199 replies to this topic

[HawkDsl]

LOL! I will gladly revisit your comment in a year.

My bet is that MS will have walked away from Flight long before then... even if it is doing well... just like it has on all the MSF products.

[Hiflyer]

I will be here to take that bet. (well, I hope so)

See you then!

[tempelhof]

Wait a moment, as you already said they are trying to create a new market. How can you research a market that isn't there yet? There are simply to many variables involved so you should say what it really: Pure guess work!

Ever heard of focus groups? You take your target demographics, show them what you're doing and get their feedback to see if the product flies with them. Base your estimates on that feedback along with the overall size of the demographic. It's not rocket science but certainly more than guess work. Just what you need to get million dollar budgets approved.

Sure. I could do some things, but face it:
Today people normally don't have the problem that they don't have anything to do. They have to many options. I am not interested to reach the gold award. And exactly that is a fundamental problem for normal gamers. We are not in X-Box where certain awards give a certain status. In the PC world Live is insignificant! They are not the same market. A major problem since the whole department is in fact the X-Box department. I don't think that Microsoft would today give the go ahead for Flight . The project is pretty much isolated. As I already said: If they would have an X-Box Version the whole project would play a much bigger role.

In fact the project was initialized when there was a gigantic hope that DLC games would control the market in a short while. But in the mean time all conmpanies learned that most of these online games fail. Only a few games achieve the necessary market penetration.
If you look at the interviews the Flight team speaks about millions of people. So I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft asks in a few months when
they have passed the first 500.000 users who regularly buy DLCs.

I think their prices are calculated in this direction. Look at hte Hawi Pack: Not only beautiful islands and the pretty good RV-6 model combined with some additional and pretty good missions. They have thought about this stuff. I think Alaska wasd in fact constructed at the same time, with the chance of some improvements when Hawai went into Beta Mode. But If you look around there are a lot of people who really expect that 6they will lower their prices.

It is obvious that most people don't understand how such projects work. They always think Microsoft does this, Microsoft does that. In fact most of these decisions are from the Flight Team. But they are not really in control. They are held responsible by the Entertainment division of Microsoft, which means today: X-Box! In a way they are Aliens in their own company. Not a good position. When Flight was initiated there were strong plans to Merge X-Box and the PC-Market to a unified Live Network People should play together even if they were on totally different plattforms.

If I look at the heavy fluctuations in their Entertainment Division the chances are pretty high that there are no longer any people in place that initiated Flight. IN fact I wouldn't be surprised if at that time Joshua Howard was not the Leader of the Flight team.

You might start to understand how the situation will be, when The Flight Team has to defend its project. They should have some pretty convincing numbers, when it is time.

They shouldn't be too shocked if the responsible people are in fact already in a battle how to distribute the Flight Budget among themselves. Think about what kind of exciting Kinect programs you could write with this money.

Flight must be in a position wherre they can really pay themselves, all their members, the Bills for the Marketplace and Accounting. Microsoft doesn't feel any responsibility dor a Flight legacy. Most of the responsible Managers probably don't know anything about it.

Now we're getting to it. If I understand your argumentation right, you see Flight fail because of internal budget battles with the XBox folks. I say: doesn't happen.

Big companies such as Microsoft have some cash cow products such as Windows or Office that are sold to saturated markets. They sit on a pile of cash, but what they need is growth to keep shareholders happy. And they are willing to accept short term losses in certain divisions in order to enter new markets. MSFS was killed because its market was declining.

I think the whole purpose of Flight is to bring new users to the Games for Windows Live platform, users that have no XBox. And I dare to say that they are willing to accept a couple of millions in losses every year as long as enough new users are signing up and thus making the platform an alternative to Steam.

I mean MS loses about one billion dollars on Bing each quarter, they pay Nokia one billion dollars to switch to Windows Mobile. MS can afford to have these pet projects if they seem strategically important. Compare that to the losses Flight could ever produce...

My point is: Flight will stay unless people ignore it completely.

No, you have to read the interviews of Joshua Howard. He always complains that it was it a pretty crazy idea to have more than 20.000 airports in the world. But if you look at Hawai it is pretty likely that if they would ever reach world coverage, Flight would have more than 20.000 airports.

