Your theory on why Microsoft abandoned Flight Simulator

911?

Liability?

Not enough profit?

Microsoft Flight Simulator x64 Professional Edition... RIP :(

Simply because they weren't making enough money to keep it and the team going. Sales of any sort of flight simulator have been dropping for years - when I started with this hobby, there were shelves full of PC related combat simulators and FS. Now, they are all gone.

DJ

Smart Phones, tablets, etc. are where it's at. People can't spend time with a sim when they might be getting an important text or selfie from their BFL in the john!

Computers are just way too last century! Some off them don't even have touch screens!!:o

It was not just FS. In 2009 Microsoft laid off more than 5000 people to save $1,5 billion per year, and the ACES team just happened to be among them. Perfectly normal for very large companies, when the going gets tough. Only numbers count and of course whatever "strategy" the company follows in that particular year. If MS lost $10 million through abandoning the product, that is but a tiny tiny fraction of the savings, and well worth doing in the eyes of management. But of course they never think about single products anyway, but only in total numbers for "lines", "groups" or whatever. I would hazard a guess that there even were managers making the decisions in the higher echelons, who had never even heard of FSX before.

At least that is how it is in the company I used to work for these last 20 years. That one is in the "$60 billion per year" category too.

This is what happens when Corps 'throw' out the software before it's finished (ala 'knock off' mentality and from X countries). MS left a lot of garbage in the sims. There was (is?) no 'standard' for most of it. Just an SDK. Even MS did not follow (or couldn't for cost cutting purposes) it's own SDK (examples? plenty out there). They left it up to the 'developers' to improve FSX (again, to save $$$). Aces? The couldn't take out the 'eggs' the morons left in the sim OR take out the trash. A lot of (polite) complimenting and hugs and back slaping. But nothing much else.

MS was thinking that WE (simulator people) would JUMP at into online flying (which doesn't work), make videos (which doesn't work), and or XBox (which doesn't work, at least for me due to $$$).

There are so many models that could be (and should of been redone - including all the Default airplanes - maybe by Aces but now THEY are gone) 'IMPROVED'. I mean the dynamics, the panels, the textures, the effects, the lights, etc. Too many loose strings to mend or fix. They did not abandon us. They just could not see HOW they could fix it (the messed up parts) without spending gillions - so they gave up and shut down. News at 11.

Chuck B

Napamule

I think the economic meltdown of 2008 was the absolute nail in the coffin for putting out either FSX 2.0, or developing FS-XI - the forecast for people spending their disposable income on PC's was rather dreary back then, and there seemed to be no real recovery in sight.

If only Microsoft had the confidence and foresight in future technology: Moore's Law, the CPU speed, would be exceeded many times hence, the amazing advances in GPU output, and mind-boggling storage capacities all may have given them pause to throw-in the FS towel...

But wait! Now there are new predictions: The PC is dead again!

It was too expensive to develop a new platform .

It has to be all new .

FSX is so beautiful straight out of the box that Microsoft might have thought there was nothing more they could do to improve it, and simply moved on.

Certainly today, 10 years after it's release it's still king of all flight sims, just click 'Forum' at the top of this page and scroll down and you'll see there are always usually more people 'Viewing' the FSX forum than all the others combined.

And after Dovetail Games bought FSX a couple of years ago and made it available on Steam with a few tweaks, it gave it a new lease of life and we're seeing a constant stream of newcomers into the FSX forum..:)

In their own words (bold emphasis mine)

... Microsoft has closed Aces Studio, the publisher of Microsoft Flight Simulator. This was not a reflection of the quality of the products Aces has developed, the sales performance of the games, or the quality of the team at Aces. This difficult decision was made to align Microsoft's resources with our strategic priorities

It is OK to laugh now.

And MS didn't abandon Flight Simulator straight away. Again,

Microsoft Flight Simulator X will remain available at retail stores and web retailers, the Flight Sim community will continue to learn from and encourage one another, and we remain committed to the Flight Simulator franchise for the long term.

The long run being a relative notion of course.