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Looks Like Microsofts New Sim Is On The Way


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...it will probably run better then that "other" piece of shit (FSX) they gave me a couple years ago. It's funny soon as the hardware starts to catch up there making a new title. I think the best things that ever happened to the community was the failure of the FSX Franchise...like serious, would you fly FSX without ORBX Aerosoft etc...not me.

LOL, not to turn this into an FSX vs FS9/FSNext topic, but where is it written that the FSX franshise was a failure? Seems like its doing well considering some devs have dropped production for the other sim to concentrate on FSX and Aerosoft themselves seem quite happy with the sales of their FSX products. Heck even MS ran out of stock on FSX DVD's not to long ago and had to produce more. If that was a failure and they ran out of stock on an item, they would probably take that any day of the week. Besides i'm not so sure if MS getting rid of ACES was anything to do with FSX as it was more to do with the sharp downturn in the economy.

As far as flying FSX without ORBX, Aerosoft, etc., I wouldn't fly any sim, FSX or FS9 without the products of the 3PD's. Heck I dont even own any ORBX stuff, but I own a lot of stuff from FSDT, FlyTampa, LatinVFR, and Aerosoft or stuff published by Aerosoft and I cant imagine flying without any of it frankly.

Hopefully if the next new sim from MS or the one Aerosoft is planning, we will have a platform that the majority of the FS community likes. Although no matter what happens there will still probably be a small fraction of simmers that remain with FS9/FSX because of the investment they have already made into buying addons.

No matter how much better the next new sim is by either MS or AS, I would imagine I would remain with FSX until the 3PD's develope enough new addon planes and sceneries to make the switch worth while. I dont mind spending all the money again, but it will probably take a few years before new addons start popping up and I loath default sims.

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So in the end. I am sitting here, typing personal comments (not Aerosoft comments), with a glass of wine in my hand and not being worried. The news blurb from MS is good news, no matter how I look at it. ANY new development in flightsims on PC's is good for us.

Yeah best to dust off the old Windows Live SDK and see what else you now have to support :). I think you made a valid point earlier and that is of content, which is lacking in this Microsoft equation. Honestly don't be surprised if they come to you to solve that problem.

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Today the success of a new simulator is a performance matter, if the hardware requirements for "Flight" will increase, as much as increase, to go from FS2004 to FSX, then the new Microsoft simulator don´t have future .

It would be very good news and big business, a simulator with a graphical engine optimized to maximize the use of currently available hardware.

Regards

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Aerosoft Keep on the new Simulator!

Aerosoft showed that they are able to create wonderful Sceneries and Airports, so i thing that the "Microsoft Product" is minimum 2 levels below!!!!

I am happy to get more informations about the Aerosoft Sim later on, i think there are many many things we actually don´t think about

OffTopic

My wishes

Realistic Ground Textures as far as possible

Perfekt Performance

:-) low budget upgrates out of FS2004 and FSx airports :-)

Graphic settings without any other tool like Nhancer

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*this contains spoilers*

Downloaded the video, and sat down to be overwhelmed. I see an ocean, or a lake. A voice over tells me: "Since I was a child, I dreamed I could fly" aeroplane crosses screen, music swells, fade out.

I couldn't help laughing. Instead of this clip they'd better wait a bit and come up with a proper trailer because this was 49 seconds of nothing.....

For me it is to early for conclusions, to vague to get exited. They're going to do something with flying.

Noticed in the credits: game for windows live...

Video starts again: I see and ocean, or a lake. I hear the sound of an aeroplane swelling. A voice over telling me. "Since I was a costumer, I dreamed of decent fps" aeroplane stutters through my screen, fade out.

(would be a nice contest: who can do that clip better, funnier, sillier)

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There is really nothing Aerosoft should worry about. We spend more shopping on Aerosoft products than we do on purchasing the FS platform itself, and there are good reasons for that. There is also a great approach towards the sim community involvement by Aerosoft in terms of discussions about various features. This works better than releasing a teaser trailer for us to see. It also gives us a sense of ownership towards the product that is different from the usual FS purchase. I am not that excited about this upcoming title from MS. I am definitely looking forward to the Aerosoft project though, the whole process looks very promising to me.

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*this contains spoilers*

Downloaded the video, and sat down to be overwhelmed. I see an ocean, or a lake. A voice over tells me: "Since I was a child, I dreamed I could fly" aeroplane crosses screen, music swells, fade out.

