This is HUGE - Rumour says ACES are fired!

[SUBS17]

Its no longer a rumour by the looks no worrys though something better is on the horizon.

[AlisterC]

I too think this is a curious moment in Flightsim history, but if the flight sim series was to end yesterday, I still think we are very well off. FS9 is extremely stable, choca-block full of available addons, and to be honest, other than the engine in the background, most of us will be less and less microsoft in our installs anyway. I have addons for everything, mesh, textures, sky colours, weather, clouds, planes, sounds. So as an engine, need I ask for more from Microsoft? This is probably one of the underlying reasons so few have really taken up FSX.
FSX on the other hand is fully patched now, running smoothly and also stable. Plus it is advanced enough that most of us might have a computer in the next 10 years to run it with all the sliders all the way up. At which point we'll still be enjoying FSX.
I just hope they continue to support their product, but it seems hard to see how they will do that after they get rid of the team that built it. Let's not forget the lesser known sim here, Microsoft ESP. This no doubt has applications in the business world, and while we hobbists might not pull much weight with Microsoft as simply gamers, Microsoft will at least have to look after business applications using this platform.
All in all a sad day, adding to the increasingly worried state of the world

[spongebob206]

It is a shock, and very sad news.
But this could be a bit of a blessing also. Look at the positive side, FSX is going to be around for a long time. Community development can now make this the best Sim ever.

All these fine people will be less hesitant to work long hours on a project thinking the next version could be close.

Wouldn't supprise me to see more payware addons popping up all over the place. Fine by me, the more realistic the better.

Cheers All

[Christian]

To official quotes from Microsoft I found this morning (I took the liberty of summing up murky bla bla into one sentence):

"Yes, the whole FS team has been fired"

"No decision has been made about MSFS as a product yet"

[spongebob206]

QUOTE (Christian @ Jan 24 2009, 09:44 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

To official quotes from Microsoft I found this morning (I took the liberty of summing up murky bla bla into one sentence):

"Yes, the whole FS team has been fired"

"No decision has been made about MSFS as a product yet"

Hey Christian,

Now any word on FSX dedicated Landclass? Mountains and roads etc?

Cheers

[greaneyr]

Let me grab two poignant posts from this thread that I think push some good points :

QUOTE (towerguy @ Jan 23 2009, 11:09 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

... bad for the staff involved BUT .. if Msoft don't want the dollars then just think what X-plane could become!

open source and already better dynamics!

the world hasn't ended - just changed.

QUOTE (toprob @ Jan 23 2009, 11:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But in 10 year's time we'll still be simming away merrily, whether or not the name on the sim is MS. We might even be staunch X-planers, or Flight Gearists, we'll just look back at this time as a bit of a glitch in our hobby.

I don't believe for a second that FSX is 'as good as it gets' as far as what we've got to sim with. By that I mean that it's not the 'last simulator' we'll use. I hope people don't think that nothing else will take MSFS's place, and that we'll have to make do with FSX for the rest of all time. Something will come up - it always will. Just like the phrase 'there will always be an England' I think the huge customer base has justified the notion that 'there will always be a flight sim'. It's not like an ATC simulation that has a much smaller fan base. Commercially speaking, it's a potential goldmine for someone who wants to pick up the pieces (read 'staff who have been made redundant') and make something new from it.

People adapt. Just because our one and only source of a simulator has dried up, doesn't mean there won't be another one. As many have pointed out, X-Plane is already out there, as is flightgear, albeit rather FS98-like in its appearance.

As long as the demand is there, we'll have our sim in one form or another.

[SteelBlades]

As an X-Plane user (and Mac owner - so can't even run MSFS) and feel a little insulated from this event. Nevertheless, I'm reminded of comments made about the Mac platform a decade ago, "Even if Apple were to cease trading immediately, the platform would still have at least five years of life - at least". I'm quite certain that this comment is as true for FSX today as it might have been for Mac OS in the late 1990s.

