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You've lost me as a long time customer for ALL your products if you continue to not support P3D's new V5 features/changes.


Rob Ainscough

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I like MSFS, it's a good game and fun and I'm working on supporting it with freeware.  However, for a more complete simulator experience I'm still very much using P3D V5.x (and XP) and will continue to do so but unlikely to purchase ANY Aerosoft products based on some of the comments I've read on the Aerosoft management side.  MSFS is a moving target.  P3D is a moving target.  XP is a moving target ... that's how we get better products, they evolve and grow this is a  "normal" development cycle.  

 

I understand that Aerosoft are concerned about "moving targets" but you've already collected my money and you know the targets were moving.  I (and others) have been more than willing to pay for upgrades (or higher initial prices) to support ANY new platform features and updates from 15 year old legacy FSX.  But when Aerosoft doesn't deliver those new features consistently and keep them updated, then the sales (or lack of) is a result of Aerosoft's decision to NOT support these features.  Blaming LM doesn't work, never has, look into the mirror.  I don't see Aerosoft blaming MS/Asobo for the many failures in their release from installers that don't work to floating lights at airports, to an SDK that's not even at version 1.0 yet, to missing depth in commerical aircraft simulations, to many other bugs that have come with MSFS.  As for P3D features Aerosoft has not used to any level on consistency, I'll be specific:

 

PBR 

Sloped runways

Dynamic Lights

Dynamic Reflections

Material Scripting

SpeedTrees

 

All things that enhance the visual experience to make it look better that aren't supported by FSX, yet you bind your customers to FSX as the lowest common denominator and have done so for years and have shown a huge reluctance to implement ALL these new features years later.  

 

I get it, it cost money to implement new features ... this is a surprise, it shouldn't be?  I get it, Aerosoft were in very early with MS/Asobo before anyone else, hence the platform bias and lack of feature implementation.  Do you think MSFS will NOT implement new features in the coming years or make adjustments?  PBR, Dynamic Lights, Dynamic Reflections, SpeedTrees, Material Scripting was introduced in P3D V4.x and even P3D V3.x. 

 

I find Aerosoft's continued reluctance to add feature support disappointing, bias, and frankly not accurate.  You know your sales numbers, you know your profits, you leveraged P3D for years selling older legacy FSX products for as "compatible", I bought them, I supported Aerosoft.  Support is a two way street and is NOT platform specific.  The continued P3D sales are zero rhetoric isn't making me want to buy MSFS products from Aerosoft, it's only establishing a company I no longer want to do business with because of how platform support is managed.

 

I realize this message will get deleted for what will be a short life ... maybe someone will get a glimpse of it before it's gone.  I'm usually very respectful of Aerosoft, but when I see that respect being abused it's time to speak up.

 

Cheers, Rob.

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Don't worry. I'm quite positive that Aerosoft will be fine.  For everyone who threatens to walk away due to lack of support for obsolete platforms, there will ten people (speaking conservatively) happy to buy Aerosoft's products for Microsoft Flight Simulator. 

 

I, for one, applaud Aerosoft for putting as many resources as possible in development for MSFS and as few as possible for other simulators. It serves a much greater number of users and a young and growing platform that will benefit more from new content.

 

Aerosoft is a business and its first goal is to make money to pay its employees and in turn create more product. For what reason should they invest considerable resources and man hours (which are required to implement the advanced features you're describing) into supporting obsolete products that have a much smaller userbase and as such a much smaller customer base for addons? Mathijs Kok has explained how things are quite clearly here, and his reasoning is steel-clad. 

 

If this makes you unhappy, I suggest getting used to the idea of seeing third-party support for P3D and X-Plane drop gradually but inexorably over the next year or so. Aerosoft is just the tip of the iceberg and it has already started. As MSFS's SDK evolves to the point of making more and more products possible, almost everyone will jump ship without a second thought. I can see a few hardliners remain, but I don't expect them to be more than a dwindling minority as time goes on. No platform lives forever. It's the nature of the beast.

 

You accuse Aerosoft of bias, but I'm sorry to say that the only bias I see is in you. Aerosoft is supporting the product that has by far the largest userbase and will make them the most money. That is the very definition of unbiased behavior for a business. They're not a charity, nor they have any duty to keep obsolete platforms alive.