I couldn't help laughing. Instead of this clip they'd better wait a bit and come up with a proper trailer because this was 49 seconds of nothing.....

For me it is to early for conclusions, to vague to get exited. They're going to do something with flying.

Noticed in the credits: game for windows live...

Video starts again: I see and ocean, or a lake. I hear the sound of an aeroplane swelling. A voice over telling me. "Since I was a costumer, I dreamed of decent fps" aeroplane stutters through my screen, fade out.

(would be a nice contest: who can do that clip better, funnier, sillier)

Ahh, so that's what the vid looks like :) I cant even get it to stream, and I tried yesterday too, no problem with all other online video on my ADSL connection, does not bode well for a game that is supposed to have online features! Interesting comments here, I'll wait and see but there is nothing I've seen from Microsoft so far that really looks like they are serious in keeping their long standing Flight Simulator series going any-more ... all this hush hush (don't ask us any questions) top secret stuff, they really should be asking customers what they want, not (more or less) telling us to wait and see.

I cant help but feel that if (love him or hate him) Bill Gates were still in charge, we'd not have lost Aces and would probably be playing FS11 by now, and company's like Aerosoft would be improving it further? Bill Gates was a supporter of MS Flight Sim after all.

At the very least though, we will have a new fine Flight Sim from Aerosoft with feedback taken aboard from customers and developers (and I know for sure they have been talking to hardware Flight sim company's) and a Flight Game from Microsoft for those that like that kinda thing, maybe it will be better than that, but as a minimum expectation or worse case scenario ... I'm happy with that so far.

Cheers.

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Today the success of a new simulator is a performance matter, if the hardware requirements for "Flight" will increase, as much as increase, to go from FS2004 to FSX, then the new Microsoft simulator don´t have future .

It would be very good news and big business, a simulator with a graphical engine optimized to maximize the use of currently available hardware.

Regards

Rubbish! If that's all it takes, reinstall FS9...

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http://www.legitreviews.com/news/8811/

One of the casualties of last year's layoffs at Microsoft was the Aces game studio responsible for the company's long-running Flight Simulator game. At the time, Microsoft promised that the flight simulation franchise would continue in one form or another. This week, Redmond confirmed that it is indeed following through with a new title: Microsoft Flight. The game is in its early development stages, with an alpha version nearly ready for internal testing, according to Kevin Unangst, a senior director in Microsoft's game unit.

So if this is to be belived we will see this new "game" sooner than later.

To me early development stage with an alpha version nearly ready = new platform, SLI, Hyperthreading, PhsX, DX11, as many core as you can use.....again pure speculation on my part but are we not in 2010 with hardware up to the task??

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again pure speculation on my part but are we not in 2010 with hardware up to the task??

Lets hope so! maybe microsoft will learn their lesson from FSX? again though, they should be sorting that out first! the more i think about it though, Im quite excited by the prospect of two potentially brilliant sims heading our way in coming years. This announcement from MS hasn't detracted my enthusiasm for Aerosofts sim, if anything im more eagre to see what these guys can do from the ground up as the AS F-16 is my favourite FSX aircraft.

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To me early development stage with an alpha version nearly ready = new platform, SLI, Hyperthreading, PhsX, DX11, as many core as you can use.....again pure speculation on my part but are we not in 2010 with hardware up to the task??

Sorry, but I don't believe that it is quite as simple. They have a severe problem:

1. A target conflict.

What you are thinking about is a continuation ofg the old model, targeted for high end PCs.

This market gets money from enthusiasts that want to fly as real as possible.

But the drop of Simulator and the mention of Live indicates a second market:

Gamers, probably with an X-Box 720 or who knows how they will name the successor of the X-Box 360.

It is quite likely that this console might get an processor and a GPU from AMD.

AMD doesn't need to design from scratch, ATI developed their old GPU, so a compatibility engine shouldn't be

such a big problem.

In theory this would offer a vast area of possibilities and one team could develop the core engine for all the platforms.

You can press all the right buttons to get a convincing story to finance the alpha version of the new game. environment

Microsoft is such a gigantic company that they always have a lot of projects on the run, but as usual: less than 10 percent

will lead to a finished product!

While it is quite simple to plan a unified base, they have severe internal problems. The controls on a console are totally

different from the controls that high end users have. Their interests have nothing in common. For most kids a realistic plane is

too slow. It might look good but it isn't really interesting to fly half an hour to your dogfight.

