I suspect MS generally breaks down its customers into 2 sets, i.e. business users with powerful machines and big budgets, and home users with small machines or Ipods, Playstation etc. with relatively smaller budgets.
Its a bit of a puzzle for them to see where FS fits, and I suspect they have decided that its the latter, and in the future we'll be seeing a dumbed down FS for the console or whatever, and FS as we know it will be no longer, unless another publisher comes along.
Aerosoft have an existing investment in FS as we know it, and would seem to be trying to continue along that track. The problem they face is that the existing system has been built with a lot of hooks on which to hang the add-ons. If they try to do the same and make it compatible with existing add-ons - which I'm sure would be an objective - they could face MS copyright issues. It would be much nicer for all of us if Aerosoft and MS could do a deal, but if MS does produce the console product, it may view the Aerosoft FS as unwanted competition.
Frank T.----- Original Message ----- From: "Fossil" <fossil@xxxxxxx>
To: <jhb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 1:12 AM Subject: [jhb] Re: Aerosoft Flight Simulator 2012
"The key is in Matthijs' statement that in two years time there will be verylittle market left for FSX addons and no market left for FSX." He might be right. Had MS dropped out of sim development after FS2004 thenit may have been a very different situation. FS2004 was a great product and had excellent user support - this may have got stronger over the years. FSXhas had a lukewarm reception by comparison and doesn't generate the same degree of enthusiasm. With the user base split between the two sims it doesn't give FSX a very solid development future. I guess the key issue is whether the Aces team hang together or whether funding is dropped. If the team breaks up then MS would have to start from scratch on a new sim unit and the cost may not justify the reward. I'mpretty sure unit sales of FS are down on the earlier versions because FS3/4etc were really exciting products for the time and popular. I'm not suresims now compete well with so much other fancy gaming software out there totempt the kids - it could well have run its course. bones bones@xxxxxxx -----Original Message----- From: jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Paul Reynolds Sent: 08 October 2009 00:31 To: jhb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [jhb] Re: Aerosoft Flight Simulator 2012 I'm not so sure. I deliberately withheld commenting myself because I suspect Matthijs may be kite flying here.The key is in Matthijs' statement that in two years time there will be verylittle market left for FSX addons and no market left for FSX. I think the real intention is to get MS to announce its intentions and tosignal that Aerosoft are prepared to tow the line with regard to interfacingissues, an area that MS and Aerosoft publicly fell out over when the FSX patches ditched backward compatibility.With software development cycles being what they are, Aerosoft need to know where they are going with their investment strategy over the medium to longterm. If MS hold out then, as an add-on developer, it makes sense to tryand form a coalition of like-minded third party developers and produce theirown sim for which they can supply the addons. The shrewd part is flagging up the Pro version. To me this reads 'development monies covered by pro. version partners'. It's no coincidence Matthijs says that AFS2012 may be a non-starter if theright partners cannot be found. He could just as easily have said 'Aerosoft needs a new sim by 2012 in order to sustain itself. We would prefer to know what MS are doing so we can plan accordingly but failing that we'll developour own. The problem is we can't afford to produce it on our own so who's in?' Paul -----Original Message----- From: jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Gerry Winskill Sent: 07 October 2009 21:38 To: jhb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [jhb] Re: Aerosoft Flight Simulator 2012 I'm one of a very large number who have now't to do with Virtual Cockpits! It's quite easy, in FSX, to avoid VC and just as easy to design 2D panels. The big threat has now disappeared. Rumour had it that FSXI was to be VC only, so we've been spared that! The threat was enough to convince me that FSX would be my version of choice for the foreseeable future. Gerry Winskill Fossil wrote:Interesting. Nice to see Matthijs is still active in FS - he was one of my first pilots with Noble Air. That was going back to before the Internet when it was just run on the FSForum of Compuserve. It seems a bold move. I still have a raft of CD's here for other sims that never quite made the grade - Fly!, Flight Unlimited etc - all good sims in their day but they eventually faded away into cult areas. There seem to be two requirements for a successful sim. One is that the core product needs to be good. The second is user interaction. Microsoft got it right from FS4 to FS98 with all those sims being cutting edge at their time. They also provided enough information for the user base to create tools, utilities, aircraft and scenery to vastly enhance the basic product. FS98 was probably the best release for the simple reason that FS2000 bombed and so development continued for a good four years - and this resulted in a fantastic array of add-ons from the fans and most free to download. FS2000 didn't do well but FS2002 somewhat made up for this. Two years later we got FS2004 which could be said to be the last good simulation but, in the meantime, philosophy had changed. With the FS century series users were lowly being locked out of the design process because MS started integrating the processes. Because of their obsession with virtual cockpits (first introduced in Combat Simulator which also eventually bombed) panel designers were cast into the void because panels became integral with the aircraft design. Likewise aircraft and scenery design was limited to GMax (and later FSDS) but these are complex tools and essentially moved such work from individuals to teams. In essence we now buy our aircraft add ons from the likes of Aerosoft, Real Air, PMDG and FSD and the world of the individual freeware designer has declined markedly. The decline of add-on software also happened because of MS having a two year release schedule. Upgrading the sim is no bad thing but if core elements change to the extent that add-ons become unusable then the designer gets extremely downheartened. We've lost some superb add-ons over the years because of this - FSNav, AFCAD, lots of aircraft and scenery - all perfectly operational and many still desirable as good working tools. It is obviously good marketing to have users buy a new product every two years but this is far too short a time period for add-on designers to consider developing tools for. In the past MS had good reason to release a new sim every so often as the sim was still evolving - better graphics for aircraft, panels, scenery, better weather, better ATC. I think this has reached a peak now and although FSX introduced improved environmental factors like snow and rain I think innovation in FS is now coming to an end and the only progress is now in refinement of what we already have. If Mattijs creates a sim which has all the facilities of FSX but then locks the core sim engines to allow free development from users then it may prove successful. I already doubt this as his comment about building the sim around DX11 shows that he is aiming at loftier goals - am ultimate flight sim product built for a really top end PC. I suspect some users will desire this but I regret I won't. I've spend more than 12 years upgrading my PC to chase decent frame rates in the latest FS version and it's a race I no longer find affordable or a desirable challenge. bones bones@xxxxxxx <mailto:bones@xxxxxxx> *From:* jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Paul Reynolds *Sent:* 07 October 2009 06:35 *To:* JHB Private List *Subject:* [jhb] Aerosoft Flight Simulator 2012 I'm sure some of you would have seen this mentioned by now but for those who haven't see http://www.forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?showtopic=29444 Comments anyone? Paul
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