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Hey fellas, I've been sitting here wondering what I would try to do if I found myself deep in the bowels of MS and responsible for authoring the overall "Flight strategy". You know, the "grand plan" so to speak. Here goes - - - all hypothetically, of course.Now, I'm no software genius but I have a group of great, young teammates who will handle that aspect of this project. It's my job to put a product out there that will appeal to the broadest spectrum of the market for such products. It's also my responsibility to design, if possible, a product that will take maximum advantage of the significant economic upside available to all those products of its class that become "franchise products" and that develop large numbers of passionate devotees.Conceptionally speaking, what would such a product look like? Well, consider this: I believe this product involves an activity that is of at least casual interest to a relatively large number of folks of varying age groups and abilities, that's why the corporation is interested in it in the first place. I also believe it also has a history in that it has predecessors that have themselves created followings of various levels of loyalty and sophistication.Given the above, I would want a product that enters the market at a level that would appeal to the greatest majority of potential customers. A product that offers graphics, in-game strategies and activities of at least the quality that can be found in today's most sophisticated and successful arcade games. I would try to make the initial in-game activities and challenges as compatible as possible with the anticipated levels of ablilties, interest and sophistication possessed by the largest possible group of potential customers and then I would rely upon their level of interest in the product increasing as their abilities and their perceived level of success with the product rises.My goal would be to offer customers who might be mildly interested, an eye-catching, interest-generating entry-level experience at a very attractive price point so the largest number of those customers would feel positively inclined to sample my wares. You know, spread the net as far as possible.Then - - -I would ask the software team to create a scalable platform, modular and fully cognizant of today's hardware capabilites. It would be flexible and compatible with the concept of future modification.I would ask for the creation of "gates" that would allow controlled entry to the platform. In the future and at the pleasure of the corporation, third parties would be permitted to create attendant products under and subject to parameters established by the corporation. Both the corporation and the third-party developers of those attendant products would benefit. Because the decision to enable third party participation has yet not been made, the existance of these portals would remain confidential but they would be engineered into the software now to insure continuity.I would suffer the criticism of the more knowledgeable and sophisticated users as the cost of introducing the product to the potentially greater marketplace and hope that marketplace will develop an appetite for the product and start to vocalize its desire for a greater degree of capability and sophistication. After all, there exists already a clamor for such a movement. Could that clamor not prove to be the necessary seed for yet a larger movement?Now, you ask," why did I have to read through all of the above just to get to these conclusions when I already knew most of them? Why didn't they just up and fix FSX and be done with it!"Because FSX is unfixable as most of us have already decided. FSX is also the platform upon which many thousands of dollars of add-ons are based and there are huge numbers of us who have a very real vested interested in being able to continue to use those programs. The decision to "fix" FSX would most likely have carried with it the potential risk of destroying our ability to continue to use some or most of our respective investments - pure and simple.I believe what we are witnessing with the introduction of "Flight" has the potential of being far grander that we have yet considered. We may be witnessing the birth of a franchise product that will be fully scalable, capable of increasing both its scope and its level of sophistication as required by the economics of the marketplace.How many of us will choose to ignore the fact that, although "Flight" may not yet be to our respective tastes - it proves to be lightning fast on our machines? And "rock" stable? How long will it be before we are seeing comments here and elsewhere documenting our desire for "Flight" to be more than it is? If I'm not mistaken, we are already reading them. Who among us will not avail himself of the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of coding that is cognizant of and that takes full advantage of the capabilities of our respective machines - especially if we suspect we may have the opportunity to upgrade to something that is much more satisfying?Believe me when I tell you that MS is more than aware of our position in this matter. I also believe they know they already have us in their "hip pocket" so to speak. It's the potential of the greater marketplace and the financial impact of a new franchise product that has put the glint in their eye.We'll see.John