Both groups mustn't meet each other. People don't like it, if their 747 was shot down after a 4 hzour flight by an F 18 that

an 8 year old kid flew.

Microsoft will have to reinvent a realistic flight model. Even most companies don't realize that the biggest part of the

knowledge is inside the brains of their employees, not in the finished code. It went so far that a US company once had

a 85 percent market share, till they decided that their programmers earned too much. They fired m0ost of their

programmers and went to india. Now they are fighting a loosing battle to retain even 20% of their market share...

It would have been a totally different game if they would have retained even a small core group of ACES.

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I thought aerosoft is talking/working together with MS to build a new simulator respectievly take the initiative to build a new simulator?

However. I'm curiouse about it. Lets see whats happening if two new simulators will come up to market. Which is the better one in graphics, physics, needed system power, ....!

# For me personally, as the person responsible for ASF2013, it means very little. MS dropped the 'simulator' from the name, specifically mentions beginners, puts it squarely in the games domain. All of this points to a different customer then I am planning for right now. I flown 40k miles in the last few months to talk to add-on developers to see what THEY want, I spend thousands of Euro's/Dollars/Yen on beers to find our what customers like and hate. Now I am sure MS is doing market research but I did not see them, nor did the customers I spoke to, nor did the add-on devs I bought diner for (one exception in that, they know who I am talking about). You make up your mind with that info.

# We are as open as possible. We are intending to make a VERY open simulator where every bit is documented and every bit (except the very core) can be replaced by add-ons. A platform, not a product. Every customer we got has say and we do listen to everything, all the major (okay a few might not) add-on developers are talking to me to make sure that what thee need is inserted. Where MS wants to sell the game/simulator we want (need) a new platform. There is a huge difference there.

I think we should not talk about marketing strategy or what a company is telling customers about a new product Mathijs. Because everyone has it own. Sometimes it's better to tell something about development steps, sometimes not. Everyone should know for himself when/if he is releasing status informations. You are flown 40k miles in the last few moths... and so on, but you don't know what MS was doing the last few years. Simple watch to the internet. This forum on its own is already a huge source for finding out what customers what. I think to be open is good, to be open as possible can bring disatvantages. We all know the community is impatient and we know how a community is responding to something is going wrong or - the average case - something is taking more time. I think it was the perfect time to tell the world, that a new simulator will come.

Also some people say that it will be an arcade game. I don't think that, because its written in the first press statemant of it all: "...welcoming everyone, including long-time fans...". Logically MS will catch the whole gamer world and not only the "small pro sim house". So they have make something that will bring fun and us professionals provide a new high level plattform for intensive flight experiences at the same. The first thing is done: "Cut off the word simulator", the rest will give us a new experience ;-)

PS: Even though the new MS Flight is yet in an alpha stadium, don't think it will need much time. Simply think about the first beta of Windows 7, it was almost the final version.

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<P>

Rubbish! If that's all it takes, reinstall FS9...

FSX graphics engine is not optimized. How do you explain that on my LapTop, the game "Crysis", have better performance than FSX, when "Crysis" has a much higher quality graphics.I insist on my point, the simulator, which will replace FSX, whatever, should be submitted, minimally with much better graphics engine (optimized).

If Microsoft or any other company interested in replacing FSX, does not know how to optimize the FSX graphics engine, then they should consult the matter with Oleg Maddox, for learning how to build an excellent graphic engine for Flight Simulation ... and we all win.

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More news here....

http://news.cnet.com...tag=topStories2

With this in mind I may buy more FSX addons but there is nothing in this new article who lead me to belive it will take for ever to see Flight out and running.........

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"The game is in its early development stages, with an alpha version nearly ready for internal testing, according to Kevin Unangst, a senior director in Microsoft's game unit."

Like I said before if fMicrosoft does things right ...new platform, SLI, PhysX, DX11, as many core as we can use...Hyperthreading++ we will have the best flight ever....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The company is offering few details on Flight, but Unangst said that it is looking to appeal to flying enthusiasts with the realism, accuracy, and fidelity they expect, but also imagines including other types of gameplay that might appeal more to novices."

There you go, not only a game.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Microsoft isn't saying when to expect Flight to take off, but it likely won't be anytime soon."