 

MSFS launched with its fair share of issues, which is the same that can be said for P3D and X-Plane. Yet, it's an entirely different class of product. It's an AAA game, with the full support of one of the biggest software corporations in the world. This means that it can count on resources and especially customer reach that LR and LM simply cannot even come close to. They're not even in the same order of magnitude. That is why it brought the first real spot of innovation in this genre that we saw in nearly two decades, and boy it was needed.  

 

You can certainly feel free to pout and keep supporting obsolete platforms that have run their course based as they are on so much code two generations behind, but I'd say you shouldn't expect third-party developers to feel obligated to do the same.

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2 hours ago, Abriael said:

but I'm sorry to say that the only bias I see is in you

 

My post wasn't about MSFS ... your bias is supreme, you win.  It was about NOT bringing new supported features to P3D ... that was long before MSFS was even in Alpha (going back years).  SpeedTrees goes back to P3D V3.x (4 years ago).  This was in response to the repeated rhetoric from Aerosoft about zero sales, leveraging compatibility at minimum work effort over the years ... it wasn't about MSFS.

 

2 hours ago, Abriael said:

For what reason should they invest considerable resources and man hours (which are required to implement the advanced features you're describing) into supporting obsolete products that have a much smaller userbase and as such a much smaller customer base for addons? 

 

You might want to re-read what you just wrote ... how can a platform have "advanced features" and also be "obsolete"?

 

But thank you for your "suggestions" and allowing me to "feel free".

 

Cheers, Rob.

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Hi @Rob Ainscough,

 

your defense of LM's  P3D as a viable sim platform is admirable - indeed i purchased from Aerosoft 4 x P3D FSDG African airports just before MFS was released whilst an Alpha Insider,

 

in fact, i am still actively $purchasing P3D airports from various vendors,

 

unfortunately - as a novice simmer - i got off on the wrong foot on this Aerosoft forum - so attracted some initial down votes - to my embarrassment,

 

Rob, i must tell you my story with Aerosoft:-

 

as a novice flight simmer from Australia - started with Steam FSX:SE then P3Dv4 - Aerosoft products got my attention,

 

as an Aussie i decided to use the Aussie Flight Sim Store - & it closed, with many of my Aerosoft purchases from them,

 

@Mathijs Kokgraciously transferred every Aerosoft license i had purchased from FSS to the Aerosoft portal at $no fee - i thanked him personally but never publicly - this i am doing now!

 

i am a huge fan of P3D - so is PMDG, FSLabs, Active Sky, A2A, SIMStarter, AILRP et al - & P3D Rift S VR with SuperTrafficBoard & AI traffic with 3PD airports is very immersive for me now,

 

MFS is also a godsend for flight simmers now - am $purchasing some MFS addons myself  (& using a few cool mods),

 

+1 vote for an MFS Aerosoft Twotter!

 

we need to keep our perspectives & be thankful for what we already have in the hangar. :)

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My spending on P3D addons hasn’t decreased at all. 
 

But I’m not buying any Aerosoft products for the very reason Rob and others have stated. 
 

The continuing bashing of P3D by people like Kok is just showing that Aerosoft has a business interest in pushing MSFS over P3D. 
 

I’ve voted with my wallet. Of course P3D sales are tanking for Aerosoft but that’s on them. 

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vor 25 Minuten, flycln sagte:

The continuing bashing of P3D by people like Kok

For that point I fully agree: a leading person in a company should be neutral; his personal preference and taste can be in a matter; but this should not be used as an official measurement . Especially regarding customers who were loyal all over the years where P3D was the state of the art platform (and maybe for a certain time it will be).

Don't get me wrong: I'm very fascinating in MSFS, in another german forum I'm voting very actively for it everytime and I don't buy addons for P3D anymore because I don't have the time and money to use two simulators over the time but I never would say that P3D would be obsolete. 1. it's not true and 2. it's said without any respect.

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I would not say I am bashing P3D V5. It is an amazing simulator and we love all serious simulators. But facts are that there is still a lot incorrect in the sim, the SDK is not fully updated, there are a lot of things that are still changing (and as developers we do not always get enough information in time to update), sales are definitely very slow (and that is not on our site only, every publisher and every online shop will tell you exactly the same thing).

