Microsoft Cancels "Flight"

[Matt Molnar]

Microsoft's follow-up to the defunct Flight Simulator series, Flight, has now also been shelved barely six months after release.

http://www.geekwire.com/2012/microsoft-stops-work-flight

Anyone play it? I never did but it seemed like more a game than a simulator from what I had seen.

[yankees368]

Good, it was terrible! What a waste of resources. Maybe, just maybe, they will reboot Flight sim.

[Cary]

Good, it was terrible! What a waste of resources. Maybe, just maybe, they will reboot Flight sim.

Who needs Flight Sim anymore?
http://www.prepar3d.com/product-overview/ :tongue:

Maybe Microsoft now realizes that they should have listened to their loyal fan base instead of trying to be greedy. Too bad 35 people had to be laid off because of bad business decisions.

[rkfast]

Flight stunk. Tried it once. Waste of time.

[megatop412]

Hooray! My prayers have been answered! That sh*t sucked

With that said, I'm off to boot up FS9, a real sim

[Speedbagel_001]

I'm still running FS2004 on a 10 year old Gateway. Still love it. Hoping to move up to FSX someday on better hardware.

MS Flight was a curiosity to me. All those early "Teaser" Trailers, at first, made it seem like it would be an awesome rewrite. But slowly over time, as more details emerged, it seemed like MS was in fact turning the SIMULATOR into a GAME. Big disappointment! They just don't get what they had in the FS franchise. Makes me wonder what they were thinking and why they didn't see this eventuality ahead of time. FS has been a major success for MS over two decades - there's no excuse for this debacle.

To fix this shortsighted gaffe, all they need to do is announce that FLIGHT SIMULATOR will return, right where FSX left off, and the Pre-Orders will start pouring in. Oh, and maybe port it to the Mac, too! :biggrin:

[Cary]

To fix this shortsighted gaffe, all they need to do is announce that FLIGHT SIMULATOR will return, right where FSX left off, and the Pre-Orders will start pouring in. Oh, and maybe port it to the Mac, too! :biggrin:

Check out the link I posted above. A product that builds from where FSX left off already exists. And it's developed by a company that might know a thing or two about aviation :tongue:

[gonzalu]

At $200, Prepar3D better be better (sic) and indeed it looks promising. I saw a demo


http://youtu.be/WYQ5dP0WOFA?hd=1

that just blew me away. Although Flight Sim was getting so good, the scenery with the right video card was jaw dropping.

I will be in Redmond again hopefully this winter and plan to get a tour of the game building at Microsoft and hopefully get to ask about the fate of Flight Sim.

R.I.P. Flight! You will NOT be missed.

[yankees368]

Prepar3D, I believe, was built upon the source code for Flight Sim X.

[alberchico]

I think that Aerofly FS is also a good alternative

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGN35BeYkeE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Er_qAmZ8z8

[Perriwen]

Check out the link I posted above. A product that builds from where FSX left off already exists. And it's developed by a company that might know a thing or two about aviation :tongue:

You can get the 'student version' for $50. Not sure what the differences would be.

Personally, DCS for me. :) X-Plane comes in close second. The FS series felt too...plain.

[Cary]

You can get the 'student version' for $50. Not sure what the differences would be.

Personally, DCS for me. :) X-Plane comes in close second. The FS series felt too...plain.

I believe it just has a small Academic version watermark in the corner of the sim. Orbx has P3D support. That's all I need to know.

[Perriwen]

I believe it just has a small Academic version watermark in the corner of the sim. Orbx has P3D support. That's all I need to know.

The main thing that turned me off from flight sim (and X-Plane, which is why it is second to DCS in my book) is the disk space hogging. I had FSX Gold, plus a small handful of addons-not a terribly large amount. When I uninstalled it, I noticed 150+ gigs suddenly freed up on my hard disk. If LM can find a way to streamline file sizes to a more compressed form, they've sold me.

[Cary]

The main thing that turned me off from flight sim (and X-Plane, which is why it is second to DCS in my book) is the disk space hogging. I had FSX Gold, plus a small handful of addons-not a terribly large amount. When I uninstalled it, I noticed 150+ gigs suddenly freed up on my hard disk. If LM can find a way to streamline file sizes to a more compressed form, they've sold me.

Come on, it's 2012...big hard drives are cheap :tongue: If they compress the files more, I'd be worried about the extra processing time/power it takes to decompress them, and its effect on frame rates. At times, I can get over 100fps at 4000px+ wide resolution, spanning 3 monitors, on my aging cheap desktop -- so if that takes some extra hard drive space to accomplish that, I'm all for it :) Did you try Orbx scenery when you had FSX? It's truly awesome.

[Perriwen]

Come on, it's 2012...big hard drives are cheap :tongue: If they compress the files more, I'd be worried about the extra processing time/power it takes to decompress them, and its effect on frame rates. At times, I can get over 100fps at 4000px+ wide resolution, spanning 3 monitors, on my aging cheap desktop -- so if that takes some extra hard drive space to accomplish that, I'm all for it :) Did you try Orbx scenery when you had FSX? It's truly awesome.

I actually do own their Avalon scenery. It looks really nice, but it ran like a slideshow on my older computer. Now on my newer one, I might give it another go.

[megatop412]

Come on, it's 2012...big hard drives are cheap :tongue: If they compress the files more, I'd be worried about the extra processing time/power it takes to decompress them, and its effect on frame rates. At times, I can get over 100fps at 4000px+ wide resolution, spanning 3 monitors, on my aging cheap desktop -- so if that takes some extra hard drive space to accomplish that, I'm all for it :) Did you try Orbx scenery when you had FSX? It's truly awesome.

More than 100? What kind of graphics card are you running in that thing? I'm using an Nvidia 8800GTS with an Intel 2.4Ghz Core Duo on a single monitor and don't get that high(then again I have the graphics sliders pretty much maxed)

[Perriwen]

More than 100? What kind of graphics card are you running in that thing? I'm using an Nvidia 8800GTS with an Intel 2.4Ghz Core Duo on a single monitor and don't get that high(then again I have the graphics sliders pretty much maxed)

There's part of your problem. The 8800GTS is a very meh card these days. Put some cash out for a new card, CPU, and PSU and the frame rates will skyrocket.

[Cary]

I actually do own their Avalon scenery. It looks really nice, but it ran like a slideshow on my older computer. Now on my newer one, I might give it another go.

I haven't tried any of their Australian offerings. But their PNW region is awesome.


More than 100? What kind of graphics card are you running in that thing? I'm using an Nvidia 8800GTS with an Intel 2.4Ghz Core Duo on a single monitor and don't get that high(then again I have the graphics sliders pretty much maxed)

Just a 9600GT I picked up for $60. But FSX tends to rely on the processor more than it does the GPU. My computer (bought for $400 3 years ago) has an Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 (2.5GHz, 4MB). I only get 100+ fps in the rural areas of Orbx scenery...I'm down to mid 30s if I fly into the dense towns, like Darrington. I have FSX running on its own hard drive and separate bare-bones Windows XP installation tweaked for performance, with no other software installed other than my FS-related stuff and what it needs to run.