How long did it take for window 7 to go from beta to official release.....not that long.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I wouldn't expect for people to see Flight in public beta this year," Unangst said."

2011 is in 4 months......

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Will Flight be so good we won't need anything else......time will tell.

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Will Flight be so good we won't need anything else......time will tell.

I hope not. I'd like to see Aerosoft make a third sim. We've had nothing but MSFS and X-Plane for years. I'd like to see somebody new step in. Personally, I don't think the flight model of FSX or X-Plane is very impressive. I like both of those sims. But it just seems as if the FSX planes are on rails, and the X-Plane flight model seems twitchy and feels dead. I'd like to see Aerosoft make something more realistic. I know MS could improve their flight model, but I'd like a third choice. I like the fact that Aerosoft seems to be getting ideas from RoF. RoF has the only flight model that I've ever thought felt right. Of course I hope Flight will be great, but I'm personally looking to Aerosoft for something new and better.

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Will Flight be so good we won't need anything else......time will tell.

I dont think that would be true, even if MS flight turned out to be perfect in every way id still buy the Aerosoft sim. I like First person shooters for example, Half life 2 is probably my favourite but it doesn't stop me wanting to play Halo, COD and many other titles, variety is always a good thing. Aerosoft will do their thing, microsoft will do their own, we all win. Also it seems microsoft are indeed trying to cater for two very seperate crowds, us simmers and the Ace combat/Hawx crowed whereas im guessing Aerosoft will make the most realistic flight sim possible so both products could end up very different. Id love to see Aerosoft re-release their F-16 with more accurate flight dynamics through their own sim. We can all hope.

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Well the one thing that concerns me is the use of the phrase "LIVE enabled Windows exclusive". This surely implies the use of the Windows Live network, meaning you have to be online to be able to play the game/sim due to the logging in procedure. If that's so, bearing in mind no details are present yet, what about the offline community? Will we be able to tinker with it? Are we supposed to use only "approved addons"? The mind boggles really. I'm hardly excited about this as i can see MS dumbing this all down to the point where their idea of using a joystick is to use the tiny one on a gamepad.

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Well the one thing that concerns me is the use of the phrase "LIVE enabled Windows exclusive". This surely implies the use of the Windows Live network, meaning you have to be online to be able to play the game/sim due to the logging in procedure.

Well, I am not sure if they would require it really for games, but I would bet that they want to sell Add-ons in the Live Store. This will be one incentive for this move. Flight by itself can't ask so much money but the Add-ons... That the single reason why they will even try to bother with the simulation market. The mass market is no longer on the PC for hardcore games.

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Here is a part of what I wrote on another forum.....

"If I was an FSX addons dev. today will I be worry.....you "betcha"....why will you ask.....pure speculation here again but let me give you what I think is a couple of good reason.....firstl...compatibility.....so let say Microsoft has this new Flight built on a new platform (core engine) + DX11, PhsX, SLI, using 6 or more core ++, and this happend to be a fantastic new sim.... all slider to the right including cars traffic...no stuttering.... no blurries..... no bugs no matter what speed or detailed plane you want to use.....and Microsoft don't want to share it........dev. don't have access to the core engine....... this Flight is soo good you don't need addons....... or Microsoft will sell their own addons....that is what is scary as a company like Orbx, Aerosoft and others......unless they know something we don't about it....but after reading more and more on it Microsoft is playing alone."

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Here is a part of what I wrote on another forum.....

"If I was an FSX addons dev. today will I be worry.....you "betcha"....why will you ask.....pure speculation here again but let me give you what I think is a couple of good reason.....firstl...compatibility.....so let say Microsoft has this new Flight built on a new platform (core engine) + DX11, PhsX, SLI, using 6 or more core ++, and this happend to be a fantastic new sim.... all slider to the right including cars traffic...no stuttering.... no blurries..... no bugs no matter what speed or detailed plane you want to use.....and Microsoft don't want to share it........

Sorry, but you are wrong! First of all: No bugs, no blurries. Sorry this is pure fantasy. You don't even have an idea how many problems are simply based on the APIs itself. There are always people that get more trouble than necessary.

In fact, contrary to some claims: Windows 7 didn't work perfectly from scratch. Instead the name of the product was probably one of the last things that were fixed. While the general public didn't saw earlier versions, developers had a totally different view on the growing pains that this program had. But for this access companies have to pay money and sign Non Disclosure Agreements. But as far as we know nobody outside Microsoft even saw their new product yet.

