nothingreal

Totally agree. There's no chance they'd let it go all together - especially to Google. I think the only chance for the franchise would be a licensing arrangement with a 'friendly' 3rd party development shop - perhaps keeping MS as the publisher. I doubt there are any developers out there with the expertise to pull it off - outside of Cascade Studios, of course.. so either an eager developer would have to take in some of the recently displaced developers or a new development shop would have to be spun up specifically to work on the title.. All of this is dependent on MS even being willing to license out Flight..

I thought about this as well - Google taking over Flight.. It's mainly because google like throwing money at vanity projects though - there's really nothing in it for them to keep it going. What could "save Flight" though.. is an investment in a new development shop which Microsoft would be willing to license (not sell) the IP to... So if some Investor or group (let's just say Paul Allen.. just for giggles) decided that the there was a profitable business to be had in continuing to keep MS' flight simulation legacy afloat -- albeit on an adjusted trajectory (no more cockpit-less airplanes, just for example), it wouldn't be inconceivable that a 50 person development shop could be capitalized and spun up rather quickly and turn Flight into a profitable venture inside of 12 months. It's actually a reasonable business proposition; - MS Flight Sim (and flight sims in general) still have a large addressable audience - especially if you were to make good on the initial vision of Flight without alienating hardcore simmers. - the underlying engine already works, it's already making some amount of money, turning the pipeline on again is only going to increase things.. - Multiplayer - typically the bane of game development - is already working smoothly -- better, in fact, that just about anything else. - Missions.. there are already hooks for missions, and these could become highly profitable micro-transactions. All they'd really need to do is take over development, release a new mission statement, crank out a few desperately-needed patches and start deploying newer, better deluxe aircraft on a monthly cadence, while working on an eventual SDK. -- oh, and take community engagement seriously. I think it could work, if properly executed and given enough time to flourish. Liklihood of this happening? about 1 in 500,000..

If you don't want to invest in a yoke, Flight controls very, very well with an Xbox 360 controller. If you already have a 360, you can get a wireless USB receiver for it, if not you can buy the Xbox controller and receiver separately, or I believe they have a wired USB version - either option are much less than a yoke and more useful for other applications as well.