PMDG Ops Centre - reduced functionality from 30/6/25.

[Luke]

11 minutes ago, Daube said:

Why ? Would you prefer them to work for free without any income, and then go bankrupt, instead of continuing to exist through other sims ? Nice mentality 🙂

Tell me you have no idea what you're talking about, without telling me explicitly. Do you have any idea at how insanely low the support costs for these old birds are, relative to the new stuff?

[Daube]

Just now, Luke said:

Tell me you have no idea what you're talking about, without telling me explicitly. Do you have any idea at how insanely low the support costs for these old birds are, relative to the new stuff?

Ah, since you know very well, you could probably tell us all here in details about how much P3D support costs to PMDG, as well as relating it to their P3D non-professional customer market incomes? I am very eager to learn from absolute experts like you 🙂

The only knowledge I have if from the software company I work for. The support for a product involves having people assigned to it and paid full time for it, instead of being payed to support something else. Even the salary of just ONE person is quite a high amount of money, especially when money isn't coming in anymore. Announcing the end of the support for a product line, several years after it stops generating any income, isn't very surprising.

[Luke]

43 minutes ago, Daube said:

Even the salary of just ONE person is quite a high amount of money, especially when money isn't coming in anymore. Announcing the end of the support for a product line, several years after it stops generating any income, isn't very surprising.

The support costs for old birds are next to zero. The bugs are fixed, the support articles are written and all you have left is the odd redownload and livery. TBH, I have no idea why they stopped the sales - in software, it's not about revenues, it's about margins - and the old birds are as close to a 100% GM offering as you'll ever get. I support simulators back to FS2002 - the number of support requests are zero and the bugs are zero as well. It's completely free.

43 minutes ago, Daube said:

Announcing the end of the support for a product line, several years after it stops generating any income, isn't very surprising.

Companies regularly support products for many years after sales stop - as you can see here, a quick loss of support makes people question purchasing if they can't get support throughout their usage lifetime. Companies (especially in this market) go through stuff quickly, and that reduces purchases. The more complicated the add-on, the more critical support and its longevity are.

Cheers

Edited April 14 by Luke

[ahsmatt7]

3 hours ago, CAP1234 said:

Did you read the PMDG post fully? It clearly says the OPS 2 will cease to function - meaning the only liveries available will be third party, even that I don't know how that will work as you still require OPS to install liveries. I don't care about future updates - I know that is not going to happen but they should have left the OPS 2 for those who wanted to stay on their P3D products. What if I have to reinstall PMDG products after June 30th,  I would be to install using the default installers but no liveries will be available. 

Also there are various reasons why someone would stay on P3D for once - it is not justifiable from developers to take away the whole thing. In other businesses if you do that - customers can sue the owners.

Having said that I am not going to give PMDG a single penny moving forward.

Nvm

Edited April 14 by ahsmatt7

[Ray Proudfoot]

4 hours ago, CAP1234 said:

Yeah that should not be a problem - I should have put 30th June in first place. 

I’ve amended the title and your body text to “reduced functionality” which covers it more accurately I think. 👍

[Ray Proudfoot]

4 hours ago, CAP1234 said:

Read again - OC2 will cease to function after 30th June. 

As PTP files can still be imported I’ve described it as reduced functionality.

[G-RFRY]

PMDG P3D users will still have OC1 in it`s present state, but not upgradable to OC2. P3D users have a fully functioning and working product upto P3Dv5x.

[Luis Hernandez]

3 hours ago, pete_auau said:

Or in much less words, nothing changes apart from the support being halted.

And the official liveries being no longer available, if I understood correctly.

Since I'm not sure about the availiability of existing updates for the P3D birds, I'll download fresh installers tonight. Just in case. Same for my FSX planes (I still have them in my laptop).

Edited April 14 by Luis Hernandez

[okupton]

This information should not be surprising to us P3d users.  PMDG clearly had given up on P3d when they pulled all of their products for sale from their website.

Seems to be the path just about every developer is going down.  
 

But in the end I don’t see really any impact to my enjoyment of P3dv5 for the foreseeable future.  PMDG products are stable enough and I rarely (if ever) have any issues. 

[Ray Proudfoot]

I found this site yesterday. Whilst it doesn’t include liveries for all PMDG 737s it has a huge number for the 737-800 NGXu. Enough to satisfy the most ardent of livery fans.

https://www.fsxliveries.it/p3d-boeing-737-800ngxu-ssw

[Zatoichi]

7 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

?

Ancillary note #2 - PMDG hasn't released anything for MSFS2024 yet.

The noise is the long wait and 2020 issues.

[VHOJT]

I am going to paste my post in the PMDG thread here, which I think P3D users should be aware of.  I downloaded installers and checked last night - not all are up to date, and still require updates from the OC2.  Mathijs and Robert have not yet answered this question.

 

Hi Mathijs,

The 747-400 and the NGXu I downloaded from my PMDG account today. Both have up-to-date installers and OC2 offers no updates for them.

The 77L/F/W does not however have an updated installer when you download from your PMDG account. The OC2 gives the 77L/F and the 77W an update to 1.11.1201.

I don't have the 777-200ER or 747-8 so cannot vouch for those.

Can you make sure that we don't end up stuck with the older and not-up-to-date version of the 777 (and maybe others) when we install it from our accounts at a future date if the OC2 is not going to give updates anymore? 

To be very clear - I am not talking about new updates - just the ones to bring it to its latest version.

Edited April 14 by VHOJT

[VHOJT]

I am going to paste my post in the PMDG thread here, which I think P3D users should be aware of.  I downloaded installers and checked last night - not all are up to date, and still require updates from the OC2.  Mathijs and Robert have not yet answered this question. I have asked both in Page 4 of the https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/general-discussion-news-and-announcements/351440-12apr25-your-weekend-update-on-nearly-all-things-pmdg/page4

 

Hi Mathijs,

The 747-400 and the NGXu I downloaded from my PMDG account today. Both have up-to-date installers and OC2 offers no updates for them.

The 77L/F/W does not however have an updated installer when you download from your PMDG account. The OC2 gives the 77L/F and the 77W an update to 1.11.1201.

I don't have the 777-200ER or 747-8 so cannot vouch for those.

Can you make sure that we don't end up stuck with the older and not-up-to-date version of the 777 (and maybe others) when we install it from our accounts at a future date if the OC2 is not going to give updates anymore? 

To be very clear - I am not talking about new updates - just the ones to bring it to its latest version.

Edited April 14 by VHOJT

[VHOJT]

So far am not getting any response over there...  

[N119UA]

It is somewhat disappointing that they haven't provided a proper reply yet. 

I can appreciate their decision to close down OC2, though I disagree with it, but at least they should provide the most updated installers and, if required, provide updates for the 777 also, directly to your account. It is not a big ask to give existing users the possibility to install the planes in the the most recent version should it be required. 

Better start exporting PMDG-liveries now, if one wants to have a back-up of those, but they have to be exported one by one I understand(?). It should be possible to install the original liveries again via the 3rd party-installer. 

Being an avid PMDG 747-400 sim pilot there is only P3D for now before the new 747 versions will be available (eventually). Does anyone know if historic weather and a fairly well functioning weather radar will be available in 2024? 

Edited April 15 by N119UA
grammar