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Oh dear, this could be Bad


Snave

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I wish the ACES team would get together and do a startup of their own.

It may not be very hard to find venture capitalists to fund this.

Who knows...even Bill Gates and/or Paul Allen could be approached to fund this venture.

Manny

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It is still too many assumptions and too many "what if" scenarios out there.

Personallly I think that whenever there is a certain demand, there will be a supplier - MS or non MS.

The actual situation might even give added opportunities!

There will not be a nearby release of FS11, so we have to stick to FSX, with it´s troubles and its´t strength !

From a coders viewpoint , there is still alot that can be done !

From a german advertisement:

" Ess gibt viel zu tun - packen wir ess an !" (there is alot to do, grab it and do it !)

If the FS community is healthy - so will the ultimate supplier be !

Also remember - No Sp3 has been announced for FSX - So for now nothing has changed !

On the long-term though, troubles might arrise !

My personal opinion is that most companies are in panic mode right now - the truth will show in 6 month or even more.

Calm down and enjoy - situation hasn´t changed since the release of SP2/Acceleration !!

Finn

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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

Uhm - I am seeing exactly the opposite - most FS9ers claimed, they'd "skip" FSX and wait for the next version, to come in 2009/2010 or so ... but now with FS11 (or whatever it'll be called) delayed probably for a much longer time, I guess most will move to FSX. FSX will now be the "top model" for a much longer time and companies won't drop FSX anytime soon as they dropped FS9 when FSX came out. In two years tops, 90% of simmers will have PCs that can run FSX with all details maxed. By then, the number of add-ons will be huge already.

So, imho very many FS9 fans will move to FSX in the foreseeable future, because there won't be an FS11 for some time.

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  • Aerosoft

Hey let's all just accept this as a fact and wait what will come out of it. All indications we had was that anew version was not to be expected before 2010, so in fact up to August 2010 the situation is exact the same. Work on FS11 was not really started in earnest, most people at ACES were working on TS2 at this moment. And as Marc said, many users have still a version to upgrade to when their hardware can handle it! I have seen many people who bought a new core i7 machine try out FSX and finally finding out why many others love it so much.

So we are not too worried and certainly not as stressed as many other people seem to be.

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Hey let's all just accept this as a fact and wait what will come out of it. All indications we had was that anew version was not to be expected before 2010, so in fact up to August 2010 the situation is exact the same. Work on FS11 was not really started in earnest, most people at ACES were working on TS2 at this moment. And as Marc said, many users have still a version to upgrade to when their hardware can handle it! I have seen many people who bought a new core i7 machine try out FSX and finally finding out why many others love it so much.

So we are not too worried and certainly not as stressed as many other people seem to be.

Glad to hear that Aerosoft will continue to pump out good products for my great enjoyment and rapid depletion of funds :lol:

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Well... what can I say.... Let's just hope the addon publishers/developers realize that there's a lot of life left in FS9/FSX to keep this hobby going for many years. FS9 is still my favorite.

My thought go to the extremely talented people that has been laid off, they are legends.

Thanks

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It is indeed bad for those who lost jobs, but is it that bad for users?

I believe, that this is an opportunity to be able to master fsx. I have seen how much better (overall) fsx is, and so maybe this means we get to enjoy it fully for a while.

This will definitley give us a chance to see a lot more products for fsx.

I was worried as we got a new and more capable simulator everytime, production was taking ever so longer. Look around, and tell me differently.

Now, we will be able to see more products, and it will (I hope) become as good as fs9 (my favorite).

So to me, it is a mixed bag.

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I don't understand all the panic. For addon developers a longer lifecycle of FSX can't be all too bad, as it gives them more time to develop and sell their products. Users will be less reluctant spending their money on addons that will improve their sim, as they would probably be if the next iteration was only half a year away. As for the future of flightsims in general, there is a large customer group interested in civil flight simulators, so I don't see a reason why they should not be developed any more. It is only recently that MSFS is almost without competition. Up to 10 years or so ago there was quite a variety of sims (ProPilot, Flight Unlimited, Fly, etc.) that had a similar standard of quality as MSFS. Even if MS is deciding not to continue their FS product line, someone else may jump in and fill the gap.

And finally, given the current speed of economic development the situation may be completely different in a year or two from now.

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Hey let's all just accept this as a fact and wait what will come out of it. All indications we had was that anew version was not to be expected before 2010, so in fact up to August 2010 the situation is exact the same. Work on FS11 was not really started in earnest, most people at ACES were working on TS2 at this moment. And as Marc said, many users have still a version to upgrade to when their hardware can handle it! I have seen many people who bought a new core i7 machine try out FSX and finally finding out why many others love it so much.

