Seems like the Aerosoft A330 thread was locked, so I hope we can keep a lot of what led to that thread being locked out of this thread. Also, I would like to keep this thread focused on the business aspect of the A330 ( see
@jcomm , I do like to make comments and threads about the business side of flight simulation), the decisions Aerosoft made from a business perspective, leading up to the release of the A330 today - maybe reviews of the A330 belong in another new thread.  Anyways, as you may know, Mathijs Kok was the former project lead of the A330 at Aerosoft, before he left for PMDG.  When he was the project lead for the A330 at Aerosoft, the scope of the project was much more narrow. But when he left Aerosoft, for whatever reason, Aerosoft decided to expand the scope of the A330 project, rather than keeping it more narrow and simpler when Mathijs was there. Since he was no longer an employee at Aerosoft by August of 2023, Mathijs created a new account at Aerosoft forums (and verified he is the real Mathijs Kok when he created this new account) and this is what he had to say when Aerosoft expanded the scope of the A330 project:

Quote

Perhaps the most surprising thing is that the product must cover four different external models, four different cockpits, four different flight models, and four different sound sets. That's not a recipe for an easy-to-schedule project.

 

It's a puzzling statement. 

So he was pretty surprised at the ambition and the enlarged scope of the  A330 project after he left Aerosoft.

If I were to make an educated guess as to why Aerosoft released the A330 in the condition that it is in today, it's probably because they are worried about the iniBuilds A330 that is coming in MSFS 2024. And everybody that buys MSFS 2024 gets the iniBuilds A330 for free.  If the Aerosoft A330 does not stack up to the iniBuilds A330 in MSFS 2024, it would probably hurt a lot of the sales of the Aerosoft A330. So it appears that Aerosoft cut their losses and released their A330 before MSFS 2024 is released, which is unfortunate, but it happens in business.

If you have additional information about this story, please post it in this thread. I would love to know about what happened and if there is more to the inside story of this Aerosoft A330 release. It's definitely one of the most news worthy events for flight simulation this year, as a lot of promotion was done for the Aerosoft A330 and Aerosoft is a well known company and maybe even one of the larger companies for the home flight simulation market.

Edited October 7, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

Get ready to have this topic tossed out, too!  You know the same people will crank up the accusations back and forth! 🥷

Was it just announced that there would be a freeware a330 for msfs, or was that announced a while ago? 

56 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

I would love to know about what happened and if there is more to the inside story of this Aerosoft A330 release.

The whole project warrants an in depth investigative report. It seems to have been cursed from its inception. I would love to hear more about it. Who was responsible for what, which decisions were made at which point, what hurdles presented itself because of these decisions and who is ultimately at fault for the sluggish progress and now the absolute sad state of its totally premature release.

One might ask, why it is still premature after all this time. What have they been doing with all their time? What kind of project management is going on there? How is Mathijs departure linked to all of it (I guess he saw in which abysmal state the whole thing was and that the higher ups were uncooperative and did their part in making it worse and thus decided to quit and leave)?

 

I remember the Airbus Pro Versions of the A320 Family. It was not study level, but it was decent, higher tier midlevel simulation of daily operations, without failures. Only thing that plagued it was that the Flybywire was connected to the FPS and it got unflyable under 18FPS. Which in those days was a not so rare occurence.

But it was decent. But this... is just unacceptable. Even for mid tier simulation at this price range.

Edited October 7, 20241 yr by Farlis

As a casual observer the way I see it is this.

The whole home PC simulation market landscape has changed with the return of Microsoft’s simulator.

I accept that the depth and scale of these add ons are simply huge compared to the past but developers can no longer afford to employ 10 programmers on a project for 4 years, it just won’t work. They need to employ 40 programmers for 1 year and get the project out ASAP. This seems to be the technique inibuilds is using and in this market it’s working.

Either that or stick to something so obscure or obsolete you can be sure no one else will be working on it.

Taking 4 years to develop something as mainstream as an A330 it was obvious one of the new breed of sim developers would be there first.

 

…And I have similar concerns that community freeware mods to the default 747-400s in MSFS24 will also severely damage PMDG’s 747-400

1 minute ago, jon b said:

…And I have similar concerns that community freeware mods to the default 747-400s in MSFS24 will also severely damage PMDG’s 747-400

I respectfully respect you as a poster and a knowledge member here but this is not happening. PMDG will be just fine. No sweat here.

The CRJ was first out but severely neglected post launch.  Lots of P3D issues with the A330, what did everyone expect? 

@JBDB-MD80 andI i gratefully receive your respect 😀, the post was meant as a follow on from a previous post which isn’t visible as it’s being reviewed, nothing controversial (i hope, just an observation on how the market had changed )

I hope you’re right re PMDG, I’ll certainly be buying their 747-400 regardless so I wasn’t taking a shot at them.

7 minutes ago, nrunning24 said:

The CRJ was first out but severely neglected post launch.  Lots of P3D issues with the A330, what did everyone expect? 

That they learn from past mistakes.

1 hour ago, Farlis said:

The whole project warrants an in depth investigative report. It seems to have been cursed from its inception. I would love to hear more about it. Who was responsible for what, which decisions were made at which point, what hurdles presented itself because of these decisions and who is ultimately at fault for the sluggish progress and now the absolute sad state of its totally premature release.

One might ask, why it is still premature after all this time. What have they been doing with all their time? What kind of project management is going on there? How is Mathijs departure linked to all of it (I guess he saw in which abysmal state the whole thing was and that the higher ups were uncooperative and did their part in making it worse and thus decided to quit and leave)?

 

I remember the Airbus Pro Versions of the A320 Family. It was not study level, but it was decent, higher tier midlevel simulation of daily operations, without failures. Only thing that plagued it was that the Flybywire was connected to the FPS and it got unflyable under 18FPS. Which in those days was a not so rare occurence.

But it was decent. But this... is just unacceptable. Even for mid tier simulation at this price range.

Phew- for a second I misread midlevel as medieval

Back to the topic of Aerosoft - There used to be time when Aerosoft used to develop some fantastic addon aircrafts - Does anyone remember their airbuses for legacy sim (FSX)? Their products used to be 5 times more immersive and it was great deal of pleasure to fly them. But since last couple of years - Aerosoft has been releasing products that are either unfinished or missing several features. I am already seeing quite a lot of negative comments every where. I don't even know why they even bothered with A330, Yes they want to make money or what not, but releasing unfinished or featureless product is bad for business. 

Edited October 7, 20241 yr by CAP1234

Where's FNX with a 330 when you need them.  🙂  FSL for that matter also.  What's the hold up here!  All would be perfect in Simmsville with one of those.

Edited October 7, 20241 yr by Jeff Nielsen

I remember loving their Twin Otter in P3d, but the reviews of the MSFS product were so immediately negative that I held off buying it again. It's always kind of sad when a great developer falls on hard times.

OK, this one's already gone way south of the border.  Locked.