Posted on 01/26/2009 12:09:33 AM PST by libh8er
It's hard to believe that Microsoft could kill off the Microsoft Flight Simulator, which was used as an unofficial compatibility tester for the IBM PC after that was launched in 1981. However, its future looks very uncertain, according to reports in Gamasutra and Venture Beat. Gamasutra says:
Development sources have told Gamasutra that a large portion of [Aces] the dev house's staff has been let go -- with multiple reports indicating that the entire Flight Simulator team has been axed.
The program was originally published by subLogic on the Apple II as Bruce Artwick's Flight Simulator, and Microsoft bought the company in 1982. The Flight Simulator program has been hugely successful, and the studio also produced Microsoft ESP, a "visual simulation platform" based on the same technology.
Flight Simulator X was recently seen on BBC News simulating a plane landing on water in New York, though it didn't get a credit.
Considering Flight Simulator's very large and extremely dedicated fan base, closing Aces looks like an incredibly short sighted thing to do. But that's what seems to be happening.
Microsoft's current line is: "All we're announcing at this time is that we are committed to flying games." But without developers, Flight Simulator doesn't have much of a future.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
It’s a shame. Flight Sim was the one good thing that came out of MS and I am a die hard Flight Sim fan. :(
If MS axes Flight Simulator, then X-Plane is poised to take over.
No biggie here.
i hope they dont doom the project, theyre getting where its become almost like life when your flying.
Flight Sim came from Bruce Artwick.
http://fshistory.simflight.com/fsh/artwick.htm
Trust me, you’ll like X-Plane even more, if they are forced to assume the dominant position.
You should try FS-X !
Ok I will give that a go, but right now I am addicted to FS-X !
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To be clear, what I am saying is that X-Plane is a far superior flight sim. But they don’t have the same “people friendly” UI that the MS sim (which was originally bought from Bruce Artwick a long time ago) does.
All I am saying is that if MS decides to cede the field, there is an excellent player who will swoop in, and probably cause an almost instant improvement in the offering.
But I could be full of it :-)
Isn’t is possible that the program has been enhanced and refined so far by now that they can essentially market the current version for years yet to come? Like someone upstream said, it’s pretty much photo-realistic at this point. How much additional development is really needed here?
with those Gitmo combatants being released back in the midst.... Flight Simulator might pick up again.
Another sub-rosa move by M$ that implies the profit margin is being impacted by the cold reception of Vista, et al. Our office recently decided to move to openSUSE for standard computers and SUSE SLES for our servers. These ‘linux’ variants are faster and have a smaller footprint than any windoze release. And SUSE can do anything Vista can, and without the BSODs.
The initial release of FSX was so poorly written, MS started floating the line that it was 'written for future hardware', which was amusing because THAT was such a transparent load of blarney.
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