Now I get your point. I must admit, I find it rather unlikely that Flight would ever cover the entire world. And if they choose to do so to appease some hardcore simmers, the scenery may not be much better than what we have with FSX. But I bet that they will focus on certain areas for which they can produce content to tell a user story.

Anyway, I still don't get why so many people want to see Flight fail. If it gets more users intetested in serious sims, then its good for all of us. Third party developers' revenue may suffer short term, because some of the serious simmers who are using Flight will have to split their hobby-related budget between the platforms. But if more people come to those platforms in one or two years then all will be good.

[tempelhof]

The poll in the MS Flight forum on AVSIM is revealing. Roughly 66% of people who've tried Flight say they have not bought any DLC, and 75% say that they either do not plan on purchasing DLC (25%), or they will wait to evaluate DLC before committing (50%). One can speculate, I guess, that the Hawaii Adventure Pack doesn't do it for most of the early adopters.This does not sound like a very enthusiastic vote for Flight.

I don't know that the target demographic of Flight is, but I don't think an Avsim poll is represantative of it. Anyway, statistics can be interpreted in multiple ways, depending on what you're trying to prove. You can say 75% did not buy DLC yet or will need to evaluate that further, or you can say that 75% already bought DLC or consider doing it when the content is right...

[simmerhead]

Anyway, I still don't get why so many people want to see Flight fail. If it gets more users intetested in serious sims, then its good for all of us. Third party developers' revenue may suffer short term, because some of the serious simmers who are using Flight will have to split their hobby-related budget between the platforms. But if more people come to those platforms in one or two years then all will be good.

I'd like it to fail if that ment FS11 would be back on track, but I highly doubt that will happen.

If Flight is a success and catches on I'm not sure it would bring more people to FSX. Once heavily invested in Flight DLC and accustomed to the much better usability I imagine most users would rather live with the shortcomings of Flight than live with the hassle of the aged FSX platform. The majority of people choose simplicity over quality.

I don't know this to be a fact, but I guess that just a small percentage of FSX users became hardcore simmers. Most FSX buyers fooled around with it for a short while, then moved on to other games.

The Flight team made one right assumption: FSX has poor usability and gameplay for the casual gamer and simmer. Too bad they didn't succeed in creating a good game when they dumbed everything down. Now it's a poor game and a poor sim.

[Mathijs Kok]

how many more cities will you sell if they had night texture, I myself would have bought all of them if I could have fly over them at night.

We would not have sold ANY more because they would simply not be done. As we explained many time it increase the development costs with 200% or more. The market is simply not large enough to get enough more sales to make up for that and the market for 50 euro US City addon is non existing. But we tell people exactly what they buy. If MS would explain people what they buy I would have little problems. When I asked why the aircraft was so simplified I was told by MS that was because that was what their customers expected. Before you know it they would have to include some kind of manual with an aircraft, god forbid that would happen.

Although it may seem different, I still like FLIGHT a lot. It's a great game, but people who hope that MS will make it into a more serious simulator really got to look at the facts. They could not care less about a serious simulator at this moment. It's not their market. It does not fit their marketing plan. They made this more clear then ever when the positioned FLIGHT as a game, on site, in press releases, everywhere. They never did that before.

[Matt_Smith]

Yep Matt, and once Flight provides that, it will be interesting to tot up how much money you have to spend to acquire it all. Meanwhile FSX comes with the world and a Baron already, so more money for beer.

And thats what it ultimately boils down to, value for money for us simmers, who also like to keep the beer bridge topped up. Flight at present offers no value for money.

[alainneedle1]

Mathijs, don't get me wrong, I completely understand your point about night texture, it's a business decision on your part, I was just saying that I love flying at night so for me night textures is a must, I would have done the same thing as you if the market for night texture was not there.

I also agree that MS should be more open with their customers but hey they chosed not to.

Quote" They could not care less about a serious simulator at this moment. "end of quote. That's exactly what I'm trying to explain, so far Flight is not for the hardcore simmers but it does have a LOT of potential, MS is in business to make money, (are we not all in business to do the same) in the future if something specificaly release by MS for hardcore simmers is a success you can bet your shirt they will release more.