So we are not too worried and certainly not as stressed as many other people seem to be.

Hi Mathijs...I'm one of those who's running FSX on a very low-end gaming computer. My computer is probably in the 15-20th percentile of all systems running FSX. As a result, there's a lot of hope in me for what FSX could be with a computer system out in the next 2-3 years...something like that. I certainly hope my question here is a "stupid one:" Is there any possibility that FSX would NOT run on a future gaming computer running Windows 7? I ask because when I next buy a computer, I'd imagine the post-Vista OS will be standard. Any thoughts on this?

Ted

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Hey let's all just accept this as a fact and wait what will come out of it. All indications we had was that anew version was not to be expected before 2010, so in fact up to August 2010 the situation is exact the same. Work on FS11 was not really started in earnest, most people at ACES were working on TS2 at this moment. And as Marc said, many users have still a version to upgrade to when their hardware can handle it! I have seen many people who bought a new core i7 machine try out FSX and finally finding out why many others love it so much.

So we are not too worried and certainly not as stressed as many other people seem to be.

Mr. Mathijs Kok,

Well, I for one, am glad you aren't going to run and close up shop just because of rumors and "What if's." Hard times come to everybody at some time or another. The FlightSim community will survive this too. Please, Keep making them B) (and Fixing them too. :P:lol: ) and I'll do my part of buying and "Bitching" for the things that don't work. (Just Kidding!) :lol::lol::lol:

PS: Your Seahawk/JayHawk X is awesome! B)

EDIT: I've found this video made as a tribute to ACES Studios by FSRobert; Enjoy! Tribute to ACES Studios...

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Mr. Mathijs Kok,

Well, I for one, am glad you aren't going to run and close up shop just because of rumors and "What if's." Hard times come to everybody at some time or another. The FlightSim community will survive this too. Please, Keep making them B) (and Fixing them too. :P:lol: ) and I'll do my part of buying and "Bitching" for the things that don't work. (Just Kidding!) :lol::lol::lol:

Honestly, If Microsoft closes up ACES shop, look at the numbers. Over 1 million copies of FSX have already been sold. Factor in that the avrage person spent $50 bucks on the product. That's over 1.1 billion in sales. The ACES guys (if they have the capital) would be smart to startup their own business.

If they don't. Then there is good news and bad news. Bad news, they are gone, period. Good news is that companies like Aerosoft will always be in business becaues we will still buy 3rd party addons for both versions as long as they keep comming out. If 4 years from now if products are being made for FS9 (most likely I will be FSX by then) then I am very fine with that.

Somthing tells me that we will see FS11 code come to fruition even if it doesn't have the Microsoft logo on it. ;)

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I think the news of the ACES studio closing could actually be a net positive for the add-on community. Speaking for myself I had been a bit hesitant to invest too much in FSX add-ons in the fear that there was going to be a significant overhaul to FS11 that would make all my previous FS investments obsolete. Now I am much less concerned about the longevity of further add-on purchases and will now spend more on FSX add-ons rather than less. I think this could also be a good from the stand point of developers because they should feel more confident in investing and building capabilities for FSX since they don't have to worry about their investments being outmoded by FSNext. From a user perspective we could also be a net beneficiary because it should push developers to look at generating revenues more from creating more new airports, scenery and planes rather than deriving revenues from just updating old titles to FSNext.

The creativity we have been seeing especially lately from the third party development community also makes me confident that despite the lack of continued support from MSFT there will still be enough room for years to come to keep FSX fresh and pushing the limits of what the next generation of hardware is capable of. Though I am not a programmer from what I have been reading it sounds like FSX is open enough that what MSFT won't provide, third-party developers will be able to fill many of the gaps. My big disappointment is I doubt anyone but ACES could make improvements to the flight model or weather systems. But it looks like in most other areas improvements can be made without the help of ACES. And as far as performance issues are concerned the continual evolution of hardware will eventually take care of that.

Longer-term I am less concerned about the continued advancement of flight simming. If there is a demand someone will fill the gap. Maybe I'm reading to much into it but when I saw the flight simulator imbedded in Google Earth I assumed that we might some day see a more refined product come out of the Googleplex. And hopefully Austin Meyer will take this as an opportunity to ramp up development of X-Plane and make it a much more relevant competitor.

