I have also heard that MS are planning to control of 3rd party add-ons for MS Flight. Personally, I think this is a huge mistake. Because of that, I think that MS Flight will suffer from a lack of either sales, or 3rd party add-ons. Most likely the latter. A lot of developers might just decide it isn't worth the bother of doing add-ons for either, which would be a slap across the face for MS trying to be too controlling. It would serve them right too! It will probably also keep the interest in FSX for quite a while longer if MS are going to do that.

Mark

I think Microsoft (MS) are trying to get back what they inadvertently handed away with FSX and the SDK (ACE Editor and GMAX) release (Well done the former ACE team they finally got their own back after MS did them over when they first started out as ATP and wrote the original progams for flight sim) otherwise nothing much would be  happening now with FSX.

I guess it is typical MS trying to control the whole thing or vertically integrate their products. MS have always hated open source software and community collaboration but in the case of FS every time they changed it there was enough coding out there to prevent them form basically licensing everything. If the go for third party addons you can bet the first thing they will do is make them licensed not owned and charge you a fee for them every 12 months and find away of making users pay for everything else that you would need to make it a decent flight sim program.

They also ignore the huge number of enthusiastic developers and programmers who with their contributions of add ons: aircraft, scenery, utilities etc have helped make FSX and other previous versions the great programs they are.

I am with MarkOZ everyone will vote with their feet and stay with FSX and if they persist then hopefully an open source public license flight sim program compatible with FSX stuff will turn up, it has been done before and it can be done again.

Basically MS missed the boat with gaming and game programs and this is just part of their strategy to try and control the world again, sorry guys your times up this time.

Here's what some think will be the case ---- or close to it:

"Hi,

The FLIGHT will be released with a limited scenery (Hawaii) and a limited number of aircrafts. Both scenery and airplane will be of very good quality compared to FSX.

A new FLIGHTSTORE will also be released, where add-on developers (and MS themself) can sell their add-on airplanes, sceneries ( new parts of the WORLD) and other utilities.

With the FLIGHTSTORE concept (ala APPLE STORE) they will make sure to get a steady revenue stream by taking 15% profit from all add-on sellers.

New add-on sceneries will be developed and sold thru FLIGHTSTORE.

In addition the initial release with Hawaii only scenery will also be XBOX verified.

Multiplayer and VATSIM alike system will all be part of XBOX LIve.

This concept is well within the strategy of MS."

This was posted on the AVSIM FLIGHT Forum yesterday, but has been a fairly common supposition in one form or another for some time.

I am, and I would be willing to bet the vast majority of flight simmers are too, perfectly content and satisfied with the FSX default level of systems sophistication. I have no intention or motivation to delve into the more sophisticated FMS type aircraft. I do want super high end graphics but have no interest in FMC systems. I can live with Capt Sim ac as long as I can add the FSX default GPS tracking of FSX flight plans. Beyond that, I'm not interested. This is a computer game, as far as I'm concerned --- not a full motion flight simulator. I do think it's terrific that the FMS level of immersion is available for those that are interested.

All speculation deduced mostly from the info released by MS on their Flight site. Read it on the AVSIM Flight forum.

http://forum.avsim.net/forum/365-the-microsoft-flight-forum/

If flight is "Hawaii only", then it is a big step backwards. When I first bought subLOGIC Flight Simulator 2 for my Commodore 64 (1984) and later for my Commodore Amiga 1000 (1987), it only came with, I think, scenery for Illinois and surrounding areas. I did end up buying some extra scenery (the entire USA I think) for my Amiga version, but it was a pity that it wasn't a "global" sim.

Sometimes I think MS is stupid with some of their ideas (if this is true with Flight, then this is one of them). This could really ruin a good franchise. Maybe we can/should hope that Bruce Artwick will restart it under a different name and give us a better deal!

Mark

CoastalDriver wrote on Dec 10^th, 2011 at 9:39am:


Huh? McFlightSim? No way! Maybe it would be pretty tasty but with few nutrients and a lot of dripping fat. Not to mention the chips. No, thanks!