The list of slow moving developers being penalized for moving too slow in MSFS is growing.  I guess this is a testament to the increased competition and increased number of 3rd party developers all fighting to release a decent fidelity airplane before they are beaten by another developer in MSFS.  Aerosoft has become another victim of slow development in MSFS with their A330 fiasco yesterday.  Aerosoft announced the A330 for MSFS back in January of 2021.  And the assumption is, they started working on it before their announcement.  So they had over 3 years to complete a mid tier A330 but couldn't even reach that before they released yesterday.

Another example is FSLabs.  FSLabs have been known to be historically slow in their development and because they moved so slow, Fenix swooped in and took the A320/A319/A321 market from them in MSFS.  There is probably still room in the MSFS market for a study level Airbus for the other Airbus models, but with iniBuilds coming out with so many Airbus models (A300, A310, A330, A350, A220 with Synaptic Simulations), if FSLabs comes out with a study level version of whatever Airbus model that iniBuilds has already done, FSLabs will probably lose some sales to iniBuilds as well.  And this assumes Fenix is not working on another Airbus model, which they may very well be.

Then there is Quality Wings.  There was definitely a market in MSFS for a mid tier 787 and Quality Wings could have filled that gap easily.  But they were slow.  And then Working Title announced they would make the default 787 better in MSFS.  And I think that announcement by Working Title was the final nail in the coffin for Quality Wings.

Last but not least is PMDG.  After PMDG released the 737 for MSFS, they were truly in the drivers seat to release the 737 Max in MSFS.  PMDG was miles and miles ahead of iFly.  But for whatever reason, Randazzo didn't prioritize the PMDG 737 Max development.  Then Asobo announces they are releasing a 737 Max for MSFS 2024. And iFly is about to release their 737 Max imminently.  If PMDG decides to pursue a 737 Max in the future, I honestly question whether they will make any money off of it, given that the 737 Max will be free in MSFS 2024, and for people wanting a study level 737 Max, they can just buy the iFly version.

The lesson to be learned for 3rd party add on developers, especially 3rd party add on developers aiming for mid tier to study level airliners, is if you snooze, you lose.  While MSFS users expect the highest fidelity airliner that you can provide, you also have to be fast. You can't wait forever.  Aerosoft made a huge mistake by expanding the scope of the A330 project after Mathijs Kok  left, they should have kept the scope much narrower and simpler, so they could get a mid tier A330 to market faster.

Which comes to one more developer that hasn't suffered the consequences of moving too slow, but beware if you still move too slow.  Yeah, that's Majestic. Majestic is lucky that no other major 3rd party developer has decided to make a study level Q400 in MSFS so far.  But as the other Boeing and Airbus models get a mid tier to study level version release in MSFS and there are fewer and fewer airliners for 3rd party developers to choose from for their next project, I think the chances of a major 3rd party developer considering the Q400 in MSFS will increase.  I'm not sure how long Majestic can move slowly, but if I were Majestic, I would consider ramping up their Q400 project for MSFS, to avoid becoming another example of a 3rd party developer that moved too slow in MSFS, and suffer the consequences because of it. 

For us users of MSFS though, the increased competition, the increased number of 3rd party developers in MSFS, is something that will lead to better add-ons at the end of the day.

 

Edited October 8, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

Based on my satisfaction with FSL in P3d should they produce an Airbus for MSFS I’d buy it before the  competition. Same with the PMDG Max. 

24 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

The list of slow moving developers being penalized for moving too slow in MSFS is growing.

With the exception of iniBuilds, who appears to have 28 million developers on their books, *most* dev houses are taking the same amout of time to bring products to market as they always have.

The BlueBird 757 and 767, the JustFlight Avro RJ, PMDG 777X and 747 aren't being beaten to the punch by other dev's efforts.

However, you're right that there's increased competition. It means 'slot sitting' on future products no longer works and/or taking forever on a particular product increases the likelihood of someone else jumping in, particularly with scenery – e.g. see FlyTampa and FSimStudios with CYUL, and to a lesser extent Flightbeam with KPHX and KDEN.