[Mathijs Kok]

Mathijs, don't get me wrong, I completely understand your point about night texture, it's a business decision on your part, I was just saying that I love flying at night so for me night textures is a must, I would have done the same thing as you if the market for night texture was not there.

I also agree that MS should be more open with their customers but hey they chosed not to.

Quote" They could not care less about a serious simulator at this moment. "end of quote. That's exactly what I'm trying to explain, so far Flight is not for the hardcore simmers but it does have a LOT of potential, MS is in business to make money, (are we not all in business to do the same) in the future if something specificaly release by MS for hardcore simmers is a success you can bet your shirt they will release more.

The only potential I predict is Alaska the same way as they did Hawaii. $40 in total, scenery, one aircraft and missions. We'll see.

Btw I am offline for a few days to attend the X-Plane developers conference we are organizing this weekend.

[KarstenS]

Base your estimates on that feedback along with the overall size of the demographic. It's not rocket science but certainly more than guess work. Just what you need to get million dollar budgets approved.

Simply look at the error ratings of these methods. If they try to minimize the errors it gets expensive. For such a small scale project and the diverse target group simply to expensive. Sure it is always claimed: We checked it, but look at it closely and you see for the most part a smoke screen. The people simply don't react as they usual do, so the resultsa can be totally meaningless.

I think the whole purpose of Flight is to bring new users to the Games for Windows Live platform, users that have no XBox. And I dare to say that they are willing to accept a couple of millions in losses every year as long as enough new users are signing up and thus making the platform an alternative to Steam.

Oh, I see, so Flight will be a great success and this means Steam is doomed?

Take a closer look. How does Flight help the Live environment?
They offer a free product, so users have to download it via the marketplace and Flight and Live install themselves together.
To get the Stearman you need.a Live account so you additionally get a special ID for this user and his computers.
You can show how the plattform can be used tu sell Download content.

You see the problem? "Flight" has already done this. There is no longer any bigger need for Flight in this purpose.
In fact I don't even think that Flight is entitled to any further funding by Microsoft. They financed the programming and the first three to four areas. Now this project has simply to keep its promises. And this can be done pretty easily. The Flight team simply gets a certain percentage if their sold downloads. They don't need to do anything else. They enabled the project to stand on its feet and now it has to take care of itself. If the money is not sufficient for their staff, they simply have to fire a few people and if the whole project collapses: Tough luck. It is simply one of the huger number of failed experiments. In fact this was the original purpose of this devision. They have a huge number of projects that fail. An example: the Zune player.

The project simply has to stand on its own feet.
An important point that many people might miss: A programmer in the US isn't really employed by company, but by his project.If his project is finished or he is no longer needed he has to fin a new project. There are internal boards that only members of the company can access,and internal company members have priority, but if you don't find a new project your company with the company is terminated automatically. In fact most of the programmers quit a project once their part is done and start in other projects or in other companies. So it is normally that many, especially better people change the project once their team leader can no longer guarantee that his contract will be extended.

For projects like Flight it pretty much means that the best people have left the project already. It is totally normal that a project has to fire people. In fact the tendency of people to change projects is so high, that for key projects they had to make a special class of contracts so that they don't think they can leave project when this version is done and someone forgot to tell them that they are needed for the next version.
Apple as an example calls them "Software Evangelists".

[Hiflyer]

Some basic math, even assuming that poll is 100% accurate still shows flight making tens of millions of dollars.

Just assume a few million people download it and only 33% buy DLC at $19

Score.

Honestly, the whole path for the detractors has been to step back and retrench as their positions crumble one by one.

"Its only gonna be Hawaii! Don't delude yourselves, it will never be more!"

Oh.

"Well the radios don't even work! it sucks!!"

Oh.

"Well nobody is gonna buy that stupid DLC!! they are gonna lose money and die!"

Oh?

How long do we do this?

[PatrickZ]

You assume 33 percent is a realistic percentage, I think it's a rather high expectation. 5 percent is more like it.

[tempelhof]

I agree that 33% is a little high. A 10% conversion rate would already be considered as awesome.

