MS Flightsim staff canned

[Andy44]

Anybody rememebr SubLogic? Their Flight Assignment: ATP was a "renegade" MSFS jetliner sim that ran on a similar engine and could use the same scenery and weather add-ons. That was my favorite flight sim for a long time. I'd like to see something like that come along again.

 

[Moonwalker]

I think it is more likely Microsoft will sell the Flight simulator franchise for good money to another specialist simulation company. Microsoft will more likely concentrate on XBox games as this brings them more money.

I also think that this is the most likely case going to happen.

 

[Andy44]

Which is scary, because there are other companies out there that used to put out good game software and seemed indestructable, like Spectrum Holobyte and Microprose, which are now history.

 

[Urwumpe]

Which is scary, because there are other companies out there that used to put out good game software and seemed indestructable, like Spectrum Holobyte and Microprose, which are now history.

The spirit of Microprose at least still exists... Firaxis games are still active, for the publisher Take Two.

 

[Zachstar]

Whatever happens there will not be another MSFS for half a decade.

#1 If they sell it to say EA. The new team will need years just to start modifying it much less start adding new features.

#2 If MS keeps it. The experience people have been laid off and are not coming back.

I am not saying it will be poor quality. But ACES was it as far as such a great experience.

As for X-Plane. That is not a solution. To get it going right requires an insane amount of work that nobody but a small nitch will get into seriously. Addon devs have no hope there.

FSX could last 5 years If we continue to see quality freeware come out. Project Opensky is the best hope in this regard.

I had hoped MS would compete for Orbiter for Spaceflight Simulation but that is out of the question now so I guess it is onward and upward to the next version (That is assuming Martin gets the next version out before the next MSFS)

 

[Scrooge McDuck]

Although I haven't used it a lot lately (mainly due to real flying and Condor soaring sim ), it would be very sad if the development of MS Flight Simulator XI would stop right in the middle.. This illustrates how big the impacts of the crisis already are...

The end of the Microsoft Flight Simulator era

The Wiki MSFS page has a slight different story;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator
This is their source:
http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/947/947737p1.html

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."

What would they mean with this? I thought LIVE is called their new series of website (including LIVE-maps). Would this mean that they are concentrating to combine flightsimulation with VirtualEarth/Live-maps data?

regards,
mcduck

 

[Zachstar]

It does not matter.. The team is gone. They are off looking for new jobs.

So they want to combine them? So what? It will still be useless as you (Microsoft) will not know the tricks the team did to improve performance, you will not have the experience with the scenery engine.

MS ****** up!

 

[Andy44]

The only way it survives in a recognizeable form is if MS quickly sells or subs it out to another firm (like, say, SubLogic or equivalent), who then quickly hire up the staff before they get snatched up by other firms.

I don't see it happening.

That said, the FS code will still be out there, so MS may be able to fiddle with it in the future.

 

[movieman]

I think it is more likely Microsoft will sell the Flight simulator franchise for good money to another specialist simulation company.

If they intended to do that, they would have sold the team with it; a bazillion lines of code developed over decades is worse than useless without the people who wrote it (or, at least, have spent years learning how the damn thing works).

 

[Urwumpe]

If they intended to do that, they would have sold the team with it; a bazillion lines of code developed over decades is worse than useless without the people who wrote it (or, at least, have spent years learning how the damn thing works).

Not the team, just the franchise. The label "MS Flight Simulator".

 

[Zachstar]

If they intended to do that, they would have sold the team with it; a bazillion lines of code developed over decades is worse than useless without the people who wrote it (or, at least, have spent years learning how the damn thing works).

Bingo! This is why many people have a doom and gloom view of the situation.

I say 5 years in the least. It might be 10 years at this rate.

 

[Moonwalker]

FSX could last 5 years If we continue to see quality freeware come out. Project Opensky is the best hope in this regard.

It's not basically freeware (which is even minor for FSX compared to FS9). Most serious simmers indeed buy the professional stuff a lot. That is what makes MSFS famous in the community (Flight1/JustFlight/Dreamfleet/PMDG and all the others). And regarding to JustFlight and other great payware addon companies, FSX is going to get great addons for at least another 4 - 5 years.

I don't see any problem of no new FS version for some years. FSX, but also FS9, still can be enjoyed for many many years even beyond ~2015. Even FS9 (which is still used a lot), combined with all the great payware enhancements, actually looks not much different to a clean FSX installation anyway (beside the water surface basically, which is just frame rate hungry). I use FS9 since 2004, and it's still my favourite one, and I think this even is going to continue for the entire Windows XP support timespan. And I'm by far not the only FS9 freak. And FSX also has a rather good chance of survival. There is just no other choice. X-Plane? Not for those simmers who love the complex stuff.

FSX but also FS9 will continute to live for a long time. And I believe long enough that meanwhile something happens in a direction like FS11...

 

[Zachstar]

Go try to run FS98 for more than a few hours.