In some cases yes, in some cases some of these projects have taken years. 

Some MSFS 2020 projects may not even be released until 2024...  

55 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

With the exception of iniBuilds, who appears to have 28 million developers on their books, *most* dev houses are taking the same amout of time to bring products to market as they always have.

The BlueBird 757 and 767, the JustFlight Avro RJ, PMDG 777X and 747 aren't being beaten to the punch by other dev's efforts.

However, you're right that there's increased competition. It means 'slot sitting' on future products no longer works and/or taking forever on a particular product increases the likelihood of someone else jumping in, particularly with scenery – e.g. see FlyTampa and FSimStudios with CYUL, and to a lesser extent Flightbeam with KPHX and KDEN.

To be fair, PMDG also brought the 737 NG to the MSFS market pretty fast. And same with Fenix (A320), Leonardo (Maddog), and Just Flight (BAe 146). So it's not just iniBulds that is fast.

I think BlueBird could have released already and in fact, I think they did plan to release the 757 by now, but seeing as there was no competition, they decided to change from a mid tier 757 to a study level 757.

But yeah, I agree with you that some developers can't do this "slot sitting" forever.  FSimStudios was too slow with CYUL, which is unfortunate for them, because the other competition announced CYUL so fast and so close to their release date, FSimStudios simply didn't have enough time to react to it.  Thanks for bringing up the CYUL example though, because that's a good example of a scenery developer that was too slow and was penalized for it (I love FSimStudios and I own many of their airports, but I kind of felt bad for them not releasing CYUL because they realized it wasn't good enough compared to the competition).

At the end of the day, MSFS users benefit from this, even though developers like Aerosoft and FSimStudio are not benefiting from it.

Edited October 8, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

I came to pretty much the same conclusions in the now locked thread about the aerosoft 330 release.

The market has transitioned from a niche,  small cottage industry to perhaps almost mainstream gaming. You can afford to go slow if you’re developing something obscure that no one else is, however if you’re working on something as mainstream as an A330 then you can be certain you’re not the only one.

This is also why I think sales of the PMDG 747-400 won’t be as high as they perhaps could have been as anyone just wanting a mid range 747-400 without all the customisation will surely be happy with the free 2024 747 with freeware mods. Where as if the PMDG was the only 747-400 available customers would have stretched to buying it even if they didn’t use all its inbuilt features.

Part of the trouble is these new default aircraft with just a little modding are just too good, the majority of the more recent flight sim enthusiasts may not desire anything more.

27 minutes ago, jon b said:

I came to pretty much the same conclusions in the now locked thread about the aerosoft 330 release.

The market has transitioned from a niche,  small cottage industry to perhaps almost mainstream gaming. You can afford to go slow if you’re developing something obscure that no one else is, however if you’re working on something as mainstream as an A330 then you can be certain you’re not the only one.

Yup, I absolutely agree with this. MSFS had made flight simulation way more mainstream now and it's no longer a small cottage industry anymore.  Just for airliners alone, you have all the P3D 3rd party airliner developers who have now moved on to MSFS. And then you have completely new airliner developers such as Fenix and Bluebird Simulations (and IMO, Fenix will be here to stay, and Bluebird Simulations will also be around if they have a successful 757 and 767 release).  Then you have iniBuilds, who probably have so many developers, iniBuilds could probably be split into 3 different 3rd party development companies.

Any remaining mainstream Airbus or Boeing planes are going to be developed quite fast for MSFS.  If PMDG thinks they can wait for the 787 forever, I don't know about that, because once Bluebird Simulations releases their 757 and 767, they will be onto the 787 next.  And I wouldn't even be surprised if some other company is secretly working on a study level 787 but have kept quiet about it so far.

I sure hope someone other than PMDG releases a good 787.

15 minutes ago, mmcmah said:

I sure hope someone other than PMDG releases a good 787.