[tempelhof]

Simply look at the error ratings of these methods. If they try to minimize the errors it gets expensive. For such a small scale project and the diverse target group simply to expensive. Sure it is always claimed: We checked it, but look at it closely and you see for the most part a smoke screen. The people simply don't react as they usual do, so the resultsa can be totally meaningless.

No risk, no fun, right? MS is not in the insurance business.

Oh, I see, so Flight will be a great success and this means Steam is doomed?

Take a closer look. How does Flight help the Live environment?
They offer a free product, so users have to download it via the marketplace and Flight and Live install themselves together.
To get the Stearman you need.a Live account so you additionally get a special ID for this user and his computers.
You can show how the plattform can be used tu sell Download content.

You see the problem? "Flight" has already done this. There is no longer any bigger need for Flight in this purpose.

They still need your credit card details. Selling at least one DLC to some percentage of the users would certainly be desirable.

In fact I don't even think that Flight is entitled to any further funding by Microsoft. They financed the programming and the first three to four areas. Now this project has simply to keep its promises. And this can be done pretty easily. The Flight team simply gets a certain percentage if their sold downloads. They don't need to do anything else. They enabled the project to stand on its feet and now it has to take care of itself. If the money is not sufficient for their staff, they simply have to fire a few people and if the whole project collapses: Tough luck. It is simply one of the huger number of failed experiments. In fact this was the original purpose of this devision. They have a huge number of projects that fail. An example: the Zune player.

I don't think that DLCs sold is the only metric for success. You need to look at the bigger picture. Like I said, registrations for Games for Windows Live. Also, bringing users to Bing for the aerocache search. Maybe future Kinect sales if they ever make it working with Flight. That's what I can think of at the moment. But there may still be something behind door number three.

The project simply has to stand on its own feet.
An important point that many people might miss: A programmer in the US isn't really employed by company, but by his project.If his project is finished or he is no longer needed he has to fin a new project. There are internal boards that only members of the company can access,and internal company members have priority, but if you don't find a new project your company with the company is terminated automatically. In fact most of the programmers quit a project once their part is done and start in other projects or in other companies. So it is normally that many, especially better people change the project once their team leader can no longer guarantee that his contract will be extended.

For projects like Flight it pretty much means that the best people have left the project already. It is totally normal that a project has to fire people. In fact the tendency of people to change projects is so high, that for key projects they had to make a special class of contracts so that they don't think they can leave project when this version is done and someone forgot to tell them that they are needed for the next version.
Apple as an example calls them "Software Evangelists".

So you think because they have to fire some people that means they won't ever be able to produce additional content? That doesn't sound reasonable to me. You forget the fact that developers can be signed up to multiple projects and there are still freelance/third party developers in the game working as contractors if the rumors are true.

[KarstenS]

I don't think that DLCs sold is the only metric for success. You need to look at the bigger picture. Like I said, registrations for Games for Windows Live. Also, bringing users to Bing for the aerocache search.

I see the bigtger picture, but exactly since I see the picture I see how ingsignificant Flight is there.Live needs much more and bigger projects to be even recogniced compared wi6th Steam. The use of Bing doesn't matter to Bing in any way. It only avoids angry remarks why they would be so stupid not to use Bing. This is simply expected from a good Microsoft program.

Maybe future Kinect sales if they ever make it working with Flight. That's what I can think of at the moment. But there may still be something behind door number three.

So you think because they have to fire some people that means they won't ever be able to produce additional content?

Not quite as simple. It is more complex.
They have to reduce their staff which means less updates and less DLC that they can present in a certain time frame. This doesn't really help their sales since some people get bored and simply don't see the new DLC.

on the other hand there is the key problem. The remaining stuff has to do more and different things, so some people get more capabilities and experience and are qualified enough to join other, more prestigious and better paid projects. They have to be replaced, so you have to employ a new member. What most people don't realize this doesn't help at once. It takes between three to sic months till you can really use the new one effectively while on the other hand more experienced people must make time to teach the new member.. This means: more delays for DLC. the money that previously was sufficient for one year now has to last for 18 months, which means you have to fire more people, your projects becomes even less well liked...and we begin again.