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The problem with the X-Plane business model is the inbuilt obsolescence factor and the eternal tinkering that affects things that previously worked, but no longer do. While this interminable cycle of 9.x, presumably to be followed by 10.x suits the closed-environment nature of a very limited consumer base, as well as the derivation of new applications, it does bring with it an intrinsic sense of impermanence, with constant tweaking and modifying making it unsuited to the mass-market audience. Having to deal with the variations in FSX is bad enough (FSX vanilla, SP, SP2/Acceleration) but there are currently what? 8 or 9 different versions and part-versions of X-Plane in the market, not counting the I-Phone version... Just how is any developer - and specifically an aftermarket developer - supposed to support that kind of variation in the core product?

It's impossible.

If X-Plane were to be put forward as a `replacement` for the FS product (and it IS the likeliest candidate, assuming the Eagle Dynamics Lock-On engine isn't suitable for a worldwide application rather than the closed-environment all the variants to date have utilised) then frankly, the operating and business model would need to grow up substantially.

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The problem with the X-Plane business model is the inbuilt obsolescence factor and the eternal tinkering that affects things that previously worked, but no longer do. While this interminable cycle of 9.x, presumably to be followed by 10.x suits the closed-environment nature of a very limited consumer base, as well as the derivation of new applications, it does bring with it an intrinsic sense of impermanence, with constant tweaking and modifying making it unsuited to the mass-market audience. Having to deal with the variations in FSX is bad enough (FSX vanilla, SP, SP2/Acceleration) but there are currently what? 8 or 9 different versions and part-versions of X-Plane in the market, not counting the I-Phone version... Just how is any developer - and specifically an aftermarket developer - supposed to support that kind of variation in the core product?

It's impossible.

If X-Plane were to be put forward as a `replacement` for the FS product (and it IS the likeliest candidate, assuming the Eagle Dynamics Lock-On engine isn't suitable for a worldwide application rather than the closed-environment all the variants to date have utilised) then frankly, the operating and business model would need to grow up substantially.

I actually thing this could be a backhanded positive.

It gives us simmers a definitive 5 year roadmap as to what we should be using. FS9 is screaming beyond belief right now, butter smooth at EVERY airport with all add-ons, sliders pinned and 90% AI. For me it will be my primary sim until FSX can match FS9 performance.

It took at least 5 years after the release of FS9 to get us to this point with FS9 and FSX is not even close to the performance mark of FS9 yet. Personally I think we are still a few years off from that and in the interim if MS decides to sell or re-open the ACES franchise maybe we can finally get a new sim engine capable of driving more than 10 FPS that can actually offload physics processing to the GPU instead of strictly the CPU and see the same FPS we do in every other computer game/sim...

I think this is an opportunity to leverage what we have for the next 5 years rather than worry about FSXI coming out and breaking all of our add-ons all over again. It gives simmers years of possible expansion between the two platforms and it gives developers the piece of mind that they can develop for both platforms indefinitely because the next release which breaks everything is no longer lurking around the corner.

And like I said, if MS decides to rebuild or sell off the MSFS platform hopefully the next version will not still be running the same core sim engine from FS98 lol...

Just my .02 but I don't think it is all that bad. In the scope of things I can't believe people are getting so upset. In the past week my company laid off over 4000 people, Circuit City is 30,000 people, Intel was 6,000 and Microsoft was 5000 I believe. So in one week, 45000 people went unemployed between 4 companies!!! I think we have bigger fish to fry and better things to cry about right now than FSXI.

Cheers,

-Paul

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The problem with the X-Plane business model is the inbuilt obsolescence factor and the eternal tinkering that affects things that previously worked, but no longer do. While this interminable cycle of 9.x, presumably to be followed by 10.x suits the closed-environment nature of a very limited consumer base, as well as the derivation of new applications, it does bring with it an intrinsic sense of impermanence, with constant tweaking and modifying making it unsuited to the mass-market audience. Having to deal with the variations in FSX is bad enough (FSX vanilla, SP, SP2/Acceleration) but there are currently what? 8 or 9 different versions and part-versions of X-Plane in the market, not counting the I-Phone version... Just how is any developer - and specifically an aftermarket developer - supposed to support that kind of variation in the core product?

It's impossible.

No its not.

Have you ever tried X-plane lately? in all seriousness? The eternal tinkering that affects things that previously worked in the X-Plane series, could have also affected future versions of FS. In fact they did. They have been tinkering with FS since FS1.

Why this comparison?

I've got the latest version of X -plane, and its very promising, also and presuming the next version of X-Plane takes account of the foolishness of the bean counters at Microsoft, who were in charge of ACE's, whose to say what might happen? If you look, X-Plane does support after market stuff, and very enthusiastic user mods.

