On 11/17/2024 at 6:59 AM, FNX_Dave said:

Anyway, I very much look forward to seeing the FSL A321 - competition is good for everyone, and the market is certainly large enough to sustain it. I'm sure both our product, and theirs, will be better for their mutual existence.

Yes but why..? Competition is good but we are talking here same product...CEO. Fenix is great product so bringing FSL (awaited for so long, I got gray hair waiting for FSL) with same characteristics is what...? Same thing.  As a consumer and what I experienced with Fenix and if I compare with FSL at P3D  well same thing. I hesitated and kept refreshing their Forums thinking that announcement will pop up at any moment, but nothing happened for over a year at least since I decided to switch to MSFS. I even delayed buying your product but once I decided and once I started flying I was happy with it. Needles to say that latest update is almost perfect experience. So FSL now? If they will offer for free to current P3D owners then OK but that ain't happening.

So, either NEO 320 or (330 as promised)...or whenever it happens. That's me. Besides, let's wait and see what "revolutionary" might come out in next few days. Then will meet again....

 

On 11/17/2024 at 7:59 PM, FNX_Dave said:

Hey - just wanted to clarify a couple bits here as I've also been slightly misquoted, so figured I'd keep things purely factual.

Firstly, for our intents and purposes we own the code running Fenix, and all works (fixes, improvements, additional features) are undertaken by Fenix in-house programmers, forked off from ProSim's codebase almost half a decade ago. Those same programmers have scratch-written large swaths of the originally licensed code to better suite our specific needs and goals, including our external engine model and custom FM, custom implementation of Airbus FBW, and specific system differences to support the A319/A321/SLs. These are all things the original codebase had no support for as the ProSim A320 suite is designed around a very different use-case, so five years in it's fair to say the code is more Fenix than ProSim. As for the licensing - I'm not going to go into detail, but we're not limited to any platform or variations upon our existing products - as before, for all intents and purposes, we're no more restricted than anyone else with what we do with our products and associated source code.

Now, with regards to the quote from me about Fenix being an unsustainable business - this is the danger of taking a snippet from a conversation rather than contextualising it, so allow me to do just that: Making a one time payment of £49.99 for an airliner add-on with a fully-fledged failures system, circuit breakers etc. and expecting that initial purchase to sustain continuous improvements, periodic full-rebuilds (see V2), and platform upgrades for 5-10 years, without producing and releasing another product, is precisely what is not sustainable. Given we still plan for FS2024 compatibility to be free to all customers, it's fair to say we're doing well enough for now. 🙂

Anyway, I very much look forward to seeing the FSL A321 - competition is good for everyone, and the market is certainly large enough to sustain it. I'm sure both our product, and theirs, will be better for their mutual existence.

Thanks you @FNX_Dave for clarifying your quote.

And @FPVSteve, you took FNX_Dave's quote out of context when you said, "The Fenix business is not sustainable with the product at that price point":

 

Edited November 19, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

Well that's how I read it on the Discord server which was the only context I had.

"we took a gamble on a lower price and to be honest, it's not sustainable long-term" says what it says.

Since they also said this:

David — 19/09/2024 15:18
given less than 1% of MSFS users are Fenix customers, I don't think MS are that concerned about us, which is totally fair

and

David — 19/09/2024 15:32
oh we're doing just fine, and all is looking good for now, but when you take into account long-term running costs, continued support/developments to existing products, and of course future new developments, our current pricing model would eventually put us in a bad spot.

It appears to me that Fenix may well be under-priced and so even if FSLabs were to launch with a slightly higher price, it might make sense in the long term if they too can grab "1% of MSFS users". Surely that is attainable... 

Doesn't really matter to me though, I'm not a shareholder - I'll fly both for as long as they exist.

What if Fslabs released a high quality A321 FS2024 version today? Would you bite?

My feeling tells me something's cookin' at Fslabs...

Edited November 19, 20241 yr by hollow1slo

2 minutes ago, hollow1slo said:

What if Fslabs release a high quality A321 FS2024 version today? Would you bite?

No. I can still use MSFS20 until they release their compatibility update to '24. They already said they don't expect to charge any upgrade cost for their busses to '24 unless something goes horribly wrong. I can live without an A321 on Day 1, there are so many things to do and explore in the new sim and I doubt there are many high quality airports I'd want to fly the Airbus to on Day 1 anyway.

11 minutes ago, hollow1slo said:

My feeling tells me something's cookin' at Fslabs...

Perhaps FSL might release both the A32x CEO and NEO all in one bundle, or perhaps additionally also release the Concorde along with the A32x... all wishful thinking on my part 😅. I won't touch anything FSL until they put out the Concorde, and then maybe A330, A340, etc. But I'm sure it'll be MSFS 2028 time by then.
 

I wish FSL well on this and hope it does well for them - more good third-party aircraft makers is only a positive - but it really feels like they've misplayed everything with regards to MSFS. Too slow to respond, and then when they do it's to enter the niche with the most direct third-party competition. They've implied they have some kind of custom technology ace up their sleeve before, so I guess we wait to see what it is.

41 minutes ago, Scottoest said:

I wish FSL well on this and hope it does well for them - more good third-party aircraft makers is only a positive

That's exactly my take on it.

36 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Perhaps FSL might release both the A32x CEO and NEO all in one bundle, or perhaps additionally also release the Concorde along with the A32x... all wishful thinking on my part 😅. I won't touch anything FSL until they put out the Concorde, and then maybe A330, A340, etc. But I'm sure it'll be MSFS 2028 time by then.
 

I would love to see that.

I cannot help but wonder if this "leak" was not deftly orchestrated by FSLabs themselves to get market feedback/reactions, Lefteris indicated in his post that the information provided were not accurate... without saying what was not correct leaving everybody to speculate ad nauseam.

Well now they surely know: Nobody - or very few - want a A321 CEO, but would welcome a Neo, MSFS 2020 too late (for the prospective clients), MSFS 2024 too early (for the developers)! Although frankly all the above could have been easily guessed.

Is the conversion from CEO to NEO a complex one? Were they at a point where this was still possible? Nobody will ever know since there was (?) no confirmation by FSLabs that this A321 was a CEO, this is intriguing indeed... and we may have to wait a few more months to know which version will be released, the FSLabs forum has gone dead again. FSLabs developers like to work in silence and concentrate on what they do best, release excellent simulation products, let's hope they will find a market for them!

 

This is just crazy - two talented developers are working on the same project, such a sad story. I remember FSLabs wanted to switch to 33X project.

Assuming they are showing this first since it's the "new, not done before" feature(s) they were touting out earlier?

Ya really frustrating they are going with the A321 CEO when we already have the Fenix. Holding out hope they also have a NEO ready as part of the whole package, and the Concorde is not too far off.

The MSFS 2024 launch problems and current buggy state does help FSL in one way.. more users are likely to be using 2020 who might pick this up.
 

So it's indeed just a CEO. So stupid. I doubt people would buy that because you can call deicing from the FMC.

What's more important is that the cockpit textures look mediocre, maybe iniBuilds level if at all.

I’m probably in the minority but if they include the time jump feature that they had in P3D, as well as the ability to do 4-8x sim rate, I’m probably buying it. That’s the only thing missing for me from the FENIX. The FENIX is definitely my most used addon, but honestly feel limited to doing shorter flights unfortunately. But like I said, I know I’m in the minority.