You don't find good qualified people outside of the project since there is no SDK and no free market where people can develop their own sceneries, planes or missions till they are on a level to become a professional. It is much morew difficult to get outside help too, since the project has shifted. They must be taught about the new limits and features. They probably don't have to relearn as for a change from FSX to X-Plane 10 but there are probably some changes and these changes will grow.

[tempelhof]

I see the bigtger picture, but exactly since I see the picture I see how ingsignificant Flight is there.Live needs much more and bigger projects to be even recogniced compared wi6th Steam. The use of Bing doesn't matter to Bing in any way. It only avoids angry remarks why they would be so stupid not to use Bing. This is simply expected from a good Microsoft program.

You may see Flight's contribution as insignificant, I see it as one piece of the puzzle. Flight alone won't save these projects, but it brings new users that may not be reached otherwise. I don't think I would have ever signed up to Games for Windows Live hadn't it been for Flight. And once they have my credit card details, the next purchase is always one mouse click away.

Not quite as simple. It is more complex.
They have to reduce their staff which means less updates and less DLC that they can present in a certain time frame. This doesn't really help their sales since some people get bored and simply don't see the new DLC.

on the other hand there is the key problem. The remaining stuff has to do more and different things, so some people get more capabilities and experience and are qualified enough to join other, more prestigious and better paid projects. They have to be replaced, so you have to employ a new member. What most people don't realize this doesn't help at once. It takes between three to sic months till you can really use the new one effectively while on the other hand more experienced people must make time to teach the new member.. This means: more delays for DLC. the money that previously was sufficient for one year now has to last for 18 months, which means you have to fire more people, your projects becomes even less well liked...and we begin again.

You don't find good qualified people outside of the project since there is no SDK and no free market where people can develop their own sceneries, planes or missions till they are on a level to become a professional. It is much morew difficult to get outside help too, since the project has shifted. They must be taught about the new limits and features. They probably don't have to relearn as for a change from FSX to X-Plane 10 but there are probably some changes and these changes will grow.

I still don't think they have fired so many staff members that they won't be able to produce enough content to keep people hooked. They may have fired some people who worked on the core platform, but getting rid of almost all the people who are able to create DLC or extend the platform base doesn't sound like a plan to me.

But you and I are only speculating. Time will tell who whose assumptions were right.

[Hiflyer]

I agree that 33% is a little high. A 10% conversion rate would already be considered as awesome.

I just responded to a poster pointing to the numbers negatively. In truth it reminds me of the American budget debate. When the numbers are on "thier" side (whichever side that is) the budget office is getting it right. When the numbers are against them, the budget office is obviously an unreliable money-sucking bureaucratic nightmare.

Looking at another point; it is estimated that 20 million people purchased flight simulator (most through stores)

The current number of enthusiasts at a place like Avsim is supposedly about 100,000 and supposedly about 40,000 of those are regular purchasers of flight Sim products.

Assuming that is approximately true, the current flight Sim market comprises 0.2 percent of that 20 million, with the revenue going to innumerable small companies.

If flight were to capture even 0.5 percent of a similar sized market (and remember the base program is a free web download) then they still are pulling in twice the revenue of the current market combined, all going to one company.........

The numbers are problematic (pulled from the web) and they can definitely be called into question. (Gigo) But the assumption that "Flight will fail!" yelled from the back of the room with no numbers at all presented is even more questionable.

Cant we just wait and see?

[tempelhof]

Looking at another point; it is estimated that 20 million people purchased flight simulator (most through stores)

...

If flight were to capture even 0.5 percent of a similar sized market (and remember the base program is a free web download) then they still are pulling in twice the revenue of the current market combined, all going to one company.........

I would think that Flight could achieve a much higher number of cumulative downloads over a similar period, because I think the target audience to which Flight might appeal is bigger and you can't beat the "free" as a price...

What I don't see at the moment are any big marketing efforts except a few ads on avsim. Maybe this is a field test to see how MS can do with social marketing (I mean the buzz it created in the fs community cannot be neglected but I don't think they're gonna reach many non-simmers this way) or they just wanna fix some things before they market it on a big scale. We'll see...

[Hiflyer]

And......... another domino falls. It appears that Flight may indeed have an SDK.

[KarstenS]

And......... another domino falls. It appears that Flight may indeed have an SDK.

