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Oh dear, this could be Bad


Snave

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http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=241628

When Phil Taylor posts, we'd all better listen.

As stated in the Sim Outhouse forums, this is definitely a `cut off your nose to spite your own face` scenario - Continued development of the FS franchise is the ONLY reason I was contemplating a Windows 7 upgrade, so if development is affected (no direct statements on that impact yet) then MS lose me as a customer, not once but twice.

But on the other hand, if fresh faces took over the development...

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At worst (or would this be best?) the FS franchise will move to another developer and there could potentially be a significant delay in the release of FSNext. Aerosoft's Flight Simulator 11... imagine that! Only kidding of course. Clearly, the franchise as a whole is in no way at risk of falling apart, Aces or no Aces.

I for one think that a delay in FSNext is no bad thing, either for us simmers or for developers. There is still soooooo much untapped potential in FSX and during 2009 hardware (and software) will finally start to catch up with FSX's requirements and we will all be left with a good couple of years of high quality simming before the upgrade cycle begins all over again.

Gotta feel sorry for the Aces folks though! I certainly wish them all the best.

Having said that I suspect a lot of them are not going to stray far from the franchise, one way or the other.

Konrad

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I find it hard to believe that ESP is going to say no to DoD. IOW just because it's a little darker doesn't mean they've turned out the lights on the inside.

But since there is so much potential already in FSX for add-on development, maybe the ACES folks can do more out there. Hire 'em up, Aerosoft. The slower the economy, the more frustrated pilots are going to flock to the virtual realm. Stir it up, kick the bushes, shake the trees- the whole franchise could be in reach.

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I think it is perhaps a little early to be thinking about `potential` when as long as MS hold the proprietary code, FS is stymied if development is stopped.

This is NOT the same as a developer shaving jobs on a team, that team upping sticks and setting up on their own and rolling out a new version, using the same tools, expertise and knowledge in a different location. Much of what is in FS is inextricably linked with the MS OS and API's. And much of what it contains is included as a result of the clout of the mighty Monolithic Microsoft.

So while it may be perfectly possible to develop a simulation package free of the confines of the ACES studio, unless that was done with the willingness and co-operation of MS then I really worry it would only be a shadow of its former self - and might indeed drift closer to the worryingly inane `gamers` market. On the other hand, who knows just how hands were tied by the MS connection...? THAT flight modelling really needs looking at, is DirectX really the best solution for an aviation simulator? etc. etc.

All this does give an almighty fillip to X-Plane... but Austin would need to alter the business model to cope with an influx of a million new users!

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For all I know the flighsim series was rather a success to Microsoft.

Besides us "hardcore" simmers, there were millions of copies sold.

I would be surprised if Microsoft retreats from the FS product completely.

Cheers,

Emacs

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Hi,

what does all this mean for the sim community in the near future? I would be extremely interested in a comment on the latest bad news by Aerosoft. Will this in any way effect add-on development? What are the consequences of Microsofts decision? I know it might be too early to answer my questions, but I´d still like to know what the people in charge of Aerosoft think?

Ingo

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As far as I am aware there were no plans for any more service packs for FSX and I also think it safe to say that DX10 was never going to be anything more than a preview. This suggests that, as far as Aces was concerned, there was no more FSX specific development happening anyway. They have done pretty much all they can on this front.

Sure, development of FS11 may well be delayed BUT is this really such a bad thing in the long term? I suspect that all the release of FSNext would do is keep the FS community split between two sims, just like we have today with FS9 and FSX. Those who have invested heavily in high quality FSX addons will be just as reluctant to move to FSNext as those on FS9 are to this very day. How is a repeat of this scenario good for the sim community when you consider that the uptake of FSX is way below what it could be given that so many are still holding on to FS9?

This has a significant impact on sales of add-ons I am pretty sure. Those on FS9 generally do not buy any FSX addons BUT they do not buy significant numbers of new FS9 addons either as they all well know deep down that FS9 has no future and therefore there is little point is spending MORE money on it. This kind of situation cannot be good for any developer surely?

My final concluding thought is that this may well prove to be the definitive incentive that those still on FS9 need to finally move to FSX, as much as they may be kicking and screaming when they do it. Though I suspect that with i7 and Windows7 a lot of the "performance" reasons for not moving may well evaporate. Waiting for FSNext with the aim of skipping FSX altogether may well be a consideration of the past! Now that is potentially a VERY good situation for developers...

I say this is all GOOD NEWS!