 

This makes it a platform for us at this moment where it is not very attractive to develop for at this moment. We are the largest publisher for P3D add-ons and we intend to stay that. When the platform stabilizes and the customers are there we will for sure release new products.  It would be silly to deny that MSF is the more important platform for us, of course it is, the market potential is tens of times (hundreds of times) larger. Since MFS was launched things have changed totally. The whole landscape is different. Sales on that platform are simply a lot higher then P3D scenery ever did (with a few exceptions)

 

Please also keep in mind that we actually have very little P3D V5 scenery that we are fully responsible for. For the vast majority we are only the publisher and though that gives us some  leverage, the decisions on how a product is shaped are made by the developing team. So if you feel a incorrect decision is made, it is more effective to discuss that with them (all of them have forums). If you do it here I will take note and forward the information to the project manager, who will discuss it with the developers. 

 

I am not sure why I should be neutral. It is my task as part of the management to sell as many products as possible.  There are simulators I like more the other simulators. But we have to go where customers are. And at this moment P3D V4 and X-Plane are still doing very strong. P3D V5 users are vocal, but they do not show high numbers in our ongoing market research. While P3D and X-Plane in our opinion have a bright future, certainly as both are still being developed, but in a commercial aspect MFS simply is where the people who are willing to spend money on are. 

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I asked this question in flightaim sub reddit a week on their most used sim right now 

Of course this is not representative but it is just an Idea. 

 

But I am glad that X-Plane is still shows some good interest as I love it as much I love MSFS :). 

In regards to P3Dv5, I am glad that LM has released it which made me disappointed (I was using P3Dv4.5) and instantly, I started looking at X-Plane as alternative and now guess what, X-Plane is my main sim besides MSFS. 

 

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Mathijs,

 

I'm a serious simmer, I enjoy using high end aircraft and my enjoyment comes from the realistic aspects of the simulation products.

 

I was part of the MSFS Alpha testing and while I found it to be visually stunning, it didn't and still doesn't strike me as the serious platform that I am interested in - hence I never moved to purchase it. As time goes on it's obvious that we are way, way off having the sort of realistic aircraft simulations I want to fly within this platform and for that reason P3D will remain my simulator platform of choice -  a decision shared with many, many others.

 

When P3Dv4 was launched - you, Aerosoft and almost all 3rd Party Developers as a whole - were extremely vocal in telling us that there would be no further updates for the 32-bit sims, that era was gone, it's time to move on, embrace the new technology etc. - I wholeheartedly agreed with this stance, it's time to embrace the new tech and better our hobby.

 

You updated your product range for 64-bit compatibility and most of the product upgrades came at cost which I and many thousands of other users backed with new purchases to propel the technology forward and show support.

 

3 years later, LM push the boundaries yet again to move the platforms forward and the response appears to be that it's not worth developing for and your rational for this is wholly flawed.

 

Quote

I would not say I am bashing P3D V5. It is an amazing simulator and we love all serious simulators. But facts are that there is still a lot incorrect in the sim, the SDK is not fully updated, there are a lot of things that are still changing (and as developers we do not always get enough information in time to update), sales are definitely very slow (and that is not on our site only, every publisher and every online shop will tell you exactly the same thing).

 

You are trying to rationalise and justify NOT supporting P3Dv5 at this time because it is changing and developing and the SDK is not fully updated. Correct me if I am wrong, but is this statement not exactly true of MSFS? Is it not fair to say that in fact the MSFS SDK is far more infantile and restrictive than anything Lockheed Martin have provided for any rendition of P3D?

 

Specifically with regards to the SDK not being up to date for P3D - is it not true that with every version update, incremental update or HF, LM release in tandem a updated SDK? Certainly looks that way to me.

 

As far as the simulator changing - again, is that not entirely true of MSFS? Did we not have 5 incremental updates to P3Dv4 with numerous hotfixes? Lets not forget that some of these incremental updates brought massive changes - Dynamic Lighting and PBR for example - you supported these changes before and developed for them so why is it such a hassle now?

 

In regards to your sales - if you don't support the platform and encourage your own inhouse and external developers to embrace the enhancements of P3Dv5 and make improvements to their current catalogue of products whilst developing fresh new products, how do you expect to drive the sales you so desire? If you don't bring new products to market, how can I purchase them? The vast majority of sceneries I am using in P3D were brought across from P3Dv4 - there was nothing for me to purchase.