Aeh, you really know what an SDK is? You always need such a thing if you have a bigger projects with many different people and a fluctuation of team members. The big difference is only the quality of the SDK (How complete is it? Can you even understand it without a look at the code?) and if it is allowed for external purposes.

In fact Microsoft even has a department for these things. Originally since they were forced to offer such a thing for Windows but it is now a part of their testing environment. There was never a question if they would have something as a SDK.

[Hiflyer]

Not the way the debate was previously being parsed.

Such as "There is not even an SDK!! this sucks!!!"

We could certainly have used people stepping in with such distinctions in that discussion! Instead, in the interests of negativity, the statements were allowed to stand as is.

As for the other distinctions about completeness (notes, debuggers, sample code etc) unless you have inside information, neither you nor I know how detailed it is, but I have no doubt in MS ability to clean up and finish any such tools to any degree necessary at any time they decide to. (Especially in light of the previous poor history, I would be determined to do it right this time, if I were them!)

I would also point out that so far in this debate, the naysayers have been wrong much more than right, at this point.

(And even without an official SDK, I would not count out human ingenuity)

[KarstenS]

As for the other distinctions about completeness (notes, debuggers, sample code etc) unless you have inside information, neither you nor I know how detailed it is, but I have no doubt in MS ability to clean up and finish any such tools to any degree necessary at any time they decide to.

I don't know about the games department. The demands in the OS department are really borderline to insanity. But that's the problem with so much ancient code. The foundation to an SDKs are simply basic demands in the way how you write a program today. Nobody could wait till the basic game engine runs. The difference between a well founded documentation and a SDK is mainly the legal status. As far as I heard there are no plans to open the SDK "for at least two years (if ever)"!

As long as there is no current SDK plan no one has checked if there are really test programs and so on that you want to publish. That's something that you only check when it is time. In fact in one of my last projects I was able to simply put the biggest and most complete plug-in into the SDK, since it was completely founded on public and opaque librarys.
But I don't really think that they are really determined. They are only a small team so there will be no very strict enforcement of these rules and for the single developers these documentations are mainly a pain in the a.. that eat their time. That's the reason why Microsoft didn't have a good documentation for the OS till a judge forced them.
The market position of Microsoft Flight isn't so strong that it would justify such severe constraints. I would think that they don't really have one big SDK. They use a lot of X-Box SDKs and they will use a modified ACES SDK. In fact I can imagine that there is a slight alteration in the manner: "And read all mails in the archive of this mailing list."

An SDK in only a small package of such resources, but as long as there are no active plans I would guess that their "SDK" is a bit sloppy. Otherwise it would really be a sign that they are winding down and developers start to write back their changes before they switch projects.

As dor your naysayers comment: Sorry, but contrary to you I know that about 70% of all Software projects are a failure. After a few years in the business you are able to interpret signals which mean trouble. Even the beta testers complained that the tests were cut short. In fact you can see these issues in the Jobs. There are many Jobs that you can't do with the current planes. An even bigger problem: The team leaders says one thing and the program shows something completely different. There can be only two reasons:
1. He had or has no real control about his team.
2. He only holds this position for a short time.

.

[tempelhof]

I can think of at least three reasons why Flight will never have a publicly available SDK:

1) money
2) consistency
3) stability

Just my 2c...

[Hiflyer]

As dor your naysayers comment: Sorry, but contrary to you I know that about 70% of all Software projects are a failure. After a few years in the business you are able to interpret signals which mean trouble. Even the beta testers complained that the tests were cut short. In fact you can see these issues in the Jobs. There are many Jobs that you can't do with the current planes. An even bigger problem: The team leaders says one thing and the program shows something completely different. There can be only two reasons:
1. He had or has no real control about his team.
2. He only holds this position for a short time.

Fsx was obviously pushed out the door unfinished as well, and the acceleration pack showed a DX10 preview that not only never worked correctly, it turned out to be a preview of nothing. Nonetheless, every single iteration of the flight simulator franchise has been a "success" and that history works against assuming Flight will be a failure.

By the way, even with scant advertising, Flight almost took the crown (Just beneath grand theft AutoIV) for most unique users on Games for windows, live, last week) Not a guarantee of anything, but not bad either.