Bluebird Simulations said they are making the 787 for MSFS.  But because we're getting to the point where there is starting to be an overlap of airliners, it's just a matter of time until more 3rd party developers become interested in doing a study level 787.  So I do think there is a market for a study level 787 in MSFS, given that the FBW A320 was already decent in the spring of 2022, but despite that, the Fenix A320 still sold very well.

So IMO, it's not a matter of "if" there will be a study level 787 in MSFS, it's probably just a matter of "when."  I will go out on a limb and guess that within the next 4 years, we'll probably have a study level 787 by then.  I know that Bluebird Simulations will be preoccupied by their 757 and 767 release in the next few years, but if they are slow on their release of the 787, I think another 3rd party developer will just jump in and make a study level 787 and release it before them.

Edited October 8, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

1 hour ago, jon b said:

Part of the trouble is these new default aircraft with just a little modding are just too good, the majority of the more recent flight sim enthusiasts may not desire anything more.

Yes and no.

IMO, as good as they are, modded default aircraft don't quite reach the standard of their payware third party alternatives. These usually come with high quality texturing and animations both inside and out, better soundsets, and a greater number of extra features.  (Does the updated default 787 even have the ability to open all doors?)

Modded default aircraft aren't available on Xbox and there's an awful lot of us who like, and are willing to pay for, the extra detail.

Yes, the likes of you and I , and most on avsim will always go for the highest fidelity aircraft we can, but for the the more relaxed, which is probably now the majority of the customer base, they may not be too bothered. To them if I’m sure if it looks and sounds like a 747, it’s a 747.

Again if you start engines running on the runway ( I must confess I normally do) then you won’t care or even notice the doors.

Agree that there's a number of developers who have been slow to get their products finished and have been blindsided by similar products that got there first.

I'm getting an implication from your post that these developers, to some extent, chose to take it easy -- that they could have been faster if they had just hired more people, and maybe taken out a loan to do so if necessary. I don't think that's necessarily true. I think the developers you name would have loved to get finished faster (and probably planned to do so).

The trouble is, it takes a very specific skill set to develop complex airliners, particularly the FMC, which so often seems to be the pièce de résistance. You can't just hire these people with these skills off the street -- you need to work hard to find them. If you invited an otherwise skilled and experienced "generalist" software engineer to an interview and asked them to explain, say, spherical trigonometry and WGS 84, you'd get nothing but blank stares.

I think the reason you're seeing some developers getting their products finished faster is because they've managed to hire and retain a group of people with these key skills. I see other developers who seem to have lost their previous ability to bring products to market on time, and I speculate that they have lost key people and aren't able to find equivalent people to replace them. I don't have any evidence for this, but it seems the most plausible explanation to me.

4 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

Aerosoft made a huge mistake by expanding the scope of the A330 project after Mathijs Kok  left, they should have kept the scope much narrower and simpler, so they could get a mid tier A330 to market faster.

But the thing is, the product they've released now isn't more than they had announced before Mathijs's departure. If anything, it's less. (You'd expect even a mid-tier airliner to be able to do holdings I think.) And yet again, the issue is the FM(G)C. Even before Mathijs left, the things I was hearing made me feel the project wasn't going well. (Here's a rule of thumb I use: If I see previews of an airliner and they don't show the FMC, that means it still a long way from being finished. Even worse if they only show exterior shots.)

Did they get sidetracked on the features they added? I don't really see this. Even if they added more variants and engine options, it's pretty clear you develop the common functionality first, and a big part of that is the FMGC. But to do that, you need people who understand spherical trigonometry and all that jazz, and my feeling is they just didn't have the key people they needed to get that done well.

Edited October 8, 20241 yr by martinboehme

10 minutes ago, martinboehme said:

The trouble is, it takes a very specific skill set to develop complex airliners, particularly the FMC, which so often seems to be the pièce de résistance

I hear inibuilds have recently hired Liam Neeson 😆

1 hour ago, martinboehme said:

Agree that there's a number of developers who have been slow to get their products finished and have been blindsided by similar products that got there first.