 

You have not developed any P3Dv5 exclusive products and the products which have been made compatible are just that and nothing more - compatible, they have not been upgraded or optimised to take advantage of the new simulator capabilities.

 

To me, it's quite clear what your ambition is. Don't support the platform, don't encourage its use and let the user base dry up so that you can push your interests in MSFS and never mind the rest of us.

 

I and so many more that I know personally will more than likely migrate to MSFS if and when it ever matures to support what I am looking for out of it - but I, and they, will not forget when you abandoned us prematurely.

 

I too will vote with my wallet going forward.

 

G

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The whole thing with MFS is that asking existing simmers what sim they like will never get a correct reply. The massive growth is in NEW people who started using the sim. Nobody knows how many copies of P3D are sold to simmer but our estimate is somewhere between 20 and 30k. More than 6 weeks ago Microsoft told that already over 1 million copies of MFS were installed. 

 

Now the moment a new sim is announced, sales for add-ons for the existing sims drops seriously.  As we are close to 30 years in business we have seen this many times and know how to deal with it. But for 15 years with every new sim the amount of customers dropped. This is something every add-on devs saw and many, like Aerosoft branched out into other products. We now do a myriad of sims, from subways, via trains to busses. Most of these sold more add-ons the flight simulator (in any form). We all look back at 2004 as the heyday of flight simulation. There was a short lived boost when Dovetails put FSX on Steam, but it did not matter much in the long run.

 

As I wrote, MFS totally changes the landscape as for the first time we got a incredible increase in potential customers. It is with near certainty I can predict MFS will be the best selling flight simulator ever. It is still selling very very well, we still get new loads of boxes every week, on Steam it does good, when the XBox version launches (and we can actually by the consoles!) you will see another huge increase in customers. (and yes, we see no reason why X-Box users would not buy add-ons, our Twin Otter is designed from the ground up to be used with a controller, works fine btw!). 

 

Yes, that means P3D gets less love. Just like FSX got less love at a certain moment (and customers were upset about that as well). But we were one of the last companies who kept releasing FSX product. Not because they made any serious money (we made a loss on some, extremely rare for us), but because we would not leave a group of customers behind. P3D is far from dead. Certainly for the next 9 months I see not many complex airliners being released. And while these are of relative importance to the more average user of MFS, they are the products the current P3D users will need to have. 

 

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35 minutes ago, Gregg said:

3 years later, LM push the boundaries yet again to move the platforms forward and the response appears to be that it's not worth developing for and your rational for this is wholly flawed.

 

Actually, more that of the developers then me. Aerosoft sells the products, we do not make most of them. If they tell me certain things do not work at this moment or are not documented in the SDK, I believe them. To be honest, ask any developer and they will all say that the SDKL was always rather behind on what the sim could do. Very much like MFS at this moment. If other developers can provide you with products you rather buy, by al means buy those. Not that I see a lot of P3D V5 products being released at the moment. It seems we are not the only ones who are having issues right?

 

It is clear that my logic does not compute with you. It also seems unlikely I can convince you. That's fine. I can't tell you how well MFS stuff sells and how bad P3D stuff has been selling for 6 months. I also can't tell you what discussions we had to see issues fixed in P3D for month and months. That makes the discussion lopsided. 

 

But we love P3D and when the last issues with P3D v5 are solved I believe the platform will become the dominant P3D sim. We have good hope that will be soon, see how much they already solved with the last hotfix (among stuff I claimed was a bug and some people insisted was not, ahhh well...).  

 

The question why some features are not used was explained to me by the developers and I do see the reasons as valid. Again, in the lopsided discussion, I won't share these discussions without these developers asking me to do so. So you see it is a difficult discussion to have. I am 90% sure that if you knew what I know you would agree. Now I am sure you will not agree. 

 

 

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@Gregg

Please don't compare the abilities between P3D5 and MSFS - I'm sure, P3D will be the looser. Speaking of vanilla-sims of course. P3D without ORBX, GSX, activesky, REX and the systemimanent airplanes - it is not the half of what MSFS came out :). Even the SDK of FSX (the father of P3D) was far off complete at all (it's just even MS:)) at the beginning and the first PMDG NGX was out in 2011, five years after releasing FSX; just for reminding.