If you turned out to be right though, I wonder who would step up to take the blame for killing the longest running computer game franchise, ever.

I can think of at least three reasons why Flight will never have a publicly available SDK:

1) money
2) consistency
3) stability

Just my 2c...

We will have to see in a year or two, but it seems evident that they have some plan in mind for working with third parties should they decide to do so. In the meantime Curious 3rd parties may find their own means to produce at least limited content.

On the consistency and stability front I actually see where they are coming from, at least for now. As it is, too much 3PD stuff collides with each other. On the other hand, I don't see them being silly enough to try for a total monopoly, either.

I keep thinking apple store.

[tempelhof]

We will have to see in a year or two, but it seems evident that they have some plan in mind for working with third parties should they decide to do so. In the meantime Curious 3rd parties may find their own means to produce at least limited content.

On the consistency and stability front I actually see where they are coming from, at least for now. As it is, too much 3PD stuff collides with each other. On the other hand, I don't see them being silly enough to try for a total monopoly, either.

I keep thinking apple store.

Hm, my bet is that any kind of 3PD involvement will be through contractual work or some other form of cooperation where MS can influence the development.

I don't think that MS will release a public SDK so <your least favorite addon maker here> can create a half baked addon and upload it to the Flight store without further approval (and I'm not talking about technical checks like Apple makes on their app store).

[HawkDsl]

I just wonder with the complete rejection of FLIGHT by simmers, and their flooding of the interwebs of that fact... Will MS do a double take, and maybe work on a real sim. It could have a very small team with a 3 or 4 year timeline. Maybe FLIGHT is just a stop gap until the real thing is done.

[tempelhof]

I just wonder with the complete rejection of FLIGHT by simmers, and their flooding of the interwebs of that fact...

Be very careful with such bold claims. It is very hard to prove that something is completely rejected, but very easy to falsify.

Will MS do a double take, and maybe work on a real sim. It could have a very small team with a 3 or 4 year timeline. Maybe FLIGHT is just a stop gap until the real thing is done.

I don't think that MS will throw more good money after bad.

[bradley27]

.

[Hiflyer]

Hm, my bet is that any kind of 3PD involvement will be through contractual work or some other form of cooperation where MS can influence the development.

I don't think that MS will release a public SDK so <your least favorite addon maker here> can create a half baked addon and upload it to the Flight store without further approval (and I'm not talking about technical checks like Apple makes on their app store).

That's what I meant about ingenuity. Activision broke into the Atari market by doing a Hail Mary and coming up with its own tools, and that was perfectly legal. Its been done before and it will be done again.

[tempelhof]

...and we all know what happened to that market after it was flooded with crap-ware.

[pmb]

Hi,

just to add that accidental finding from the Saitek Website

http://www.saitek.com/uk/prod/tpm.html

(i) obviously MS is willing to co-operate with and certify for at least "certain" 3rd party developers

(ii) it's even more amazing as this is probably not the standard gear of game kiddies

Regards, Michael

[Boerries]

Hi,

just to add that accidental finding from the Saitek Website

http://www.saitek.com/uk/prod/tpm.html

(i) obviously MS is willing to co-operate with and certify for at least "certain" 3rd party developers

(ii) it's even more amazing as this is probably not the standard gear of game kiddies

Regards, Michael

That has nothing to do with a sdk. My (older) Saitek hardware (X52, Throttle Quadrants) ist Flight compatible too. You just need to assign a "joystick button" or "joystick axis"

[pmb]

That has nothing to do with a sdk. My (older) Saitek hardware (X52, Throttle Quadrants) ist Flight compatible too. You just need to assign a "joystick button" or "joystick axis"

Sorry, perhaps I was unclear. My point was not the SDK but that they are wiling to grant 3rd party certifications at all. The other point was, that they certify a tool which is obviously less geared towards game kiddys than to simulator users.

Concerning a publicly available SDK I am in doubt, too.

Regards, Michael

[HawkDsl]

Bradly27, Thats not MS Flight, thats Outerra.

