MS Flight Sim in 2020

[Charl]

the winner stays the winner.

Disagree. After the FSX debacle, the flightsim community became fractious and fragmented.
There is no coherent NZ flightsim as a result.
If all the available energies could be directed at a quality base product, we would have something worth talking about.
You have to hope they will permit 3rd party development, in the past that is what the community thrived on.

[toprob]

I keep going back to the idea of ESP. Here's the 2007 news item on the Microsoft site. Remember that Lockheed Martin purchased ESP, and have built Prepar3d from it. The main focus of ESP was a Platform for Visual Simulation, just as it says in the headline. Here's a quote from the article:

Capitalizing on years of investment in the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise, Microsoft ESP allows partners and developers to focus on creating compelling and differentiated Windows-based solutions that go beyond entertainment and are consistent with the industry’s move toward serious games and games-based learning as training tools. The initial version of the platform focuses on Microsoft’s established strength and expertise in aviation capabilities and is targeted to military and commercial aviation audiences. Future versions of Microsoft ESP will expand beyond aviation into ground and maritime operations, indoor and avatar-centric simulations for commercial, government and academic learning opportunities.

Now LM have built ESP into a great flight simulator, but they haven't really worried too much about looking beyond that. Although our aircraft and airports look a lot better, 90% of the 'world' looks the same as it did prior to ESP, with just a few tweaks here and there. Pretty much the same landclass/topo/autogen etc. Who here only uses 'default' Prepar3d or FSX?

So it seems like the ideal time for Microsoft to rebuild their visualisation tool which started with ESP, and can now harness the cloud to deliver the whole world to those 'commercial, government and academic' customers. Like ESP, the initial release will be targeting at aviation, then expand to other areas. This is what people have been expecting Google to do with their resources such as GE, but it looks like Microsoft gets there first.

So, as flight simmers, we hopefully get to take advantage of this, but we are not now or will ever be the target market. Even if it fails as the new ESP, it might be successful enough as a PC/console game. So if MS don't manage to get tens of thousands of commercial customers, they might get a million or two gamers. A few thousand simmers are not going to be more than a blip in the market here, so we might not get the perfect flight simulator that we all expect.

Whatever we do get will probably still be great in a lot of ways. We might even get the train simulator that they were working on back then:) I can remember plenty of animated people in the station, and these were also shown in the previews of the new flight simulator. They obviously survived the decade in the wilderness, because they show up again in the new video.

Based on what I remember from those days before it all fell apart, we will get a good multi-player system, because that's always been a big part of Xbox gaming, but it is up in the air whether we'll get third party access to an open SDK. That would be great, but I won't bet the farm on it. Speaking of the farm, imagine being able to use a downloaded and ready-to-go simulation of your ranch, down to the outhouse. People pay plenty for that sort of thing.

[Kelvinr]

[quote="Charl"][quote="Kelvinr"]the winner stays the winner.[/quote]
Disagree. After the FSX debacle, the flightsim community became fractious and fragmented.
There is no coherent NZ flightsim as a result.
If all the available energies could be directed at a quality base product, we would have something worth talking about.
You have to hope they will permit 3rd party development, in the past that is what the community thrived on.[/quote]

I guess we have our own opinions. We all know that the company that has the most consumers buying their products is the "winner". Yes, there is some form of fragmentation in the community but all in all the majority will choose the best product because of a number of factors, which in this case if we all get what we want in a sim, with FS 2020, then M$$ would have done a great job by listening to the majority of consumers for this genre.

Let's all see how it pans out, we all know what happens when we get too excited and then the MS Flight situation happens, it's very anti-climatic.

:thumbup:

[dnkiwi]

Hi Guys the new flight simulator is looking awesome and i find it exciting to see that once again microsoft is giving new life the simulator series i cant wait to see what new features will be added but I'm impressed with what was shown in the trailer I'm also very keen to see their choppers and what improvements they will have

[Charl]

A few thousand simmers are not going to be more than a blip in the market here, so we might not get the perfect flight simulator that we all expect.

Eh? I think we deserve nothing less.

Phil Spencer, Microsoft's head of gaming, hopes that its revival is more evidence of its renewed commitment to PC.
"Flight Sim was a game in our past that sold millions and millions of units and had a very, very passionate community—in fact, they're still out there," says Spencer.

Umm is there a reason for no less than 3 threads on this topic?
Or does nobody read anything beyond what they themselves post?

[emfrat]

Umm is there a reason for no less than 3 threads on this topic?
Or does nobody read anything beyond what they themselves post?