The current version of X-Plane is 9.22, and this should not be compared to Microsoft's efforts with theirs ... some 20 years worth of versions of a similar product.

I'm a big supporter of what Aerosoft do .. But I'll stand up for an alternative.

Why is X-plane Obsolescent, when Microsoft announced that MS FS is no more? Thats a ridiculous statement. Are you trolling for a reaction? ... Well ... I'm here :)

If ... and this is a big IF ... If Aerosoft should decide to to support Austin with X-Plane, then why not? He's been nipping at the heels of MS Flight Sim for a long time. he deserves credit for being so persistent and fruit full.

I cant help but feel, MS have shot them selves in the foot.

Also, and without wanting to seem disrespectful, MS with Flight sim have been beaten before, this is no big deal, apart from the drama they are causing with toys thrown out of prams actions by drawing attention to them again?

Looking Glass Tech, were a real competitor to the Microsoft FS Bully with the Flight Unlimited series, they published comparison shots between the current FS version and there's, Looking Glass won hands down. Also they had there mission scene noted, some 10 years before MS thought it was a good idea ... they also had far better weather implication in flights ... I recently compared a GA flight in the San Fran area with what FSX and FS9 could do compared to ... FS9 and FSX are slightly ahead, but by not much with current add ons compared to Flight Unlimited III... not bad for an extremely out dated product ... huh?

I'm a geek, but I maintain multiple comps for most Flight sim, going back to DOS 5 on one retro machine.

Chill out, mate.

Chill out and ... please start thinking outside of the box in future, that's what's needed now I guess.

Don't dictate :)

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Over 1 million copies of FSX have already been sold. Factor in that the avrage person spent $50 bucks on the product. That's over 1.1 billion in sales.

How do you come up with 1.1 billion ?

I million X 50 = 50 million

So we end up with a gross sales figure of $50 million, and maybe a net profit of 10%.

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Hi All

Official statement from Aces on fsinsider here

Konrad

Sounds like PR mumbo-jumbo. How exactly are they going to develop new versions of the title without developers? The short of it is MSFT disappointed in it's earnings release. They needed to show some fast cost cutting to support the stock price and cutting heads is the fastest way to do it. ACES was an easy target because it wasn't contributing much in the way of revenue growth right now and likely the titles in ACES was below average company margins given the low revenues and high head count.

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How do you come up with 1.1 billion ?

I million X 50 = 50 million

So we end up with a gross sales figure of $50 million, and maybe a net profit of 10%.

We are BOTH wrong. Your math is not based on my statement. ;) But you are still somewhat correct. My bad. :o ACES total product revinue was 1.1 billion. But Microsoft feels the profit margin out of that isn't good enough to keep them running...

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  • Aerosoft
Just my .02 but I don't think it is all that bad. In the scope of things I can't believe people are getting so upset. In the past week my company laid off over 4000 people, Circuit City is 30,000 people, Intel was 6,000 and Microsoft was 5000 I believe. So in one week, 45000 people went unemployed between 4 companies!!! I think we have bigger fish to fry and better things to cry about right now than FSXI.

Well the fact MS fired the 14 or so people working at ACES is a big thing for them. It's also big for the complete industry that is around it. We at Aerosoft are not so worried as FS is just one of the things we do, but we know of many other small companies that are not so lucky. For the next year of so not a lot will change, but for many people the possible lack of FSXI IS the biggest fish.

And as this is a forum about FS, hosted by a company that makes FS addons....

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Well the fact MS fired the 14 or so people working at ACES is a big thing for them. It's also big for the complete industry that is around it. We at Aerosoft are not so worried as FS is just one of the things we do, but we know of many other small companies that are not so lucky. For the next year of so not a lot will change, but for many people the possible lack of FSXI IS the biggest fish.

And as this is a forum about FS, hosted by a company that makes FS addons....

I wonder how this situation affects future FSX sales... Now that it's all finished, I really think your FS9 sales will increase as a lot of folks may default back to FS9...

I just really think it's time to reconsider the viability of FS9. I know you guys can push the code further for even better quality!! I think no matter how much complex a senery you can make for FS9, there are already systems avaliable to run it to the max!

Unlike FS9... People are going to get tired of the FSX slow framerate slide shows...

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People are going to get tired of the FSX slow framerate slide shows...

... you know, those FSX bashing rants are getting tedious, really, like a stuck record ... even WEA stopped with those, thankfully ... do you have to start all over again???

Oh yes :

$ 750,- ... http://www.forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?showtopic=21858

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