[pasterke]

<sup>this is what I call a good review of Flight :

http://www.aerosoft2.de/xplane/first-of-april.html#english</sup>

[Capnsully]

New update to flight last night, more autogen density, apparently smoother controls too. Not much time to check it out, but the denser scenery was great and starting to push my system. This thing is a sleeper, like a 1,000 ft long snail, crawling slowly but surely. Watch out for it. I am very impressed, happy to wait for it to evolve more. Already it has great IFR features and the online component is a killer feature.

Here's my sick avatar, I did my best to come up with the weirdest look! Would prefer to have my pants up higher...

Mathijs, I love your approach to ageing. I'm only 21!

[Mathijs Kok]

New update to flight last night, more autogen density, apparently smoother controls too. Not much time to check it out, but the denser scenery was great and starting to push my system. This thing is a sleeper, like a 1,000 ft long snail, crawling slowly but surely. Watch out for it. I am very impressed, happy to wait for it to evolve more. Already it has great IFR features and the online component is a killer feature.

Here's my sick avatar, I did my best to come up with the weirdest look! Would prefer to have my pants up higher...

Mathijs, I love your approach to ageing. I'm only 21!

What great IFR features are there?

[tempelhof]

Folks, let go!

Flight is a fun sim, not a serious sim. And it will stay that way.
If you want a modern serious sim platform, there are other options for you.

[Capnsully]

Sorry for the late reply Mathijs, I only use my mobile phone for net stuff in evenings and mornings, and your forum is not viewable on it.

Flight has IFR capabilities, like VOR navigation and ILS where present at the airport. Once you know how to display the Nav facilities in the map, it all makes sense. There's a challenge where you land the Maule (I think) in thick fog, and I at least have found it too challenging so far (almost there, but there's a nasty crosswind to make things more interesting).

But no FMC. Not that I personally use those things alot.

[Hiflyer]

Today, Microsoft issued this following statement on the Flight Facebook Page; "With the release of the Alaska Wilderness Expansion DLC on the horizon, we’d like to share some of the changes we’ve made to core elements of Microsoft Flight, as well as some bug fixes.

NEW FEATURES AND FUNCTIONALITY:

New hardware-related functionality:
... -Added support for TrackIR
-Added support for axis-based brake control devices
-Added settings specific to Intel Ivy Bridge graphics hardware

New Hangar Marketplace UI:
-Added details page for Marketplace items
-Improved user experience for downloading multiple pieces of DLC
-Added locked/unlocked livery sorting

Map improvements
-Added globe icon to Main Menu for region selection
-Adjusted map displays for areas with high airport concentration
-Added region-based filtering for Aerocaches

Improved error reporting
-Added features which allow for more robust error reports from end users

New UI Features
-Added “Glance” command; when R key is pressed and held, allows player to look toward the closest Point of Interest Marker

New Environment Features and Improvements
-Added two new weather themes: Heavy Weather and Mixed Weather
-Added new in-cloud effects
-Adjusted coloration of clouds at higher densities to be more realistic
-Adjusted cloud randomization

BUG FIXES:

Reduced load times across the board

Adjusted “Skip to Waypoint” feature: players no longer spawn
inside intervening terrain pieces

Fixed issues with double-byte languages (Korean, Japanese & Chinese)
-Fixed issue causing in-cockpit tooltips to display incorrectly
-Fixed issue preventing planes from appearing in Hangar after selecting a job from the Job Board

Fixed graphics issues
-Fixed issues in fog layer and cirrus cloud rendering
-Adjusted reflections to be more realistic (no more giant plane reflections)
-Fixed vegetation flickering issues
-Fixed banyan tree rendering
-Fixed crash that occurred for some users when changing graphics settings during cut scenes
-Improved in-flight terrain textures for users with Vertical Sync enabled

Addressed multiple Games for Windows – LIVE related issues which can cause Microsoft Flight to crash

Addressed multiple issues causing Windows Vista users to experience a crash after completing a mission or challenge

Fixed multiplayer issues
-Reduced bandwidth consumed during multiplayer sessions
-Fixed error experienced by final users to join multiplayer sessions
-Fixed multiple crashes that occur during multiplayer sessions
-Reduced choppiness in rendering other users’ planes during multiplayer

• 
• 0