I'm getting an implication from your post that these developers, to some extent, chose to take it easy -- that they could have been faster if they had just hired more people, and maybe taken out a loan to do so if necessary. I don't think that's necessarily true. I think the developers you name would have loved to get finished faster (and probably planned to do so).

The trouble is, it takes a very specific skill set to develop complex airliners, particularly the FMC, which so often seems to be the pièce de résistance. You can't just hire these people with these skills off the street -- you need to work hard to find them. If you invited an otherwise skilled and experienced "generalist" software engineer to an interview and asked them to explain, say, spherical trigonometry and WGS 84, you'd get nothing but blank stares.

I think the reason you're seeing some developers getting their products finished faster is because they've managed to hire and retain a group of people with these key skills. I see other developers who seem to have lost their previous ability to bring products to market on time, and I speculate that they have lost key people and aren't able to find equivalent people to replace them. I don't have any evidence for this, but it seems the most plausible explanation to me.

But the thing is, the product they've released now isn't more than they had announced before Mathijs's departure. If anything, it's less. (You'd expect even a mid-tier airliner to be able to do holdings I think.) And yet again, the issue is the FM(G)C. Even before Mathijs left, the things I was hearing made me feel the project wasn't going well. (Here's a rule of thumb I use: If I see previews of an airliner and they don't show the FMC, that means it still a long way from being finished. Even worse if they only show exterior shots.)

Did they get sidetracked on the features they added? I don't really see this. Even if they added more variants and engine options, it's pretty clear you develop the common functionality first, and a big part of that is the FMGC. But to do that, you need people who understand spherical trigonometry and all that jazz, and my feeling is they just didn't have the key people they needed to get that done well.

For a company the size of Aerosoft though, I think they can hire the same amount and quality of developers that iniBuilds hired.  If iniBuilds can develop some of their aircraft within 2 years, there isn't a reason Aerosoft can't, IMO.

Remember, iniBuilds is about to beat Aerosoft at releasing a decent A330 in MSFS 2024. It's also possible that iniBuilds started the A330 after Aerosoft, because they were focusing on the A310 and then the A320 initially. Why can iniBuild do it but Aerosoft can't?  And Aerosoft surely started MSFS 2020 as a larger company than iniBuilds, right?  (When I was watching the first discovery video on Aerosoft back in 2020/2021, they seemed like one of the larger companies in flight simulation)

Edited October 8, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

43 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

For a company the size of Aerosoft though, I think they can hire the same amount and quality of developers that iniBuilds hired.  If iniBuilds can develop some of their aircraft within 2 years, there isn't a reason Aerosoft can't, IMO.

Surely if they could they would? Surely they don't want to be this late with an A330 that ends up being this underwhelming?

43 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Remember, iniBuilds is about to beat Aerosoft at releasing a decent A330 in MSFS 2024. Why can iniBuild do it but Aerosoft can't?  Aerosoft surely started MSFS 2020 as a larger company than iniBuilds, right?

Being a large company doesn't equate to being able to attract and retain key people. The deciding factor isn't money. The much more important questions are: Am I going to be working with other high-calibre people, and am I going to be fired up about the things I'll be doing? A company needs to understand this and be able to offer the right environment to get great devs.

As an example, witness Working Title. These are a bunch of extremely talented folks who got together just for the love of working on something great with other awesome people -- without any financial incentive. I'm not saying great devs will always work for free -- they have mouths to feed too, and they can choose who to work for. But it's not just, or even primarily, about the money. (Edit: And, of course, Working Title are being paid now, and being paid well, I assume.)

You can get the opposite effect as well. Once a few key developers leave a company, others will follow because the thing that motivated them -- working with great people -- is no longer there. I feel as if this may have happened to some of the former greats who seem to have lost their edge.

Edited October 8, 20241 yr by martinboehme