abrams_tank

Microsoft probably has a huge lead using AI for scenery & geography, compared to the other flight simulator competition, including even the combat flight simulators. This is because of the Bing team at Microsoft. For the competition to match Microsoft, they probably have to approach a company like Google. And AI will probably play a bigger and bigger role in making the scenery better for stuff like flight simulators, and maybe even for video games that require modern real life geography and city scenery data. Unless the other flight simulators can get scenery data from Google, I think MSFS will always have an inherent advantage when it comes to live streaming the scenery for the entire world.

WT are making so many fixes during this AAU2 beta, and they are doing it so fast. It's like they are developing at the speed of light. Anyways, we all benefit when WT makes all these fixes so fast. I hope WT keeps up the good work!

Thanks! And I think Avsim should add a tag for very famous freeware developers like the FBW team. Great work on the FBW A320 and I look forward to the FBW A380! Also a big thanks for letting projects like Headwind use FBW code, I can't say enough of how other projects like Headwind are getting so good, because they are using the FBW source code!

Hi, are you on the FBW team? I have not really noticed you posting before, on behalf of the FBW team. Usually it's Watsi and Iceman that post on behalf of FBW here at Avsim.

Thank you! That's all I was looking for, a source.

I went to the Virualcol website, the homepage: https://www.virtualcol.com/front/. I did not see anything about the A220 being cancelled for MSFS. I did not see anything about them declaring would make the A220 for MSFS. I also sorted by the MSFS tag: https://www.virtualcol.com/front/tag/msfs2020/. I still don't see any news about the A220 for MSFS at the Virtualcol website. Can you just post the exact link where they mention the A220 was cancelled for MSFS?

You didn't even provide a source for this whole thread topic, that Virualcol have stopped developing the A220 for MSFS. I can't even find an article or source that says Virtualcol even started development of the A220 for MSFS. When I Google "Virtualcol a220 msfs" in Google, I also get no results: https://www.google.com/search?q=Virtualcol+A220+msfs Where is your source for this? How come you can't post your source?

Hope your computer gets fixed soon and you come back soon!

Did Virtualcol announce they were developing the A220 for MSFS? And did Virtualcol then announce they won't develop the A220 for MSFS anymore? I tried Google but can't find a source for this. Anybody have a link to the source for both announcements?

Maybe not by units sold. But by total revenue (that is units x price per unit), I would guess PMDG would be up there for top 5 best sellers in terms of total revenue sold, for MSFS.

Randazzo commented on the PMDG 737 sales last year. Here is a summary of what I wrote from this post: And for the PMDG DC6 sales, here is a summary of what I wrote from this post:

To be fair, the AN 225 is priced at $19.99 USD. That could be the sweet spot for XBox pricing. I think PMDG is charging the regular price of $69.99 USD for the PMDG 737 on XBox. That's a bit more pricy, so I don't know if the number of units of the 737 PMDG sold on the XBox is close to what the AN 225 sold on XBox.

I was rewatching the last Twitch Q&A, and I finally found the part where Jorg talks about the Antonov team close to receiving the first check for $1 million: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQzeTwdJzTQ&t=131s. As Jorg mentions in that video, the proceeds from the sale of the AN 225 in MSFS will go towards Antonov. It is also posted at the official flightsimulator.com website: So I am going to assume Jorg is referring to USD when he states $1 million. If the MSFS team is close to cutting a check for Antonov, it's reasonable to assume the sales are also close to $1 million USD. That article above also mentions "all proceeds will go to the Antonov Corporation." So this could mean the Antonov sold close to ($1 million / $19.99), or roughly 50K copies. Since the Antonov was released on the XBox as well, I assume the $1 million figure must include XBox sales as well as PC. I am also going to assume that the MSFS team is not adding in any additional funding for this check, since the MSFS team is already subsidizing the AN 225 sales, because their support team has to handle user support issues for the AN 225, and there are also costs associated with marketing the AN 225, and costs associated with the the actual sales of the AN 225 (ie. Visa and PayPal will take a small cut), etc. Anyways, these are my assumptions, but I understand that some people will disagree with these assumptions, which is fair. Granted, the Antonov is quite reasonable in price, at $19.99 USD, but still, that's a pretty impressive sales number, if it sold close to 50K copies. Now the most PC users that used MSFS was on the release of MSFS, and I don't think MSFS has currently has as many PC users now, compared to when it was released back in August of 2020. This is normal for most games though - almost all games have peak users when the game is released, or shortly afterwards. Thus, I can't imagine PC users alone could lead to 50K sales of the Antonov. This must mean there was a lot of XBox sales of the Antonov. I'm thinking the XBox market is much bigger for MSFS than I originally thought, especially for lower priced add-ons. I would love to know the breakdown of the Antonov sales, like what % was sold for PC, and what % was sold on XBox, but unfortunately, Jorg doesn't mention this. Anyways, Jorg presenting this information was very interesting. I was surprised at this figure when it was first reported.

Yes. iFly is also making a 737 Max for MSFS. Either PMDG will come out with the 737 Max first, or iFly will, for MSFS. Randazzo in the Sky Blue radio interview mentioned something like the 737 Max could even come out before the 777. Randazzo mentioned there was a lot of 737 "fatigue," meaning the market was a bit tired of the 737, so he was inferring that PMDG hasn't pushed out the 737 Max yet because of that. From the Sky Blue radio interview, I get the feeling that PMDG is quite far on the 737 Max, and they are just holding it for now, until the market gets a bit more energetic for its release, since the 737 NG wasn't released that long ago. In any case, if the iFly 737 enters beta testing for MSFS, I think PMDG will move rather fast on the 737 Max.

I wouldn't be surprised that when Jorg and his team did the presentation to Phil Spencer and the other Microsoft execs, to convince them of green lighting MSFS, that Jorg showed them the graphics and capabilities of the other flight simulators at the time, including civilian flight simulators, and may have even showed them the combat flight simulators as well. None of the civilian flight simulators or combat flight simulators were using real time streaming of satellite scenery. And if Jorg had good photogrammetry to show them, especially because Seattle photogrammetry in MSFS is decent, it probably made his presentation look even better. This is one thing I like about the MSFS team, that they are so forward thinking and willing to embrace new technologies. Look at frame generation in MSFS now with an NVidia 4000 series card. MSFS was literally one of the first games to support frame generation with an NVidia 4000 series card, and NVidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, used MSFS at his NVidia 4000 series reveal, to demonstrate the capabilities of frame generation. When a flight simulator is breaking new ground with new technology, that speaks volumes, IMO. This is what we need in a flight simulator team, a team that is always looking at new technologies, and willing to push the limit, just to make their flight simulator better. I am very thankful that MSFS has pulled flight simulation into the 2020s. Heck, with frame generation, MSFS is pulling flight simulation into what a flight simulator can do in 2023. I hope the MSFS team keeps this forward thinking attitude and keeps embracing new technologies!