I have three other thoughts on the demise of MS's flight sim product. First is that it's a shame that a viable competitor has been lost. I don't believe X-Plane would be where it is today without MSFS to push it along. Competition is good for product development.

Second is that with only X-Plane and FlightGear remaining, and a lot of developers looking for a long term future, they're going to have to make a choice - this is assuming that Flight Simulator isn't picked up by another house (like EA) which it yet may. It is however likely that X-Plane or FlightGear (or both) will find themselves the unexpected recipients of a lot of 3rd party talent. That will be very exciting for the broader flight sim community. Who knows what will come out in the wash.

My third thought is that really, people shouldn't be surprised by this announcement (I sure wasn't). There are a host of reasons why MS has ended so much investment in their Entertainment and Devices group. First is that, overall, it doesn't do very well. Most of the fault is with the Zune and Xbox - it's been very expensive to develop the Xbox and is still significantly outsold by the Wii and PlayStation (2 and 3). And the Zune has been a very poor performer, utterly outgunned but the iPod (latest quarterly revenue has dropped 54%). But MS thinks there's potential with the Xbox so investment in purely game software has been knocked back a peg or two in favour of the Xbox. Windows Mobile is also a prt of that group and has been hit hard by the iPhone, missing all its sales targets in the past financial year. As well, MS has lost huge amounts of money since Vista was released. Windows and Office are MS's cash cows, but the Windows cow has dried up badly, and Office 2007 hasn't exactly been snapped up either. The profit from MSFS is chump change for Microsoft. Even with its billions in the bank, MS can't operate at a loss, so something has to give - and we now know where some of those expendables were.

Frankly, it's the responsible thing to do - at least from the shareholder's point of view; shed the fat and focus on core activities. For us flight sim enthusiasts though - it's personal and it's really sad for the commercial third party developers. For most of us however, it not that big a deal. It'll be years before FSX has to be put out to pasture. To say Flight Sim is no more is a bit silly. There are thousands of copies working fine on computers all over the world. It's just unlikely that there'll be a replacement version.

Of course, X-Plane and FlightGear will continue to improve and in five years, are likely to be much better. I'd argue that X-Plane is every bit as good as FSX is now (better actually). It just needs more third party scenery. Well, that may be about to happen.

My parting comment is to MSFS owners who might be in a bit of a flap. Don't worry, your software won't stop working. If you can continue to use Windows XP for 7 years, I'm sure you'll find ways to give FSX a long and useful life too.

[Updated to include links]

[Michael]

For all the people that got made redundant, if they know exactly what they're doing how hard is it to goto some rich guy and say, "Fund us"

[Ian Warren]

Peter , you said it in a nutshell , its going to be many years even before looking at putting the camp fire out on Microsoft Flight Sim , they have built a base from which we al can work from and get it the REAL AS IT GETS! , third party peoples , possibly a break . For the earlier program users this means they can catch up and enjoy the latest scenery's or models we all enjoy , FSX is Superb and FS9 Wicked . ' Flight of the Phoenix ' last week , hmm not even an ash , least for many years , maybe with this pause an intergratiion with Xplane at a later point .

[Njbb1995]

Its just the way it happened really and theres no point moaning and whining about it because theres not much we can do apart from hope that M/S comes to there senses and reinstates MSFS.

[toprob]

QUOTE (SteelBlades @ Jan 24 2009, 03:04 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

..........
My third thought is that really, people shouldn't be surprised by this announcement (I sure wasn't). There are a host of reasons why MS has ended so much investment in their Entertainment and Devices group. First is that, overall, it doesn't do very well. Most of the fault is with the Zune and Xbox - it's been very expensive to develop the Xbox and is still significantly outsold by the Wii and PlayStation (2 and 3). And the Zune has been a very poor performer, utterly outgunned but the iPod (latest quarterly revenue has dropped 54%). But MS thinks there's potential with the Xbox so investment in purely game software has been knocked back a peg or two in favour of the Xbox. Windows Mobile is also a prt of that group and has ben hit hard by the iPhone, missing all its sales targets in the past financial year. As well, MS has lost huge amounts of money since Vista was released. Windows and Office are MS's cash cows, but the Windows cow has dried up badly, and Office 2007 hasn't exactly been snapped up either. The profit from MSFS is chump change for Microsoft. Even with its billions in the bank, MS can't operate at a loss, so something has to give - and we now know where some of those expendables were.
..............