I don't know what should be infantile in the SDK of MSFS? Maybe you didn't choose the right word of what you mean, maybe incomplete? But incomplete is the way of sight of older developers with legacy staff from P3D, not able to port over it to MSFS (but that is another story). 

Your other points are right and agreed with that what Rob said already.

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A lot of accusations from Rob, but I cannot comment that as Aerosoft. I can only speak for sim-wings,
using Aerosoft as a ditribution channel.

As for sim-wings I have to say that we use most of the features listed:

PBR 

Sloped runways

Dynamic Lights

Dynamic Reflections

Material Scripting

SpeedTrees

despite sloped RWY´s and custom Speed trees.

Sloped RWY´s (not working well and will surpress ground layers and custom RWY lights/TWY lights as all lights have to be
"single lights" to be placed which leads to hundreds of library objects... simply stopping the sim. A default RWY light is out of the question I suppose.
AND: Sloped RWY is one thing, but as long as LM does not provide a SDK method to place sloped ground layers, like X-Plane or MSFS do, it simply doesn´t work!
(Or you like to have a default "Afcad Style" appearance of the airport)

Speed Trees are definetly NOT my favourite in color and behaviour. First thing I allways do is to switch them off.
But you can turn them on as autogen anyway, we don´t surpress those and use a lot of autogen trees within our sceneries which, in case you turn Speed trees on, are speed trees.
We do not make custom speed trees as we don´t like them. Maybe a matter of taste ?
 

About PBR:
PBR is a SDK feature and not a "must". No P3D SDK ever told to substitute every "P3D material " with so called "PBR material." We use PBR were it makes sense to use it. If you want to have any benefit from PBR in comparison you must use additional textures for AO, Metal, Roughness, Normals etc. Textures, or definitions causing a HUGE impact on Vram.
So it is simply our free decission to mix the materials for Vram and performance benefits and keep the demand lean.
I could easily change an airport to entire PBR material within hours. But we decided to use the best matching material for every purpose the SDK provides.
PBR for instance is glowing orange in dusk/dawn which will not fit well to the P3D terrain (which is NO PBR at all !!!, No landclass and no resampled aerial is PBR. Also no autogen).
To blame us for not using PBR materials in total is counterproductive in terms of Vram and performance!

Having said that I can assure that we at sim-wings will continue supporting P3D V5 parallel to MSFS (and P3D V4 for a limited time period).
But if LM introduces new features like EA which, at first, caused problems, there is nothing for us developers to do. HF1 shows clearly that the problem was related
to LM and not to us using wrong, old whatever materials. If there is really a need for patches (no matter which) we´ll provide those like we allways did.

Thorsten sim-wings

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I agree on the Speed Trees, absolute strange and odd looking, especially in Autumn. 

Regarding MS2020, Right now, it's not mature and not until we get some payware aircraft will it become a simulator. Until the next year or so, I'm happy to keep using P3D v5 and X-Plane 11 for the next few years or so. It really is a refreshing change to leave behind MS2020 for the moment until it gets it's potential. Of course I see the attraction to developers, as there is a potentially larger user base with greater scope for economies of scale for addons being cheaper in the longterm. But right now, not many hardcore simmers can take such advantage of MS2020 until we get some good payware aircraft. 

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vor 32 Minuten, Jude sagte:

Right now, it's not mature and not until we get some payware aircraft will it become a simulator

Not true, it is a simulator already. I can fly (at the moment mainly with GA-aircrafts, but they are very well built) simulating weather, day and night, fueling, icing, using pitot heat or not with remarkable differences, using flightplanes... Even the A32NX mod is very progressive already and simulates a lot of systems. Before you say, these "systems" are dummies: I don't know, how real the "systems" are, which come with the payware-airplanes of FSX/P3D or how much they are standard too, wrapped into a nice VC.

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MSFS is the new thing!

 

Just like how P3D was the new thing after FSX.

 

Nothing lasts forever 😊

 

Aerosoft is doing the correct thing if u ask me! Aim for the market or u will slowly die out.

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Honestly, this movie for crying about P3D is like FSX and FS9 all over again. Sure, some at the moment will say "no I am staying on P3D, MSFS is a game" forgetting that P3D is based on FSX which is a "game" but it can be a sim at the same time, the same goes for MSFS :D.