Konrad

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Sure, development of FS11 may well be delayed

If they axe the team it means they will not continue the product. You can't just mothball something like this until times get better - if they let the people go, they loose the capability.

MS can choose to start from scratch again some time in the future, of course, but what are the chances of that happening?

Best chance we have is that perhaps some of the people laid off will start on their own.

Tom

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Man this is bad news for us flight simulator fans, like I posted in other forum, after so many years and just have it shut down like this! means were really in a bad economy even universal studio here in Florida were I live, there laying off people I expect Disney to soon layoff many people. according to the Phil taylor's blog there might be small chance that we might see other fs remember they haven't said anything about flight simulators future yet.

http://www.futuregpu.org/2009/01/end-of-er...flight-sim.html

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A little more information for the masses

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21981

All we can do is wait and see to sort out the speculation

Personally I do not think Microsoft will leave the FS franchise as I believe

they have made an incredible amount of money with it over the years

and dumping a profitable product wouldn't be the Microsoft way

Who knows ,Hope for the best :(

Randy

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This could be very bad indeed. Here is something from another source:

"Microsoft has confirmed the closure of Aces Game Studio, the internal development studio responsible for Microsoft Flight Simulator. Flight Simulator is one of the company's oldest product lines, stretching back more than 20 years. The closure came amidst the company's first major layoffs in its history, announced on Thursday. Approximately 5,000 Microsoft employees will be laid off; around 1,400 were cut immediately, with the remainder to but cut over the next 18 months.

In a statement, Kelda Rericha of Edelman, Microsoft's public relations firm, said that the decision was made within Microsoft's Internal Entertainment Business "to align our people against our highest priorities."

Does this mean the end of the Flight Simulator franchise? According to Rericha, "We are committed to the Flight Simulator franchise which has proven to be a successful PC based game for the last 27 years. You should expect us to continue to invest in enabling great LIVE experiences on Windows, including flying games, but we have nothing specific to announce at this time.""

Am I the only one who can smell pay to play in that statement?

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This could be very bad indeed. Here is something from another source:

"Microsoft has confirmed the closure of Aces Game Studio, the internal development studio responsible for Microsoft Flight Simulator. Flight Simulator is one of the company's oldest product lines, stretching back more than 20 years. The closure came amidst the company's first major layoffs in its history, announced on Thursday. Approximately 5,000 Microsoft employees will be laid off; around 1,400 were cut immediately, with the remainder to but cut over the next 18 months.

In a statement, Kelda Rericha of Edelman, Microsoft's public relations firm, said that the decision was made within Microsoft's Internal Entertainment Business "to align our people against our highest priorities."

Does this mean the end of the Flight Simulator franchise? According to Rericha, "We are committed to the Flight Simulator franchise which has proven to be a successful PC based game for the last 27 years. You should expect us to continue to invest in enabling great LIVE experiences on Windows, including flying games, but we have nothing specific to announce at this time.""

Am I the only one who can smell pay to play in that statement?

Just sounds like typical Market Speak Spin to me, if they were committed to the FS franchise then they would not be axing it.

Reading between the lines I'm guessing they are putting it on hold, maybe forever, a lot depends on how the economy recovers or worsens, but any FS11 would be a long long way off at the very least, and starting it up again is not going to happen overnight.

This is bound to have an impact in the long term on the add-on creators, sure there is a lot of life left in FSX yet, but I get the feeling the add-on Guys have always relied on the next generation of FS as a cash cow and now that may be gone forever? I hope they still develop for FSX and even FS9, but 2 or three years down the line I don't expect to see the same level of great add-on's that we are used to just now if no new MS FS comes forth.

After reading the news this morning, only now am I beginning to digest the impact that has.

With a bit of luck, the creators of X-Plane will pull out all the stops now and we will see more after market development for this sim, this may just bite MS in the bum. Feel sorry for the Guys that have been laid off though.

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Well, we've argued before that the development cycle of FS was too condensed at a two year product cycle. Five years would be a better choice - and would subtly remove the need to consider backwards compatibility as an integral part of the FSNext. When the gaps are that big, who cares whether your old planes fit into the new sim..?

But mothballing a project is one thing. Laying off all the talent something quite different. Even if MS is hoping to be able to resurrect FSNext will they have the capability to do so when they consider the financial time is right?

While this could be a cathartic experience for the hobby, I don't see how if MS still hold the code (and the updated news snippets clearly indicate a stockpiling and archiving going on), so no-one else can get a look-see.

