simtom

I'm speechless, goosebumps all over the place! 😮

I have a feeling this is the case as well. We'll only be able to verify this when we get our hands on the game and check for locations that are poor on the publicly available Bing Maps.

I feel the same way. I already see complaints coming in that the street they landed in isn't really that detailed. What I always tell people then is to remember what we currently have and what we'll get with MSFS. Sure, we might demand even better scenery in 5 or 10 years but for now it absolutely looks stunning (even with the occasional mesh bug of the photogrammetry).

Same here, I always get goosebumps at 1:23 (giraffes shot).

Well, generally speaking simulation games have always been popular (just look at the continued succes of Euro Truck Simulator). It's just that none of the major publishers have thrown money at it (except MS in the past and obviously now). And I don't blame them, an FPS, strategy or free roam game is much easier to sell than a simulation game. You do have mods for existing games that gives it some simulator features (GTA V for example). People tend to have misconceptions about that ("only nerds play that"). That's why I find the succes of Airforceproud95 a good thing. Sure, it's nowhere near a realistic representation of flight simming but it does appeal to a larger audience who might give it a shot after viewing his videos. The fact that Xbox is now also pushing MSFS can only be good in the long run. The biggest obstacle of selling simulator games is that it isn't easy to play or understand, it's not something you necessarily play to relax (in comparison to Battlefield or RDR2 for example). Good to see that Asobo will introduce a feature to help newcomers learn all the basics (like the automated checklist).

Or maybe that was just because we all watched it a million times? 😉

That's what I meant, nice to see that they want to show off this type of 'game'. Being the longest running franchise at Microsoft might have something to do with that. Really interested to see what they will unveil at the event, will be glued to the livestream for sure 😃

Might not mean that much but it's nice to see that they're really pushing MSFS in their marketing campaign: Of all the Xbox games currently in development they chose to show MSFS in this short teaser (also mentioned in the description). We're getting some love here haha (and they want our wallet).

Yeah okay, fair enough.

Yeah, that's what I thought as well. Perfect solution for marketing analysis!

I still don't get the whole "Insider Program", although there must be a reason because that's something you see a lot with Microsoft games or software.

It's always fun to read about wish lists for v5 before MSFS was announced. It's like going back in time as a time traveler haha

About the whole "why don't I get a discount for an update" story, just look at the major smartphone manufactures. Every year they release a new flagship phone that retails in the €1000 region (!) and you don't get any discount as a current customer (although I do know that Apple has some sort of "yearly refresh plan"). And sadly the differences between each new generation of phones is becoming smaller and smaller but still, each year they sell them like hot cakes, even at that price. Now, I'm not defending or bashing at PMDG, I'm just saying that everything is relative. For one the $139 price tag might be too expensive and for others it might not mean much. Fact is that they're becoming (or already are) a premium add-on developer. I must be careful not to say the wrong things, but I feel like you're paying a premium just because it has "PMDG" written on it (just like you do when buying from Apple, Samsung, Louis Vuitton, or any other premium brand). I do agree that their statement about the higher price for P3D is now somewhat busted but perhaps their overhead has increased since the FSX days. Maybe more people are now working for them, they have their own forum, an updated store interface and backend and so on. I do know that this is all guessing but I'm just trying to find reasons as to why they're going to release the NG3 at such an increased price point. Some people might argue that there are no reasons and that it's just a consequence of running a monopoly but I don't think that's the sole reason. To give one last example, I bought RDR2 last year for PS4 and guess what, I didn't receive any discount for buying it again on PC (and that's only a one year gap). Even worse is that the game is severely bugged for some people so they can't even play it. Adding to that you can't even transfer the progression of your online character to PC. So don't think that these marketing tricks are only being applied in the simulator world, they're just copying it now from the big AAA developers and publishers.

I often bookmark "exotic" airports for later use. I especially find island hopping to be an amusing way to kill some time. An added bonus is that your frames will be quite high compared to flying between large cities 🙂

I totally agree with you. Currently in order to have a descent flight simming experience you need to have some cash to spend (realistic weather, scenery, airports, ...). This may sound harsh and not friendly towards the current (excellent) add-on developers but I can only be excited by the fact that MS will now include a large number of features (that are currently not included) into it's stock version. I mean, we can't be expecting to pay for good weather, detailed scenery and etc? Imagine if you would have to pay for more detailed maps in Battlefield for example.

Source

Like I said in other threads, I believe they might use this game or project to showcase their Bing Maps and Azure AI capabilities to high end business users or others. I mean, if you have this kind of technology (like the world and weather system) it would be stupid to not further sell this to other parties.

You're right, my mistake!

From what I've read it's basically pointless to use DirectX Raytracing on GTX 10XX series of cards, you really need to have the dedicated RT cores. Even the previous flagship, the 1080 Ti, struggles to keep 30 FPS in some games (with DXR enabled). Asobo claims they are using a type of raytracing that doesn't require RT cores so I'm very curious as to how they pulled that off.

I totally agree with that, the dreaded DLC content. What I don't agree with is that those expansions should not include performance improvements. That would essentially be a big middle finger to all the people who don't want to buy or can't afford it. I feel like performance improvements are one of the basic things to give gamers (a basic right if you will). You could argue about the fact that LM did in fact ask money for the 64-bit upgrade but they did that in a smart way, they released the next version of P3D when many people expected them to release it. Other than that I don't know of any other game that tried to sell a DLC with performance improvements (even, like you say, when also including new content or features). Recent example is the 1.8 update of Kerbal Space Program. They upgraded the Unity version they were using to a more recent one (giving better performance) and it was released as a free update to everyone. Even when they added 64-bit support it was a free update. That's just my opinion though!

It would be such a bad move to add DX12 as a payable patch (even when including other features). I mean, imagine if all of a sudden all games required you to pay for performance improvements, that would be unheard of. Same with ray-tracing, it just gets added to the game in a patch. And seeing how they care for the community and how they understand the mistakes that were made in the past it would make no sense if they would ask money for a DX12 patch.

Oh, I'm sure we'll get many more episodes than only these first four!

The thing with alphas and betas nowadays is that they seem to have lost their meaning in a sense, especially the betas. Most of the major AAA games now have a closed beta when pre-ordering the game and an open beta for everyone else to "test" (yeah right, just another trick of the marketing department). Even though I'm sad I'm not invited, I would have preferred if they didn't make the alpha so open to the public. What I mean is that a large group of the invited people might not give the "correct" feedback. But we'll see how it turns out.

So have I, slow loading and lots of php errors. Probably something going on with the provider?

Yeah, could be. Seems like something they do for a lot of Microsoft related stuff.