Second Detail costs money. If you want to simulate an airport, an airplane or the scenery you always need much more detailed sources. If you want to add these details to your basic product it will cost more. In fact it would cost much more. People are only interested in the environment that they fly in and use. If you would add all these details to the whole world people would have to pay for work, that they will never use! If you contain the lower resolution the size of the program stays smaller and even loads faster. The mo0re detail you put into the basic models the more money you need and the higher the risk for the complete project.

It makes much more sense to limit the level of detail and offer an enhancement structure. You could even sell the API permissions by simply loading registered Add-Ons and these license keys costs money. So you would earn on each additional Add-On without any additional risk on yourself.

You can even earn additional money with their Live environment:

You flew in this country, with these planes. You might be interested in the following Add-Ons...

They could even make money for these advertisements, and make additional money for the handling of financial services and the downloads. This might worry the distributor side of Aerosoft but for their own products it would offer new opportunities. They don't have to start from scratch, but simply modify their existing models and then build on these converted models the new features that they can use.

Third: Most people have no idea in which stage products can be canceled. Especially games are quite often canceled in their later stages. Contrary to popular believe such Teasers are no one way streets. The companies watch closely what kind of public response such a teaser creates. If it didn't create sufficient public reaction there is probably not sufficient interest in this new game anyway and the project is canceled.

On the other hand a new product might create such a buzz, that the product gets much more money. It will take more time to develop the finished game, but if so many people are interested in it.

If you look at the reactions outside of the special forums this news just went below the radar of the general gamers. It would be quite normal if we hear in six months that the product was canceled. On the other hand they might try to salvage the program and use a few people to build a running core based on the old materials that would use some advantages of the new systems while offering the reuse of old Add-Ons, while enhanced Add-Ons would need their license keys.

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lots of speculation on all flight sim forums now ... interesting to read :) Apparently Patty Wagstaff and Orbx are onboard, even read that Aerosoft wont be allowed access or to contribute if they go ahead with their sim ... surely not?

I guessed a certain ex very vocal FSX Beta tester would be talking about now, and he is ... LOL, saying he's not privvy on one board when questioned, and on another confirming that MS Flight will not be a Failure and we should all stop discussing it ... cant beat the Flight Sim celebrities for a chuckle :)

I remember when FSX was in development and I was asking on the newsgroups about what hardware it would support as I was upgrading, bear in mind dual core was out back then from AMD and so was SLI/Crossfire, you'd have thought I'd asked for details on home security the way I was answered by that Beta tester ... that's what I like about the openness of Aerosoft, I asked a while back on what hardware they would support, total upfront and honest answers ... Aerosoft treat you like a Customer, not one of the great unwashed!

There are predictions MS Flight will be out by January, how so much info has got out so quickly is beyond me? I'd say it all about 99% guesswork.

I hope Aerosoft do go ahead with their sim and don't feel pressure to pander to MS.

Cheers.

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Apparently Patty Wagstaff and Orbx are onboard, even read that Aerosoft wont be allowed access or to contribute if they go ahead with their sim ... surely not?

Where did you read the part about Aerosoft not being allowed to continue with their sim if the contribute?

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Where did you read the part about Aerosoft not being allowed to continue with their sim if the contribute?

Either Avsim or Flightsim.com forums, not an official statement from those sites, of course its probably just idle speculation like 99% of stuff I've been reading about MS Flight in the past day ... and I'd like to think this will not be the case, if you kill off third party support, especially a high profile company like Aerosoft, its going to cause quite a stir. putting a gun to somebody's head is something that usually backfires on you too.

Or maybe I just read it wrong, sure that was the gist of it though.

Most likely no truth in it whatsoever though.

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Where did you read the part about Aerosoft not being allowed to continue with their sim if the contribute?

This would probably be a kind of popular believe. In reality such a product might be on a scale that Microsoft simply doesn't care. Especially companies like Microsoft have the tendency to put so many people on a new project that we wouldn't believe it. But in US companies it is normal that people are only paid for their projects. If a project is finished it is their business to find a new project. For thsi purpose the big US companies clearly differentiate between internal and external employees.

Due to this structure it is quite normal that people have to fix bugs in a code that they have never seen before.

On the other hand this structure causes sometimes the loss of key staff members (and the loss of critical knowledge). So Microsoft and Apple now have special conditions for some of their staff.

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