There simply isn't the scope to develop a next generation FS from the FSX code, but ESP might have provided the link between `old` DX10 and `new` DX11 , between barely-compliant SLI and optimised graphic engines designed specifically to take advantage of the new shader protocols. But if ACES is gone, that's mothballed too. But this still denies the market the opportunity to develop on the FS platform. A week is along time in politics, a year is a lifetime in software. What value will mothballed code have in a few scant months?

So what do MS gain from a hiatus? Only a bigger time interval between investments.

What do they lose? EVERYTHING else.

But as to whether ACES could do a start-up from scratch..? I dunno. With proprietary code locked away in the MS vaults it might be seen as a bitchy "We can't play with you so we're taking our toys away" but without it, is it even possible to develop a `new` FS..?

But really the point is moot.

The lesson that MS will eventually be forced to learn from all this is that we simmers have no brand loyalty. Only `quality loyalty`. If `someone` comes out with a new, better sim we'll happily switch to that and MS will never, ever get back in the `game`. Market forces are not a toy wielded only by mighty corporations. At the end of the day what THEY want is OUR money. The only fact in all this is, as of today, MS aren't getting any more of mine for flight simulation products.

Whose loss..? I've got a perfectly workable sim on my system, and another that does some things the first cannot.

If X-Plane can get out of the mindset of geeky `features` that really mean nothing, and develop the platform to match or exceed FSX, then I'm there too. But the same goes for any startup who wants to come and have a go.

If you build it, we will come.

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Indeed this is very sad NEWS for all concerned; especially all those people who will now be unemployed and needing to feed and support their families.

But...

...for all the FS9'er who've been bashing FSX for the last year or so, this means that FSX will have a longer then normal shelf life. :lol:

For me that's great; I've invested heavely in FSX products and now I can enjoy them for years to come. Seriously though, maybe MS will just do an FSX to ESP upgrade patch and save us all a lot of unnecessary upgrade costs and re-development time for FSXI. That may also mean, that there will be more developers who will consider fixing/patching some of their FSX product to meet the current and future needs of their users who own or will own FSX. So, expect greater-working products in the short term and perhaps in the long ones too.

I for one hope to have better "bug-free" sceneries and aircraft models with many realistic and awesome features in FSX. I mean look at what we have now; seriously there has never been such a great amount in development for FS as in the last couple of years and many of it was FS9 versions of products. Its only been within the last years or so that we've had really awesome products for FSX but not without the cost of being a little buggy or limited in scope/capabilities. Perhaps, we can hope and expect more upgrades and finer more smoother models for FSX.

Anyway, I hope for the best for all those in the business of FS.

God bless and good luck! :)

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This is serious.

I know the first instinct is denial. But this is reality.

NO MORE NEW VERSIONS OF MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIM! PERIOD!

:o

Mr. Manny,

Let's put things in perspective...

It might be shocking but, honestly, in the last 20 or so years there have been many great software simulator companies that did great with their products for a time and then, disappeared over night. (e.g. Spectrum Holobyte, Electronic Arts, Microprose, Sublogic, Janes, etc.; just to name a few) And, yet, many people are still using their packages or moved on to others.

However, this is NOT true (right now) with MS who have already deployed ESP into the Civil and Military industry. Their intention is to maintain the base-code of the package and let their customers modify several aspects of their environment for specific industrial needs. This means we won't need another FS version necessarily; we might just need some (or all) of the features that ESP has for realism. FSX will fulfill everything gamers would need for several aspects of its intended use. Honestly, many users don't use all the features that are already there now for reasons of knowledge, hardware limitations, and developer design limitations. That is why I say that FSX will have a greater shelf life and allow developers to keep programming for it for years to come. It is part of the base of ESP.

Let me illustrate my point further:

e.g. Spectrum Holobyte's Falcon 3.0, which was bought out by Microprose, when they went bust, was made it Falcon 4.0; then Microprose went bust and users began the FREE Falcon SP Series for many years. Later, Lead Pursuits bought the code and made Falcon 4.0: Allied Forces. Now they are still developing the code and have talked about Falcon 5.0 for years. But, the product is still around in one form or another because people really like what it has to offer. Are you getting my point?

Thus, FS is not dead any time soon; it may become ESP or might become far better in the hands of another company, rather then ACES; only time will tell. But, at least for the next few years you can hope to afford hardware that will perform to your liking with far greater performance (FPS) and cheaper prices ($$$) then ever before. :lol:;)

So, enjoy the blessing you have today and thank the All-Mighty (God) for it because "tomorrow is never promised to anyone, all we have is here and now." :)

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Mr. Manny,

Let's put things in perspective...

