1 hour ago, peroni said:

I cannot believe they finally added the ability to turn off the friggin mouse zooming after so many years asking for it.

Yes finally.  A small but such a quality of life feature. 

16 hours ago, Mike_CFII_MEL said:

Time will tell, they've had 75 exhibits in 2023, 68 exhibits in 2024 and 83 exhibits in 2025. The base platform market place for both platforms should be well online by next expo, we'll see if this is good, bad or makes no difference in regards to the expo turnout.

I think we're missing each others point here.

A lot of the reason to attend an expo as a vendor is to meet other vendors in person.

To a lesser degree, it's also to directly meet and present to customers and potential customers (particularly less so for the B2C space).

Further, as easily perceived, these events create a nexus of news and attention well beyond those who attend. I.e., the event itself is special and creates a different foil for grabbing non-attendee attention.

If online marketplaces could take the place of these interactions, they would've done so shortly after internet chat rooms, e-commerce, and video conferencing became a thing. 

Seeing as those elements have been solidly in place and significantly growing for several decades now, I just can't see it.

 

Edited July 4, 2025Jul 4 by UrgentSiesta

4 hours ago, Sims Smith said:

Yes finally.  A small but such a quality of life feature. 

Was implemented in xcamera. Long time ago. Wish they would remove  that irritating, ATC violation message. Helps no one.

20 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Oh, you mean just like happened with Prepar3D, X-Plane, and MSFS...?

...and DCS, IL-2, Star Citizen, Elite: Dangerous, Counter Strike, Day-Z, Battlefield, FIFA, Need For Speed, racing sims, truck sims, train sims, RPGs...

 

Oh great, now I'm nostalgic for when games were more about the game and less about revenue streams.

Edited July 4, 2025Jul 4 by Bjoern

36 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

...and DCS, IL-2, Star Citizen, Elite: Dangerous, Counter Strike, Day-Z, Battlefield, FIFA, Need For Speed, racing sims, truck sims, train sims, RPGs...

 

Oh great, now I'm nostalgic for when games were more about the game and less about revenue streams.

I only do flight sims, including DCSW and IL-2.

DCSW has never gone there, and tho I heard IL2 dabbled previously, I haven't seen it there since I've been into BoX.

Businesses legitimately need recurring revenue, so it's ALWAYS about revenue. 

Otherwise, we have no games to play...

Edited July 4, 2025Jul 4 by UrgentSiesta

20 hours ago, mSparks said:

The current business of "MS gaming" is in the process of getting closed down, so yes. -> hitting Sales, Management,and development studios.

Phil Spencer is CEO of MS gaming not all Microsoft (CEO of microsoft is Satya Nedella)

Because

So

https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/all-the-xbox-games-cancelled-and-studios-closed-in-microsofts-latest-mass-layoffs/2900-6726/

Asobo has far more independence than most, but lets not forget the recent navigraph survey:

"This year we separated Windows Computer and Mac Computer from each other. The result shows
that most of the respondents are on a Windows Computer (91.9), 2.4% on a Mac Computer, and 1.7%
on a Gaming Console (Xbox), which is a decrease from last year’s 2.6%."

Let that sink in if you doubt it, Xplane on Mac has nearly double the number of (3rd party store addon buying) users than MSFS on Xbox.

So hardly surprising MS wasn't investing in a big fancy booth at this years FSEXPO. I was actually surprised they showed up last year.

Do you even pay attention to the world outside of console/mobile gaming...?

Because the entire tech sector has been hemorrhaging jobs for years now.

Poor Xbox sales shouldn't surprise anyone - the current systems are extremely old and should've been upgraded or replaced at latest a year or two ago. E.g., lots of MSFS simmers aren't getting reliable 4K performance out of them...

Not to mention the next Gen series is very publicly in development.

 

And from the article you linked, here's Phil:

"Spencer also addressed the fact that the cutbacks are coming at a time when business is booming for Xbox. "I recognize that these changes come at a time when we have more players, games, and gaming hours than ever before. Our platform, hardware, and game roadmap have never looked stronger," he said."

And, if you were to actually read the article, it's plainly apparent that MS is cutting under-performers, which is exactly what they should be doing. E.g., some of those games have been in Dev for 10 years!

And finally, we all (should) know by now that the Navigraph survey is only representative of a small percentage of Prosumers, not of the general sim population. And if you don't believe me, Navigraph wrote it right there in the survey for everyone to see ...

I.e., HALF of MSFS simmers are using Xbox, which just goes to show how (unavoidably) skewed the Navigraph sample is. 

1 hour ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Do you even pay attention to the world outside of console/mobile gaming...?

There is nothing significant happening globally right now we didn't already discuss in detail on the go ahead discord 4 or 5 years ago.

1 hour ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Because the entire tech sector has been hemorrhaging jobs for years now.

Wealth is rarely if ever destroyed, only transferred.

1 hour ago, UrgentSiesta said:

And finally, we all (should) know by now that the Navigraph survey is only representative of a small percentage of Prosumers,

aka people who attend events like fsexpo, aka the topic.

Edited July 4, 2025Jul 4 by mSparks

On 6/29/2025 at 9:04 AM, Bjoern said:

The A330 upgrades are nice, but unless Laminar also does something about its abyssimal FPS (due to xlua's just in time compilation), it will remain a hangar queen for me.

The you will be very happy when you upgrade to 12.3 !!!!  So far we have cut the contribution to frame time by approximately 42% (my system) and there is more to come.

7 hours ago, JGregory said:

The you will be very happy when you upgrade to 12.3 !!!!  So far we have cut the contribution to frame time by approximately 42% (my system) and there is more to come.

That's absolutely great news! 

9 hours ago, JGregory said:

The you will be very happy when you upgrade to 12.3 !!!!  So far we have cut the contribution to frame time by approximately 42% (my system) and there is more to come.

Finally, Heathrow ops!