11 hours ago, Litjan said:

Taking the food and drink analogy here - is that really a bad thing? I did not like my first beer, and I did not like my first glass of wine 😉.

Yes, IMHO, it is.

The beer/wine thing is fair point, but I'm talking about brand loyalty.

Its more like cars and other things - you get the first time buyer and then it's a lot easier to keep them.

You don't get them, then you tend to really struggle once they've had a good experience driving your competition.

And as good as X-Plane is, it doesn't look good compared to MSFS. And let's be honest, right or wrong, "looks" is what draws people in.

14 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

it doesn't look good compared to MSFS

Agreed. These days XP is often looking better than.

23 minutes ago, blingthinger said:

Agreed. These days XP is often looking better than.

Absolutely true. Flew on both MSFS2024 and latest XP Beta last night and XP looked better than ever. Meanwhile, MSFS stable is CTDing nowadays and is experiencing performance issues like never before while also looking nowhere near as good as MSFS2020 did at release. 

21 hours ago, blingthinger said:

Yeah those legal fees would add up quickly! Now...if only Austin would get busy and conjure up some sort of billion-dollar government-funded satellite-based visible-light acquisition project (with a healthy side of military application), for which XP could be a fun side-gig/advertising-front for...

Austin does not strike me as the type to readily sell his life project out to the suits for mere access to a phototapestry of the planet. Besides, the data would have to be made available to a global customer base, which essentially rules out government sponsoring in the first place.

 

20 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I'm talking about ideas where LR can (literally) capitalize on ways to extend XP in such a way as to draw net new customers in, keep borderline simmers who drift to MSFS, and to capture at least some of the dollars that otherwise go entirely to 3rd Parties.

Like I can't for the life of me understand how the XP Marketplace isn't the literal #2 priority at LR.

Talk about a potential cash cow...

If Laminar takes higher commissions than other outlets and offers fewer sales, the market place won't do much for their revenue stream.

59 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

which essentially rules out government sponsoring in the first place

Government funding tentacles run thick through these satellite imagery products. And even if some of the products are not public domain because of it, the capability and development program exists because of government contracts, regardless if they're pushing or pulling it through. To the point that anyone thinking like this:

Quote

See, this is the rather defeatist "Can't" attitude.

is sadly equal parts delusional and dreamy.

2 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

And as good as X-Plane is, it doesn't look good compared to MSFS.

The demo looks awful against MSFS, but a configured XP12 with addons is better imho otherwise I would have gone back to MSFS.  The discussion on the MSFS forum confirmed the individual I was talking to agreed it looked good, but why bother with addons when MSFS has them already!

41 minutes ago, blingthinger said:

Government funding tentacles run thick through these satellite imagery products. And even if some of the products are not public domain because of it, the capability and development program exists because of government contracts, regardless if they're pushing or pulling it through. To the point that anyone thinking like this:

"See, this is the rather defeatist "Can't" attitude."

is sadly equal parts delusional and dreamy.

Maybe UrgentSiesta is on to Austin's Space Program to photograph the entire planet at 1 mm/px resolution and then commandeer a computing super cluster to produce cloudless and color matched orthos and footprints for every building, tree, shrub and waste bin on the plane-oops, I may have said too much. 🤐

Well, now that it's out...

If you've spotted a suspicious black van driving down your street lately, it's just Laminar's scenery team photographing your area to make sure that each and every building, tree, shrub and waste bin is not only located where it's supposed to be but actually also looks like the real thing.

To get all this to the end-user, Ben is currently living off nothing but coffee and sugar in order to ensure that the next-gen photo scenery can be streamed without issue from Laminar's servers (located in Thomson's and Dellanie's basements) on a 1 Mbit connection, while Sidney has been locked at home with a thrice daily Tim Horton's delivery for minimum disturbances to soup up the rendering engine so that the entire new scenery runs at maximum object density with 200 nm visibility at 100 FPS in VR at 8K resolution on a 1080Ti. Completely inadequate, I know, but Jan and Marco personally oversee that the FPS increase will be a guaranteed 25% with each minor point release.

Also, there's the "NextGenIris(TM)" technology that matches your eye's reaction to your monitor's brightness (with a calibration based on nothing but a few questions) so that you'll never have too dark cockpits and overly bright environments (or vice versa) ever again.

If that does not constitute a "Can do" attitude, I do not know what does... 🤷‍♂️

 

27 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

Maybe UrgentSiesta is on to Austin's Space Program to photograph the entire planet at 1 mm/px resolution and then commandeer a computing super cluster to produce cloudless and color matched orthos and footprints for every building, tree, shrub and waste bin on the plane ...

Not only that, they will scan the whole world for every pebble in the water 😄 ... oh wait, that won't be enough for future flight sims - every grain of sand will be required for getting the ultimative immersion 😂.

And as a step up from elephants, giraffes, etc., every ant in the world will be simulated, with the correct ant trails. This is really important for a flight sim. Not so much correct flight physics ... 😁

50 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

so looks like the real thing.

To get all this to the end-user, Ben is currently living off nothing but coffee and sugar in order to ensure that the next-gen photo scenery can be streamed without issue from Laminar's servers (located in Thomson's and Dellanie's basements) on a 1 Mbit connection

Sir don't mock my British internet. These are trying times until my government decides to lay down fibre optic in my area!

I really adamantly disagree with you on the haze. XP12 haze depiction is very realistic and does not need to be toned down. We'll end up with a simulated atmosphere like MSFS2024 -almost unlimited visibility with no depth at this rate. From many years of IRL flying in the UK...XP12 haze depiction is dynamic and accurate.

3 hours ago, blingthinger said:

Agreed. These days XP is often looking better than.

Only if you're fixated on clouds.

3 hours ago, BostonJeremy77 said:

Absolutely true. Flew on both MSFS2024 and latest XP Beta last night and XP looked better than ever. Meanwhile, MSFS stable is CTDing nowadays and is experiencing performance issues like never before while also looking nowhere near as good as MSFS2020 did at release. 

I'm having exactly zero issues with both sims.

3 hours ago, Bjoern said:

If Laminar takes higher commissions than other outlets and offers fewer sales, the market place won't do much for their revenue stream.

They wouldnt be doing it if it weren't good for business.

And I personally will be happy to purchase thru their store.

2 hours ago, blingthinger said:

Government funding tentacles run thick through these satellite imagery products. And even if some of the products are not public domain because of it, the capability and development program exists because of government contracts, regardless if they're pushing or pulling it through. To the point that anyone thinking like this:

is sadly equal parts delusional and dreamy.

It was well understood that people would never be able fly supersonic, nor pass thru the van Allen belts, nor go to the moon, too.

If MS can afford to do it for $60 a customer, it would seem there IS a way that neither delusional nor dreamy.