It might be shocking but, honestly, in the last 20 or so years there have been many great software simulator companies that did great with their products for a time and then, disappeared over night. (e.g. Spectrum Holobyte, Electronic Arts, Microprose, Sublogic, Janes, etc.; just to name a few) And, yet, many people are still using their packages or moved on to others.

However, this is NOT true (right now) with MS who have already deployed ESP into the Civil and Military industry. Their intention is to maintain the base-code of the package and let their customers modify several aspects of their environment for specific industrial needs. This means we won't need another FS version necessarily; we might just need some (or all) of the features that ESP has for realism. FSX will fulfill everything gamers would need for several aspects of its intended use. Honestly, many users don't use all the features that are already there now for reasons of knowledge, hardware limitations, and developer design limitations. That is why I say that FSX will have a greater shelf life and allow developers to keep programming for it for years to come. It is part of the base of ESP.

Let me illustrate my point further:

e.g. Spectrum Holobyte's Falcon 3.0, which was bought out by Microprose, when they went bust, was made it Falcon 4.0; then Microprose went bust and users began the FREE Falcon SP Series for many years. Later, Lead Pursuits bought the code and made Falcon 4.0: Allied Forces. Now they are still developing the code and have talked about Falcon 5.0 for years. But, the product is still around in one form or another because people really like what it has to offer. Are you getting my point?

Thus, FS is not dead any time soon; it may become ESP or might become far better in the hands of another company, rather then ACES; only time will tell. But, at least for the next few years you can hope to afford hardware that will perform to your liking with far greater performance (FPS) and cheaper prices ($$$) then ever before. :lol:;)

So, enjoy the blessing you have today and thank the All-Mighty (God) for it because "tomorrow is never promised to anyone, all we have is here and now." :)

Well I have feeling that we will see many developers who dropped FS9 development products and stick to FSX moving back to both FS9 & FSX. I can tell you and 99.9% of the FS9 guys will stay with FS9 for many years. I see no need to move to FSX, if MS delays the next release of FS for 3-4 years that is a lot of lost sales for developers for FS9 customers. They cannot survive on FSX products alone I hope we can see some more FS9 and FST duel design releases like FSDT does.

Sean

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In other words...

Now is the time for a keen group of individuals to get together and create a new flight simulation program from the ground up. The market is full of addons, so the new simulation would be very wise to read dds and dxt textures and 3DS or GMax compiled objects.

Because of copyright reasons, it might mean theat developers have to recompile their products, but the wise new team would have to create an SDK that can read GMsx and or 3DS files and all the raw date behind AFCAD, agn, bgl etc. and give them new "names". But as the addons are all proprietary copyrights of the developing companies, this will not conflict with ANY Microsoft copyrights.

Maybe this new development company could then resolve a few other global issues that are technically in the way of some developers (the aircraft builders' copyrights for instance) and colect royalties from the developers "for and on behalf of the industry" under s "single hat" scheme.

A whole new developement would also have the best chance of being a slim and fast new simulation - without any of the microsoft bloat. Maybe they could work closely with the more efficient makers of add-on utilities around (FSUIPC, Active Sky, DXTbmp, AirWrench and of course Aerosoft) so that the new code is more reliable than the MSFS code - which probably has core code over 20 years old in places...

Let us commiserate with those who lost their jobs, but let us use the opportunities given. The time has come for the flight simulation industry to wean itself away from Microsoft and grow up to a full entity in its own right.

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Quite right Chris. `One door closes, another one opens` and all that stuff. But it's Microsoft that have had the door slammed in their faces, not us. It's important to not think of this as a slap in the face for consumers. Removal of the Monolith from the scene may well create a space for others, a space which would not otherwise have come to exist.

Which is how FS came into being in the first place... if anyone goes back as far as the subLogic days. So successful, MS bought the company...

Could it be the cycle repeats?

...And (cue: conspiratorial whisper) "...could that be the MS plan..?" B)

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For those who may have missed it Tom Allensworth from AVSIM has a blog on the ACES topic here.

Alex Ford of JustFlight commented:

Alex's fundamental position is that where adversity exists, opportunity lies. Alex stated that in the absence of any further development of the core FSX product that tremendous opportunities continued to exist for developers to create add-on's for the product. As others in the forums have pointed out, a four or five year stable product base is a wonderful opportunity to maximize the potential of FSX. We at AVSIM agree with this sentiment and we'll support any and all efforts to make it so.