LM had like how many? 10 years? And yet P3D without all these add-ones looks like FSX or even worse like Minecraft with the EA at the initial release. 

MSFS is also based on FSX, Microsoft and Asobo started on it back to 4 years and look at it now. Sure it has bugs, I will give it one year but pretty sure, it will dominate the sim market, believe or not.

Like for god sake, the vRAM is the most frustrating thing I really hate about P3Dv5, even after the 5.1HF1, you need to pray before any flight that the sim won't CTD due to the VRAM (my settings are lower than my P3Dv4.5 due to the VRAM), yeah sure, if you get the a card with 20gb of VRAM that costs like 1600euro, maybe you won't see this issue but not everyone have unlimited money to buy such cards, average user would have like card with 6gb-8gb of vRAM on average. Let's not go away, X-Plane 11.5 with Vulkan, also have this VRAM issue but at least I won't see my sim to CTD instead it will aggressively lower down the resolution of the texture in order to satisfy the vram which is completely fine with me as long I don't have CTD. 

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43 minutes ago, Omar Al-Safi said:

Honestly, this movie for crying about P3D is like FSX and FS9 all over again. Sure, some at the moment will say "no I am staying on P3D, MSFS is a game" forgetting that P3D is based on FSX which is a "game" but it can be a sim at the same time, the same goes for MSFS :D.

 

Yes, to a degree it is. The difference is that FSX was never updated and that P3D got a major update around the same time MFS was released.  We feel it was rushed out, most likely to counter MFS to a degree but it has some amazing new elements. For sure it looks better. So the comparison does not make good sense as, everybody will deny that,  as it was meant to compete. 

 

But as P3D it is still based on a outdated engine it has inherent problems (like the memory use) that a more modern engine as used by Asobo does not have. Adding new stuff like EA only makes the constraints more visible and Lockheed need time to get these things stable and documented so we can use them and so we know how to use them fully. It will happen and if the customers are there we'll gladly make products for them. They will not sell an well as a MFS add-on but sales numbers only go so far. You think we worked on a Catalina for a year because it made commercial sense? Hell no, it was because there were a lot of people in the team that wanted one.  The fact MFS sales will pay our invoices there will be room for some more less commercial P3D projects as well. 

 

 

Gregg wrote; "You have not developed any P3Dv5 exclusive products"

Now I have been looking for a while but as far as I can see we share that with all add-on developers. I was able to find one P3D v5 only products but when looking at it, it clearly was a P3D v4 product with some additional textures.  If you mean adapted products from P3D V4 to P3D V5, we for sure did those. Our complete Airbus and CRJ are updated to include features like 8.33 KHz tuning etc.  And when P3D V5 stabilizes we might even consider updating the graphics. The MFS models could be back ported to P3D.  Framerates and memory will be a major issue but we hope Lockheed will get that under control. When EA is without bugs (some completely compatible with PBR) and not gobbling up VRAM it is a super addition to a great sim. 

 

 

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vor 2 Stunden , Mathijs Kok sagte:

So the comparison does not make good sense

Do you mean comparison between P3D and MSFS? I f yes, for me it makes the whole sense. I only bought MSFS because it has its outstanding look, regarding the landscape as well as the aircrafts too. From the beginning I knew that I have to wait for proper airliners but it doesn't matter at all. In MSFS I discovered VFR; I never spent so many time flying over landscapes in P3D like I did in MSFS. Underlayed with a good music it is so satisfiying for my soul...! 

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12 minutes ago, Der Merowinger said:

Do you mean comparison between P3D and MSFS? I f yes, for me it makes the whole sense. I only bought MSFS because it has its outstanding look, regarding the landscape as the aircrafts too. From the beginning I knew that I have to wait for proper airliners but it doesn't matter at all. In MSFS I discovered VFR; I never spent so many time flying over landscapes in P3D like I did in MSFS. Underlayed with a good musi it is so satisfied for my soul...! 

 

Sorry you misunderstood. I actually said the comparison between P3D V5.1 hf1 and MFS does make sense. Both are 'new'' sims. and should be compared. Default aircraft, default weather, default ATC, default world. If we talk about how good a sim is, there is your discussion.  If people would stop comparing what they got on their disk and start comparing the sim (and not a sim and their sim plus few hundred euro of add-ons) we would have a nice discussion. 

