weather you end up in space.

Thing is, I was actually really looking forward to this plane. I don't mind Aerosoft, have all their planes.
Flew the CRJ to bits and with the Boris sound pack I feel like it got new lease on life. Sure it's got problems but I've never agreed with people who said it was un-flyable and a mess.

But like holy moly, this is such a blatant case of pushing the panic button. You could see they were setting up all the right marketing channels: put out slick videos, hired a community manager, obviously sent this to streamers. They were settling in for a proper, calm release cycle with a proper marketing push for sometime next year. I reckon that was the plan all along, I don't think they had any plans of pushing this out this side of xmas.

And then obviously MSFS24 and the native A330 spooked them massively. I reckon someone up high pushed the panic button and jettisoned this thing to the market. You can tell from the fact streamers didn't get the embargo memo, to the fact that there are so many clear, undeniable problems. Just an absolute shambles. 

Its obvious to me they likely had to release publicly as terms of the grant and now was the only time that made economic sense with the ini one comming for 2024.  

6 hours ago, sdirand said:

No need of a crystal ball to understand the whole picture here.

The products took so long that it couldn't be completed before the release of msfs2024 and Aerosoft was smoked by the fact that a complete A330 (200/300) from Asobo/Ini is going to be included in the standard version. Maybe even better than their!

This Aerosoft A330 project was killed in the egg.

Now Aerosoft had three options:

1) Kill the project for good and take a loss

2) Work even harder on the project and come back with a complete and better product next year, something better than the default Ini.

3) Release it now to cash in as much as possible knowing that the aircraft will be impossible to sell in less than two months but at the same time trade what was left in term of reputation in the company.

They apparently chose the latest. Time will tell if they will pay the consequences in the future.

My question is:

Nobody like to take a loss (and it might be a big one considering the time invested in this project). But, is Aerosoft is a such bad shape financially that by no mean they cannot afford to take this loss? it seems very worrying

Agree.

I haven't quite read thru all the posts here, but my guess is they had to release SOMETHING because they accepted that 400k grant from the .de govt.

I hope they do option 2, kinda like iniB did with the 310/300. But I'm not gonna hold my breath, either.

13 hours ago, UAL4life said:

they received Half a million dollars to develop it?

I guess money DOES grow on trees!😃

Money is valuable even here in a money wasting (obese eating) country like my beloved U.S. But Aerosoft should have never been granted that money from their government. That is my opinion to put out this nonsense.

Edited October 8, 20241 yr by JBDB-MD80

So I was watching Chewwy's live stream yesterday, and Chewwy presented some information that I did not know of, about Aerosoft and this A330 project.  First and foremost, Aerosoft gave the A330 to a lot of content providers like Chewwy.  In Aersoft's private Discord channel, the overwhelming number of these content providers told Aerosoft not to release the A330 in the state that it was in.  The people running Aerosoft's Discord channel heard them clearly (I'm not sure if upper Aerosoft management heard them though), but Aerosoft decided to release the A330 anyways:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2269998978?t=00h11m51s

According to Chewwy, Rafi, who works as one Aerosoft's Community Mangers, also publicly said the A330 shouldn't have been released in its current state, which puts Rafi on the spot since he is publicly contradicting his employer:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2269998978?t=00h42m55s

Now I don't know where Rafi did this. If somebody has a source where Rafi said the A330 probably shouldn't have been released, according to Chewwy, that would be great to see the original source.

But it's interesting because I think Chewwy shed more light on Aerosoft's decision making. Looks like at least one of the community managers at Aerosoft (ie. Rafi) were against the  A330 releasing in the state that it was in but upper management decided to release it anyways.

Edited October 8, 20241 yr by abrams_tank