Yes, an economic crisis is not the time to be throwing money at a market in the hope that in the end you'll be the only one left with money to throw. Loss leaders are a symptom of the sort of marketing practises which have led directly to this sort of result.

It may seem unfortunate, as well, that FS falls under the banner of some of their riskier ventures, but I don't think that the FSX 'fixes', which delayed future FS development by at least a year, and no doubt reduced the profit, did it much good. In purely financial terms, MS did the wrong thing to fix FSX, but that doesn't stop us all from being thankful that the did the right thing, where 'right' means something other than what's good for the shareholders.

[Michael]

Although that could be debated, if MS didn't fix FSX then people would change to a better game.

[creator2003]

I think most would try to fix it to work like we do with our computers to keep up with fsx , as a designer for X im pretty happy i was left with this platform to work with for the next 4-5 years maybe longer ,but im really not worrying about what could be in that time ..
Honestly i think it will be snapped up again when things are better till then i know what i buy now will last a very long time for my sim ...

[Yak52aholic]

I'm thinking of the other sim. Okay most of us are alright with FSX - I am (even though I use FS9!). But what about the 2/3rds finished Train Sim 2? That could have been Microsoft's big seller; I among probably many were waiting for this sim to be released. Looks like Microsoft just handed alot of sales to Rail Simulator.

[benwynn]

Finally I can get rid of my s**t ass PC, and use my Mac!

But in all seriousness, I do find it a little odd. I thought FS would have been one of the large sellers within the company (in comparison to other things, probably not - but games, yes)

Kinda sad really, just a few days ago we were all talking about FS11, and now this..

Perhaps all the ex Microsoft staff will move to X-Plane, now we're talking!

[IronAngle]

The whole thing is sad......I've always been a big supporter of MS flight simulators

[Christian]

FS was indeed a cash cow, it made $1,000,000 this december, but FSX wasn't as sucessful as FS9, except maybe shortly after release. As Steelblades pointed out MS want to compete with Apple against whom they are losing market shares and Google and Nintendo are another competitors who make profit on MS turf. MS is going back to it's roots and video games aren't part of it. FS just isn't seen as core business at MS - despite the profit. And I'm sure as Robin points out, the whole FSX patch fiasko sure didn't help. That was a whole year 'wasted'.

In terms of FS hobby, what we've seen is a dramatic drop in traffic to MSFS related sites like avsim and flightsim.com over 2008 (eg, traffic to avsim in dec 2008 was half than what it was in jan 2008). This reflects a significant drop in FS fans. X-Plane still is a fraction of what MSFS sites pull in traffic and X-plane traffic has been pretty constant, with the notable exception of the month of the iPhone release which had a massive spike, as Austin reports a 400% increase in profits for him, but that has gone back to normal for now so there is no indication that people are switching. However, the hardcore fans are going to stick around I'm sure...

Change will come, but it's impossible to predict what's going to happen. Most likely it's going to be business as usual over the next 6 months, maybe with the trend of the decreasing fan base continuing...

[Naki]

What rotten news to come home from holidays to.

At the risk of repeating whats been said elsewhere, in my view I dont think FS will die and I am hoping that MS (or maybe another company) will resurrect FS in a few years time when times are better economy wise.

On the bright side at least this will give some breathing space for add on developers to get some great addons out before the next version of the sim comes along (if it this does occur at all!).....and for our PCs to catch up with FSX.

[Naki]

....just another thought maybe Google will come up with a great flight sim one day...

[benwynn]

Perhaps a new company taking over FS would be just what we needed? Somebody that actually listens to our requests!