Well said Charl
At this stage the MS notice only has general relevance to the NZFF community, so it should be confined to the 'General' topic.

[toprob]

Yes, when I start my browser it'll load a few tabs, one is 'view new posts' here, so I always get to see if/when there's anything new. With so few posts, it does seem funny that people are missing whole threads:)

[emfrat]

Rob, I remember in the old UK VFR forum, while I was helping someone on a particular matter, another member made a new post, asking for advice on the same subject. He used an almost identical title (only an apostrophe missing). I did not respond.
Mike

[Aharon]

Watch on youtube.com

[Snowman]

Fifteen years in the wilderness... this time I'M IN!!!!

Hmmmmmmm,..................... After all this time in darkness without a new MS Flight Simulator, even i will be in on this one i think !!

[Naki]

My goodness. Hi Lawrie!

[Snowman]

My goodness. Hi Lawrie!

Hey there Paul.
LOL,.......... yeah, its me,............ honest.
Its been a while....................

[Sonnyj]

Hi Lawrie, I was gonna PM you but then thought it was an "announcement" that you turned up. Same as Paul, Nice to see you. ME? FSX still, a bundle of your stuff NZ & Pacific keeps me content in the simulator. Also looking forward to M$ possibilities. Cheers

[Charl]

Its been a while....................

No ... see ya next year for a little NZ - centric stuff.

[Radar88]

Three Grumpy Simmers - Microsoft Did What Now? Microsoft Flight Simulator - Just The Facts!

Phil Spencer, executive VP of Microsoft’s gaming division talks about Flight Simulator's return

Microsoft Flight Simulator Trailer Breakdown

[Sonnyj]

I guess ya all seen this already. :-)

https://www.reddit.com/r/flightsim/comm ... microsoft/

[erhardt]

After reading the article on The Verge, I'm thinking this is how the new FS will work. Looks like my gigabit UFB connection will work hard in the future. Hopefully we will be able to upload or own stuff op to the cloud for us to use.


https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/19/1868 ... -explainer

[jpreou]

Unless there are local / low-latency POPs for use here in NZ I cannot see this being viable for quite some time.
I sometimes play ARK online and servers that are 250ms away generate considerable lag even when the bulk of the processing is done locally on my PC.
On screen I run perhaps several meters and open a door, but then it freezes for a half-second a second and I'm back to the starting point and have to do it again.
Yep ... I see some real challenges for smooth and consistent gameplay for those without very high speed and low latency connections.
Heck, at peak time I can't even get YouTube to stream 'ordinary' res video without pauses, let alone 4k 60fps being claimed for MSFS in 2020 (or whatever it is they are claiming).
I guess we watch and wait...

[Radar88]

Unless there are local / low-latency POPs for use here in NZ I cannot see this being viable for quite some time.
I sometimes play ARK online and servers that are 250ms away generate considerable lag even when the bulk of the processing is done locally on my PC.
On screen I run perhaps several meters and open a door, but then it freezes for a half-second a second and I'm back to the starting point and have to do it again.
Yep ... I see some real challenges for smooth and consistent gameplay for those without very high speed and low latency connections.
Heck, at peak time I can't even get YouTube to stream 'ordinary' res video without pauses, let alone 4k 60fps being claimed for MSFS in 2020 (or whatever it is they are claiming).
I guess we watch and wait...

This all depends on several factors such as the type of Internet Connection setup you may have, with all the different types of broadband access that is available in New Zealand.

Fibre has the lowest; meaning it has the fastest response rates, followed by the NZ Telephone copper broadband network using VDSL then ADSL modems. Wireless mobile 3G broadband has high latency in comparison, taking nearly twice as long to access websites as ADSL.

These types of Internet Connection setups are usually sourced through an Internet Service Provider ISP's eg Spark NZ, Vodafone NZ, MyRepublic, Orcon, Slingshot, Voyager Internet, Stuff Fibre these are just a few of the common named ISP's here in NZ.

For more information please check out the NZ Broadband Compare Latency or Response Delay Time explained.

The Copper Broadband Network why is Fibre better than Copper

The Best Broadband for Gaming in NZ

Chorus Broadband availability map

[jpreou]

Yes, I'm well aware of the technologies and providers having been in the IT field some 18 years here in NZ.
I made an assumption of fibre as it only gets worse from there as you go 'down' the available technologies.
My experience is on 100Mbps fibre via Orcon, which at peak times can get pretty high latency.
I notice it mostly Friday nights and Saturday nights as worst; I guess everyone is watching Netflix!