 

If you want to compare sims with add-ons, P3D wins hands down in aircraft, gets close on weather and ATC and looses on scenery. Now I say do the same comparison in 12 months time.  Until that time buy as much P3D addons as possible. Please do, as we and our development teams will be very grateful! Per sale on average we make more on P3D then on MFS add-ons as a lot ope people buy it on the MS store and they ask 30%.

 

 

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18 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

 

My post wasn't about MSFS ... your bias is supreme, you win.  It was about NOT bringing new supported features to P3D ... that was long before MSFS was even in Alpha (going back years).  SpeedTrees goes back to P3D V3.x (4 years ago).  This was in response to the repeated rhetoric from Aerosoft about zero sales, leveraging compatibility at minimum work effort over the years ... it wasn't about MSFS.

 

 

You might want to re-read what you just wrote ... how can a platform have "advanced features" and also be "obsolete"?

 

But thank you for your "suggestions" and allowing me to "feel free".

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

Oh, you mean your post that mentions MSFS five times isn't about MSFS? Who would have thought? 😂

 

I'm very aware of what your post is about, just as I'm aware that the fact that P3D and X-Plane aren't even close to as commercially successful as MSFS (not even in the same order of magnitude) plays a relevant role in the fact that third party developers are gradually jumping ship to the product that can actually give them good business opportunities. Because they need to pay the bills. That also involves the fact that not as much resources and manpower will be dedicated to figuring out the few advanced features these sims have, because it's likely not worth the investment. Budgets are usually created depending on the amount of money a developer expects to make from a product.

 

Incidentally, Obsolete platforms can most definitely have a few more advanced features tacked-on to act as a coat of paint to look a little better, which is exactly the case with P3D and X-Plane. It doesn't make their core less obsolete and it's the issue this genre has suffered from in the past fifteen years or so. Instead of bringing actual innovation, first-party developers have continued to tack on a few "coat of paint" features on extremely obsolete cores, leaving innovation (if any) to third-parties. You can paint as much as you want on a rusted core, but it still won't look that great. Microsoft Flight Simulator has changed that, and boy, it was about time. 

 

Aerosoft doesn't have a duty to support P3D or any simulator that doesn't provide them with solid business opportunities. Having a good SDK (which P3D doesn't have, mind you) is just part of the picture. A much more important element is creating a thriving industry with enough customers to support third-party development as a business. For any dev that jumps ship to MSFS you can only thank Lockheed Martin with their non-existent marketing and ludicrous pricing practices. They have done nothing at all to expand Flight Simulation as a hobby available to wider audiences (actually, they seem to be hell-bent to do the opposite), letting the industry shrink to an extremely anorexic state which is a mere fraction of what it was. As a consequence, third-party devs had to struggle for years to make a buck. That's another thing that MSFS is changing, and it was about time. 

 

8 hours ago, Jude said:

Regarding MS2020, Right now, it's not mature and not until we get some payware aircraft will it become a simulator. 

 

"Simulator" doesn't mean what you think it means.

 

Microsoft Flight Simulator perfectly fits the definition already and it did at launch. Many of its simulative aspects are already far superior to anything the competition has to offer. This whole "MSFS is not a simulator" meme is and always will be pretty ludicrous. 

 

13 hours ago, flycln said:

My spending on P3D addons hasn’t decreased at all. 
 

But I’m not buying any Aerosoft products for the very reason Rob and others have stated. 
 

The continuing bashing of P3D by people like Kok is just showing that Aerosoft has a business interest in pushing MSFS over P3D. 
 

I’ve voted with my wallet. Of course P3D sales are tanking for Aerosoft but that’s on them. 

 

YOUR spending on P3D addons may not have decreased, but the issue is that there aren't that many of you, and as MSFS evolves, there'll be fewer and fewer. Not everyone sticks to products with an obsolete core when there's some actual innovation available on the market after over a decade in which there has been little or none. 

 

I haven't seen Mathijs Kok bashing P3D or anything at all. Only irrational fanboys would think he is "bashing" anything. He's giving a very realistic and very unemotional analysis of the reasons why P3D isn't getting as much development resources as MSFS. You may not like what he says, but it's no less valid nor "bashing."

 

You can certainly vote with your wallet, but there simply are many more wallets voting on the other direction. 

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