Your feelings on Microsoft FLIGHT?

[csefton]

Am surprised Microsoft have avoided this Marketing technique for so long to be honest....LETS FACE IT..the whole franchise has evolved around what?...ADD-ONS!...add on aircraft, scenery, textures etc...

We have the base sim then we have a HUGE surrounding market of payware downloads available, lucrative 3rd parties are making lots of money offering everything from VFR scenery, new texture upgrades to highly authentic aircraft......

Apart from selling the original base units what do Microsoft get in return for supplying the much needed base simulation software ?.....answer NOTHING....yet we see whole new software and hardware add-on industries spring up to capitalise on the lucrative market....even sites like Flightsim com would be non existent if it wasn't for Microsoft....so someone somewhere finally realised...HEY!...why dont WE offer the 3rd party addons...the new planes, the new scenery etc.....and who can blame them....after all its ALL about money...everything is about money....Microsoft as big and as greedy and wealthy as it already is...it is not a charity!....they are thinking instead of offering the cake and let others take a slice of the action and charge extra for it...they are offering their own slices themselves hoping we will all be enthused enough after playing the Hawaii demo to want to go and buy more slices of their cake.....why provide just the basic ingredients for others to embellish when they can provide the filling, the icing etc.....after all Microsoft live was developed for such things...

The really sad part of all this is they will probably fail at achieving their objectives at marketing their new sim hoping for a new market of eager to upgrade and spend customers....i seriously doubt FSX users will be tempted away from their already beautiful and comprehensive sim just to spend their money on upgrading Microsoft Flight....Like Nels said..This product is not FSXI, it's something new and different....yep thats for sure....

In the end i DON'T see a REAL market for FLIGHT..yes we will all download the demo/free island/plane etc...but i seriously doubt many will start shelling out for new scenery...maybe a few will add to the Hawaii island chain but i cant see much further than that....a lot will depend on Price....but also on whether Flight represents a worthwhile invest-able improvement over FSX..like i said most FSX users wont feel the justification to abandon their old sims in favour of Flight.....and i cant see a huge market open up with new casual users on xbox 360's everywhere suddenly springing up.. so i see dark clouds on the horizon for FLIGHT...and with it the true and SAD end of the whole Microsoft flight simulator series....

[HectorD]

Meh, FSX was a disaster at launch, and Flight will probably also be a disaster. Nothing new here. As far as the addon scheme, as long as getting the complete package doesn't cost over $50 I am fine with that.

[Nels_Anderson]

Meh, FSX was a disaster at launch, and Flight will probably also be a disaster. Nothing new here. As far as the addon scheme, as long as getting the complete package doesn't cost over $50 I am fine with that.

Ah ha, someone with a bit of a memory. Anyone who has been around for a while will recall that these same sort of negative comments came along with every new release of Flight Simulator, whether justified or not. FSX was a big problem when it first came out, no one could run it, etc. but now most people have embraced it. The same sort of complaints happened on previous releases. On one previous release (somewhere around FSFW95) Avsim even started a boycott movement which was really a pretty silly thing to do, but they did it. Flight hasn't even been released yet and people are condemning it as a failure. It will be interesting to see what people are saying a year from now.

[xxmikexx]

Folks, kindly see my remarks here.

[fxsttcb]

Apart from selling the original base units what do Microsoft get in return for supplying the much needed base simulation software ?.....answer NOTHING

It's their fault if they didn't create marketable add-ons for their franchise.

Putting out a new un-improved, dumbed down, flight game, will not improve their standing with flying enthusiasts.
Folks that just wanna fly a game, once in a while, will grab the freebie and that's it. Kinda hard to see any ROI in that.

Just like most of us, the true flyers will start yearning for more and more detail in their flying. FDE, RW Weather, ATC, MS to the rescue? Bull.
Killing freeware availability is not going to endear Flight to the old or new flyers.
Ten minutes on a computer flight forum will inform the newbies that before "Flight" freebie enhancements were available.
Thousands upon thousands of them. How are they gonna feel about that?..."Cheated" comes to mind.

As someone noted before, the folks at Google are probably spending a lot of time reading feedback on "Flight".

Hey Google, give us a planet, with extremely detailed terrain, and an SDK for us freeware hobbyists and developers alike.
There is plenty of room for all. Modularized gaming, trains, cars, boats, planes, 1st person shooters, the sciences, history, anything that can use an accurate environment.
All of those could be fruitful using an accurate base planet. For example; submariners could benefit by oceanography experts adding their findings to the mix. Wanna-be Astronauts would love the input of RW Astronomers(Galaxy add-ons).

Once the base model is sold don't sit on your laurels, keep developing it.
Pay-to-Play updates, undersea exploration, outerspace(the Universe at light speed?) will keep the cash flow going.

The end all, be all, simulator is up for grabs. Whoever does it is gonna make a killing...Don

[ReggieF5421]

Actually I see Flight as a huge win for Microsoft.

Even though sales of Flight Simulator have always depended upon new 'gamer' type folks for success, that has always been the biggest weakness. Most of those folks simply don't know how to handle a world wide simulation without specific targets, goals and points scoring.

However, Flight will not take over the 'Simulator' market. We are small, too small to support development of a world-wide based product. But we want things which they cannot supply with Flight. I don't know where the hobby will go, but I'm sure that FS2004 and FSX will be around, loved and used heavily for a long, long time.

[Razor68]

I think it will be a good flight simulator, i am sure gonna buy it. But fsx will stay on my computer cause i love it and there is not realy that mutch i am missing. I think they will aim for the flightsim market and not the casual "gamer" who don't care about navigation and real flying, they will get bored and drop out of line quit fast. So if it gonna be a success they have to make it a serious flightsim. But we will see when it is finished.

[Jugador]

As far as the addon scheme, as long as getting the complete package doesn't cost over $50 I am fine with that.

Don't count on it. EA has a similar scheme with their "Need for Speed World" game. How does $100 bucks for one stupid car sound?

$100 bucks for one car

[benny1]

Hawaii may have been a bad choice to showcase Flight , right away it has to compete with Megascenery X Hawaii , anyone who owns Megascenery probably wont be impressed with Flight . PS , for myself , if i did get Flight i hope they have DVD options without activated on line BS

[benEggleston16]

Meh, FSX was a disaster at launch

I was thinking that too, but i doubt this one will pick itself up the way FSX did.
Now, I'm almost suprised at the way people are saying 'I'll not leave FSX' when six years ago they were probably saying the same about FS9