EDIT: Another link here

Konrad

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It is fairly easy to suggest that someone else should pick up FSNext where MS left off but let's not forget what it actually means for FS to be a Microsoft product.

One simple example: here in South Africa I can find FSX and FS9 in just about every store - from the biggest electronics retailer to the smallest pc repair shop to just about any music store. There is a shopping centre near me where there are at least 5 different shops stock FSX/FS9. But, I have yet to see X-Plane, or any other flight sim, in any shop here (and that includes some aviation hobby shops!). Now, I am well aware that we are the arse end of nowhere and SA's economy adds up to just 1% of the US ecomomy but this tale speaks volumes about the distribution channels which are available to MS and are simply not available to most other developers.

It must also be mentioned that any product of this nature, to be viable in the long term, has to be so to a HUGE audience. The "hardcore" side of simming (people like I us I guess) makes up less than 15% of the total FS user install base and as such we contribute what amounts to an insignificant amount of cash for the developer of any given Flight Sim. The total bill for FS9, FSX and Acceleration comes to less than $100. Compare this to your bill at Aerosoft, PMDG, Flight1 or whatever addon developer you happen to fancy. In fact, compare it to the cost of the OS and Office etc. Not to mention flight sim hardware. But it is always the other 85% of FS users who make it possible for there to be a FS in the first place and it is reaching THESE people on market shelves around the world on a consistent basis which is the really hard and often very expensive part of the FS equation.

If MS could not or would not make the above equation work for FSNext then I think it is pretty clear that finding someone else who could/would will be a very tough (if not impossible) task, especially so given the planets current economic woes.

The more I think about all this the more I suspect that there will simply be no FSNext, at least not in the form that any of us here can currently predict. As I have stated before I actually believe that this situation is a GOOD one for the FS community as a whole (see above) but my point here is that we are all most probably fooling ourselves into believing that someone else will pick up the FS banner where MS dropped it and do anything other than run straight into a brick wall.

The knock on effects (positive or otherwise) of NO FSNext in the forseeable future is what we should be debating here in my opinion.

Konrad

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In other words...

Now is the time for a keen group of individuals to get together and create a new flight simulation program from the ground up. The market is full of addons, so the new simulation would be very wise to read dds and dxt textures and 3DS or GMax compiled objects.

Because of copyright reasons, it might mean theat developers have to recompile their products, but the wise new team would have to create an SDK that can read GMsx and or 3DS files and all the raw date behind AFCAD, agn, bgl etc. and give them new "names". But as the addons are all proprietary copyrights of the developing companies, this will not conflict with ANY Microsoft copyrights.

Maybe this new development company could then resolve a few other global issues that are technically in the way of some developers (the aircraft builders' copyrights for instance) and colect royalties from the developers "for and on behalf of the industry" under s "single hat" scheme.

A whole new developement would also have the best chance of being a slim and fast new simulation - without any of the microsoft bloat. Maybe they could work closely with the more efficient makers of add-on utilities around (FSUIPC, Active Sky, DXTbmp, AirWrench and of course Aerosoft) so that the new code is more reliable than the MSFS code - which probably has core code over 20 years old in places...

Let us commiserate with those who lost their jobs, but let us use the opportunities given. The time has come for the flight simulation industry to wean itself away from Microsoft and grow up to a full entity in its own right.

Maybe this could be something...

Project scorpion

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Konrad, I see no reason to assume at this point that the franchise will not continue - it is named as one of the key moneymakers for MS in the game sector over the last 27 years. It's not the profitability of the game that is the problem right now, it's the timing of the investment to create the next version.

After all when mighty MS has to `get by` on just 16 billion dollars worth of profit, times are obviously hard... <_<

MS has already had the key income from FSX, so it's already long-since paid back its construction and development costs. FSX has already had two patches and an expansion pack, so the job was done, dusted and cleaned up after. ACES made for an easy target for the bean counters.

What ACES were doing was already spinning code for `FS Next` and of course for the ESP project. A project which, if commercial take-up by military organisations was anything to go by was going to be extremely lucrative. Mothballing is a long way from cancelling, but it does create a window of opportunity for an enterprising developer to step in and steal a march.

But one of the crafty things that MS might be doing here is offloading the development of the `FS Next`, creating a deliberate market void, knowing that the ESP Platform could be used as a basis... but that does require continued development of ESP, so I suspect the immediate future of FS will be written by the future of ESP.

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