In 2015 FSX will REALLY start to show its age. By 2015 if we arent using quantum computing cards we will be using cards that are able to render 2x what they can now. Nvidia is already getting ready to get a new hi end card out that has an insane amount of computing ability.

While I think FSX has 5 years. I got to admit now that I think about it. That is about it. At that point it will be better modify a combat sim than continue to mess with FSX.

 

[movieman]

Not the team, just the franchise. The label "MS Flight Simulator".

Franchise is next to useless without the code, and the code is next to useless without the team. Though it's about time the MSFS graphics engine had a total rewrite.

 

[Hielor]

Go try to run FS98 for more than a few hours.

In 2015 FSX will REALLY start to show its age. By 2015 if we arent using quantum computing cards we will be using cards that are able to render 2x what they can now. Nvidia is already getting ready to get a new hi end card out that has an insane amount of computing ability.

While I think FSX has 5 years. I got to admit now that I think about it. That is about it. At that point it will be better modify a combat sim than continue to mess with FSX.

MS is betting (I suppose) that with the downturn of the economy, fewer people are going to be looking to buying high-end rigs. With fewer demand for high-end computing, there will be less advancement at the high end of the spectrum. MSFS games have always been written to do well on computers that don't exist yet (look at FSX, systems that can run it really well have only been around for a few months), and I guess they decided that there was no more room for advancement if the computers to run the thing weren't going to be there.

Nvidia just released the GTX295 and 285; I doubt that there will be any new cards coming from them anytime soon (plus, they're out of numbers in the 2xx series ). The 3xx series isn't due until Q3-Q4 2009, from what I've heard.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if we do see a lessening of the advancement curve at the high-end of the computing spectrum over the next few months/years. With money starting to be tight, there just won't be as many buyers for the things.

As for games getting old: Warcraft III was released nearly seven years ago; Frozen Throne nearly six. There's still a massive number of players for both (mostly due to DotA, probably) online. How many people still play Starcraft, and how old is that?

Games that sit at the pinnacle of their genre tend to stick around for a long time. I doubt that any flight sim is going to come close to FSX anytime soon, and as the current high-end that's needed to run it beautifully becomes cheaper, more people will go to it instead of FS2004.

 

[Moonwalker]

Things have changed. The graphical step between flight simulator 2004 and FSX is close to zero beside the water and a very view lighting effects (FSX just includes a DX10 preview anyway). The differences are very hardly noticable if you use FS Water and Flight1 Flight & Ground Environment for FS9. Many people don't want to buy the most addons again for FSX, while it doesn't make a noticable difference in most cases, and for airplanes nearly in all cases. That's why a significant part of the flight simulator community still sticks with FS9 (including me). And FS9 + all the usual enhancements actually still looks better than the latest X-Plane.

FSX is going to do its job still when Orion will be in LEO already. And FS9 still will look close to FSX at that time too, which will be more than 10 years old already.

FS9 was published in 2003. This is how it looks in 2009:

 

[Zachstar]

Yes it looks good now. However it will not look good in 2015. Period! They said the same thing when FS98 was getting kicked in the teeth compared to FS2000 and FS2002.

By the time Orion gets to Orbit people will have modified a combat sim to do Civil stuff and the FS9 crowd will be as nitch as FS98 is today.

5 years is a long time in today's world.

Oh BTW hardware is not slowing down. It is rapidly speeding up. Nvidia is preparing a new line of cards that will kick the teeth out of any setup. The high end ones will be the equivalent of running 4 GTX 295s in quad SLI.

Intel is getting ready for a new line of cheaper Core i7s And plans are underway for an 8 Core CPU within a year or 2. Also they are preparing for the jump to 32nm.

Right now with a good setup you can max FSX. Before you know it you can run 2 of em maxed. Then 4. Then the Half Life 3 or whatever will showcase graphics that woo away more of the nondedicated simmers and free addon makers. So on and so forth until FSX is as nitch as FS98 is today.

The only way it will look good in 2015 is if this recession continues and people are still using 45nm CPUs in 2015. I personally doubt the recession will go that long.

 

[Linguofreak]

Yes it looks good now. However it will not look good in 2015. Period! They said the same thing when FS98 was getting kicked in the teeth compared to FS2000 and FS2002.

Well, one problem is that sims are getting to look so good that it's getting harder to tell the difference between what you see in a sim and what you see in a TV image taken from the cockpit of a real aircraft. You can only improve graphics so far before the human eye can't tell the difference.

 

[Hielor]

Oh BTW hardware is not slowing down. It is rapidly speeding up. Nvidia is preparing a new line of cards that will kick the teeth out of any setup. The high end ones will be the equivalent of running 4 GTX 295s in quad SLI.

Source?

I doubt this, very much. First off, all the sources I've read say Q3-Q4 2009 for the 3xx series.

Plus, 4 GTX 295s would be 8 2xx GPUs....yeah, I'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Power jumps don't happen that quickly in the real world.

 

[Zachstar]

An old tube TV maybe but nothing compared to an HD image.